The Greater Englewood Chamber of Commerce named Englewood Rotary 'Business of the Week' for the final week of 2021.
Shawn Lewis takes over as president
The Rotary Year starts July 1, and our club started it with a party at the home of our new president, Shawn Lewis. Shawn is City Manager of Englewood.
Patty Burnett, outgoing president, presented Shawn with a presidential plaque and gavel. In turn, Shawn presented her an engraved crystal expressing appreciation for her year of service.
Englewood Rotarians excel as social hour! Here a group enjoys dinner on the patio at the party celebrating the start of the New Rotary Year.
When District Governor Ray Anderson, our esteemed leader, visited Englewood Rotary
he had to share the podium with Abraham Lincoln who was there to read the Gettysburg
Address. Great fun!
Abe is the alter ego of our member Bruce Spear, who is a certified Lincoln Presenter.
Bruce tells the story of how he became Abe. While he was working in Washington, D.C.,
people would pass him on the street and say, "Hello, Mr President." So, he capitalized
on that resemblance, and has a great time marching in parades (Englewood's, among
them), talking to students and, of course, entertaining Englewood Rotary. That's
the "other" president, Patty Burnett, in the middle.
The Englewood High School Girls Basketball team's ball cage was falling apart,
so we came to the rescue with this new equipment, shown with the team captain.
We also provided funding for team shirts to wear en route to games and at special
events.
It's a two-way partnership, as the girls recently helped sort and package winter clothing
that we purchased for 60 preschoolers at The Village for Early Childhood
Education in Littleton - a program we have supported with holiday gifts for 25 years.
We got a call from The Village Preschool at North, a school we have supported for about 25 years with a lunch with Santa and gifts of toys and winter clothes. Because of the pandemic, we couldn't do that this year, or last. But a call for help came.
Could we provide winters coats and boots for 60 children? Yes, we could, and did.
Thank yous go to our members Josh Staller, who coordinated the effort, and to Bruce Spear, who was a chief Schlepper. 60 sets of kids' coats and boots is a haul.
Thank you also to Kristine Wallen of Englewood Walmart. Kristine is amazing. For many years she "shopped" for the kids' clothes and aided our members in selecting toys. This year, she found 60 sets of coats and boots in the exact sizes those 60 children needed. Thank you, Kristine!
We also had the help of the Girls Basketball Team at Englewood High School. The girls sorted all the stuff into large red gift bags for us.
Thank you, everyone. It was a merry Christmas in Englewood.
For the umpteenth year, Englewood Rotary was out on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, ringing the bell (it seems to get tinier every year -- ding ding!) Thank you, Marco, Gary, Spencer and Patty. Read all the ways the Salvation Army is helping people in the Centennial, Littleton and Englewood communities here: https://centennial.salvationarmy.org/centennial_corps/overcome-poverty/
We volunteered on a food distribution day at Integrated Family Community Services, which we supported with $4,060 in contributions from members. Rotary volunteers also served at COVID-19 vaccination sites.
Report by Club Treasurer Don Schneider
Our usual Englewood Rotary activities and projects came to a screeching halt in March 2020 when the full brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic hit our country and our state.
Once our club was able to regroup by scheduling Zoom meetings in place of our regular in-person Wednesday meetings, an immediate topic of conversation was what could we as a club due to help those in the Englewood community more adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic with all its disruptions to schools, jobs, and the community in general.
The club soon reached a consensus to seek voluntary contributions from our Rotary Club members to help fund a COVID Relief Fund to be run through the Englewood Rotary Foundation. The stated goal of the fund was to find agencies or organizations that would be providing pandemic related services and relief efforts in the greater Englewood community.
During the remainder of the 2019-2020 Rotary fiscal year the club members contributed $1,450 to the relief fund. This was through June 30, 2020. Then, in Rotary fiscal year 2020-2021, through June 30, 2021, the club members donated an additional $2,610 to the relief fund. In all, a total of $4,060 was contributed by a total of 15 club members.
From time to time during the16 months the project has been active the board of directors gave direction as to what community groups were to receive donations from the fund. We found IFCS, Integrated Family Community Services organization (formerly Inter-Faith), to be the ideal partner for our COVID-19 project, and for that reason all $4,060 was directed to IFCS and paid out through the Englewood Rotary Foundation.
During the pandemic, IFCS focused its energies on alleviating hunger, not just in the area it historically served (Englewood, Littleton, Sheridan, northern Douglas County), but beyond. Club volunteers Josh Staller, Dawn Shepherd, Gary Sears and Patty Burnett helped with a drive-through distribution of food in May. This coincided with the Day of Service initiated by Rotary District Governor Bob Kemp.
In other service, club members Linda and Bruce Spear, Josh Staller, Gary Sears and Scott Koland answered a Rotary district call for volunteers to assist at the 9Health COVID vaccination sites.
(Apologies if I've overlooked anyone. Let me hear. PB)
From Foundation funds prior to the designation of donations to COVID causes, we also provided about $800 in school supplies to Englewood Middle School, $1,000 for camp chairs for outdoor classrooms at Colorado’s Finest High School of Choice (the Englewood alternative school) and $500 for its lending closet. Vee and John Sabel and Patty Burnett were instrumental in the school supplies project. Josh Staller directed the efforts for Colorado’s Finest.
We lived Service Above Self in a pandemic.
The Rotary Club of Englewood received the Lifetime Business Achievement Award from the Greater Englewood Chamber of Commerce May 27.
At the Chamber’s 35th Annual Business Awards Banquet Club President Susan Van Dyke and President-Elect Patty Burnett accepted the award, which was for the year 2019. Because of the pandemic, last year’s awards banquet was cancelled.
Van Dyke said, “We are very honored to be recognized by the Chamber, which has just come through a difficult year, but one distinguished by amazing, supportive connections with members and the City of Englewood.”
Also at the Chamber event Englewood City Manager Shawn Lewis was named Chamber Member of the Year (2020). Lewis is a member of Englewood Rotary, making the evening doubly special for the club.
Burnett told the Chamber group that the club’s major outreach is scholarships. In April the club, through its foundation, awarded a total of $8,000 to six students from Englewood High School and two students from Colorado’s Finest High School of Choice.
Since the year 2000, the Englewood Rotary Foundation has funded over $150,000 in college or trade school scholarships and provided more than 100 students with scholarships of $1,000 or more.
“We also recently received a bequest from a former member, C. Charles Buchler,” Burnett said. Mr. Buchler was a prominent Englewood attorney and mayor pro tem of Greenwood Village when it was founded in 1950. He joined Englewood Rotary in 1947 and served 60 years. He died in 2008.
His bequest, funded after the death of Mr. Buchler’s wife in 2020, was for $250,000. The money has been invested by the club’s foundation. Earnings will fund scholarships, including a new one, the C. Charles Buchler Scholarship.
Englewood Rotary, chartered in 1937, continues its service to the community, especially Englewood Schools and its students. Anyone interested in participating may contact Burnett at paburnett@aol.com.
On Nov. 18 Englewood Rotary presented a Zoom tribute to Dr. Frank Sargent, our member who joined out club in 1970 and has faithfully served for 50 years.
Rotary dignitaries attending:
District Governor Bob Kemp, Past District Governors Mike Oldham, Jim Halderman, Diane Kessel Knight; former Rotary International Director and Vice President Greg Podd
Narrated and directed by Englewood Rotarian Patty Burnett
Click on READ MORE to access the script for the day and some of the tributes posted or read by those of us who have served alongside Frank.
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Englewood, CO 80113
United States of America