What the Rotary Club of Morgan Hill does for the Morgan Hill
community comes under Community Service, one of the four Rotary
Avenues of Service.
What the Rotary Club of Morgan Hill does for the Morgan Hill community comes under Community Service, one of the four Rotary Avenues of Service.
Last month’s column highlighted our programs for youth in the community, and these activities are a large part of our Community Service efforts. But we have two other areas of Community Service that will be highlighted here – Community Projects and Community Grants.
This year’s director of Community Service for the Rotary Club is Del Foster, and at a recent meeting, Del highlighted his plan for community projects for the 2004-2005 year. Del’s theme is “Four Seasons, Four Projects” and the first one on the agenda got under way recently at Paradise Park.
Our Community service project at Paradise Park is also called our Centennial Project. Every Rotary Club worldwide (more than 31,000 clubs) is doing a Centennial Project in its local community to help celebrate Rotary’s centennial, or 100th year. Our club worked with the city to find a needed, but unfunded, project to benefit the community. We did the same thing this past spring with the rose garden fence project at the Community and Cultural Center.
The Paradise Park centennial project consists of building four picnic tables with benches, two additional benches, adding a drinking fountain and pouring concrete pads to house all these new additions. This will definitely make Paradise Park more usable and more accommodating to families and groups.
Del plans a second project in November, one that does not require hammers or shovels and labor, but a project that supports a need in the City but again is unfunded. One idea he is pursuing is supplying medical ID tags to seniors.
The project scheduled for Feb. 12, 2005, is our annual Harvey Barrett senior dinner. A mid-day full dinner meal with wine is served to more than 300 senior diners annually at the Buddhist Hall, and there is entertainment and raffle prizes for the attendees, who are the guests of Rotary for event.
Del’s final planned project next spring will be at Villa Mira Monte, the historic Hiram Morgan Hill House on Monterey north of downtown. The Rotary Club and the Morgan Hill Historical Society formed a partnership several years ago whereby Rotary provides labor and materials for improving the grounds at Villa Mira Monte. We’ve planted hundreds of roses and installed thousands of pavers in past efforts. It looks like we’ll be upgrading the front fence with an appropriately “historically correct” replacement next spring.
Rotary also gives community grants, monetary donations to needy, worthwhile causes in the Morgan Hill community. This year, we have instituted a new procedure for applying for donations from Rotary. We are asking groups requesting funds to fill out what we hope is a simple, straight-forward request form that highlights what the requested funds will be used for and how that use of funds will benefit the community. We also ask that the group help publicize Rotary’s support. A complete explanation of the process and a copy of the grant application form can be found on-line at www.morganhillrotary.org/grants.htm
If you have questions or suggestions about donations or Rotary projects in Morgan Hill, contact Del Foster at de*@**tw.com. You can also contact me about these areas, or if you are interested in learning more about or becoming involved with Morgan Hill Rotary. (stevetate@ charter.net, 408-779-6992).
