Join us for an international friendship celebration on the patio at Greg’s Grill!
The Rotary Club of Greater Bend annually celebrates these international friendships with an outdoor celebration in front of the Bend-Belluno friendship plaque in the Old Mill District.
Join us Thursday, July 27th from 4:30 to 6:30PM for an in-person Happy Hour at Crux with your fellow Greater Bend Rotarians!
Catch up with our club members around the fire pits or at the picnic tables. Hope to see you there!
Rotary of Greater Bend is adding their knowledge and expertise gained from helping eradicate Polio globally to the COVID crisis.
Your local club is encouraging citizens to get vaccinated so Oregon can return to business and play, and we want to have some fun getting there!
Come to Hola downtown (920 NW Bond, Bend, OR) Thursday June 17th from 5-7PM.
Show your vaccination card, and you get a shot of your choice for $3, courtesy of Hola. Then video yourself taking your well-deserved shot and share it on Facebook.
You can help get Oregon to the needed 97,000 vaccinated citizens by encouraging your friends to join you in the mission. Thanks for caring, thanks for playing!
Photo courtesy Ricardo Molina Peña on FlickrJoin us Wednesday June 16th from 4:30 to 6:30 at Rapa Nui Tiki Bar! Get your grass skirts and Hawaiian shirts out and come for a Mai Tai or whatever suits you (yes, they have beer and wine too).
It’s in the Old Mill, right above Saxon’s Fine Jewelers.
See the full set of photos here.
Join us Thursday, May 20th from 4:30 to 6:30PM for an in-person Happy Hour at Crux with your fellow Greater Bend Rotarians!
Catch up with our club members around the fire pits or at the picnic tables. Hope to see you there!
Our Rotary club gave a total of 247 books across four elementary schools:
Thanks to Brian Stallcop for coordinating this community service effort!
A letter from Dennis Evans, who runs the San Lucas Toliman Scholars program (our club supports a number of students in this program in Guatemala):
Dear family, friends and sponsors,
Coming across the lake by boat, after visiting Panajachel, the clouds behind the volcano seemed much darker than usual. When I got home I found that there was a major fire on the far side of the volcano. Over the next eight days there was a lot of aerial activity, as private crop spraying planes joined an air force helicopter in assisting those on the ground. An army detachment joined volunteer firefighters from various communities including some from.Guatemala City. For the first few days, efforts were hampered by strong winds. Then the wind dropped, and an answer to a prayer, it rained. The first rain this year. The next day the fires were finally put out.
Fortunately, no homes were threatened by the fire, the worst in the twenty years I have lived in San Lucas. Serious environmental damage, but hopefully the forests on the slopes of the volcano will eventually recover.
Within the Mayan culture, family is very important. For little children, one of the signs of starting to grow up is when they can start helping the family. Girls tend to help by learning weaving and embroidery. They look after their younger siblings, and many learn to make tortillas and cook. Boys sometimes learn to cook, but I don’t know any who make tortillas!
The family has a constant need for firewood. You can’t just take firewood from anywhere, and sometimes the young people in the family will walk for an hour or more, to where they can cut and collect firewood. Then they walk back, carrying their load. Normally, it’s the boys who collect firewood, but if there are no boys in the family, the girls go.
Attached are some photos of sponsored students helping their families
With the education and health authorities changing the rules frequently, this school year has got off to an erratic start. Some students only have classes on one or two days a week and do the rest of their studying at home, but they are so glad to see each other! Masks and ‘social distancing’ in school, but when they get out … they tend to huddle. At least most keep their masks on for a while, as the law dictates.
A benefactor sent us money to help poor families. We got a group of sponsored students and made up a hundred food parcels to distribute to some of the poorest families in the area. The recipients were very grateful!
Thank you, all of you, for your continued support and encouragement. These are challenging times. As always, the kids here have a ready smile and hope for the future. Thank you for helping give them that hope!
All best wishes,
Dennis
A $5 ticket could win you a 100 bottle instant wine cellar! And we’re not talking Two Buck Chuck…here are some of the bottles our members have already donated to that 100 bottle collection (click the image to see a full size version):
Images courtesy Vivino; bottles courtesy Greater Bend Rotary club donors.
What’s in the list above?
Prices listed above are from Vivino; prices at Newport Avenue Market are comparable.
The drawing will be held on March 26th, 2021. The grand prize is 100 bottles of very fine wine, as you can see from the list above. There will also be 10 second place prizes of a case of wine each–and, like the bottles above, these have all been donated by our Rotary club members.
Each Wednesday we’re drawing a winner from the tickets already purchased for a $100 gift card to a local restaurant! Because our members feel our local businesses need support in this time of COVID, individual members of our Rotary club have stepped up and bought these gift cards with their own money, so the restaurant wins too.
Proceeds (which is nearly 100% of ticket sales, minus about 3% that the credit card processing costs us) go to fund our local charity projects.
