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.