It is a tragic and sad time for the people of Ukraine and the world. At Rotary, we are deeply concerned by the deteriorating situation in Ukraine and the escalating loss of life and humanitarian hardship there. Continued military action against Ukraine is not only devastating the region, but also risk spreading tragic consequences across Europe and the world.

Using our financial collaboration, we wire funds to a secure Cherkasy-Centre Rotary foundation bank account and through established contacts, needed supplies are procured and delivered through safe channels. As of early April 2022, nearly $30,000 USD has been raised and half has been delivered, spent, and accounted for. Sixty tons of supplies were transported to Cherkasy from Finland, Denmark, and Romania.

Please join us in helping the people of Ukraine by donating to this special fund, exclusively used for this purpose. 
 

Please send a tax-deductible check to Santa Rosa East Rotary Foundation, PO Box 2785, Santa Rosa, CA 95405 and write Cherkasy on the memo line.    501(c)(3) Federal Tax ID# 68-0374168

The following Press Democrat article by Kerry Benefield describes our connection to Cherkasy, Ukraine and the Rotary Club of Cherkasy-Centre:

https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/benefield-friendship-built-decades-ago-sparks-partnership-in-time-of-war/

And check out the Cherkasy-Centre Rotary website at http://rotary.ck.ua/en/ and http://rotaryck.tilda.ws/en/ukraine
 

Approximately 100 Oak, Maple and Madrone trees were planted together with several hundred freshly gathered acorns on property adjacent to Sugarloaf Park.

Participants from the East/West Rotary were Hap Culp, Brian Reed, Nate Gulbransen, Nate’s son Nolan, Joan Germeshausen, Fred Ptucha, Emily Rainsford and Joe Maurer. From the Santa Rosa Club were Pete Lescure and Dan Balfe. Santa Rosa Sunrise was represented by Harry Coffey, Jim Moir, Olin Leasher, Paul O’Rear and led by Madame President Jennifer Adams. The Rotarians were joined by five intrepid Sugarloaf Park personnel. A good time was had by all despite the chilly weather.

Other SR East/West Rotarians participated as well including Joe Maurer, Julie Montgomery, and Dan Lambert. They spent the morning cleaning up trash next to the Russian River at Monte Rio so that it wouldn't be washed into the river during the winter storm season.

Chone is an extremely poor region. In 2016, it was devastated by an earthquake that destroyed most of its infrastructure and homes. Farmers were particularly affected, being one of the most fragile and impoverished groups. 

However, Chone possesses ideal soil, rain, luminosity and climatic conditions for agricultural production, especially for bamboo and cocoa due to its location in a tropical mountain range near the Equator. 

Farmers of Chone share similar difficulties with the rest of farmers in Ecuador and the Third World. Their occupation is intrinsically risky since it depends on a great deal of variables which they cannot or do not know how to control such as price, weather, climate or pests. 

The mission of this Rotary project is to provide sponsorships to young farmers who would like to increase their education around sustainable farming, replace the use of chemicals on their farm with organic methods and learn how to export their goods.



If you would like to donate to this project, and maximize your donation with matching grant funds, contact Don Johnson at thedonjohnson@hotmail.com.

 

History

In 1999-2000 the Sonoma County Literacy Coalition (SCLC) decided to give quality dictionaries to 3rd graders. There was $4,000 in the treasury designated to go for children. At that time there were about 1,000 3rd graders in the Petaluma area. SCLC purchased 400 dictionaries and 600 were donated.

During Rotary year 2000-01 SCLC decided that they didn’t want to be in charge of handing out dictionaries the second year. Harvey Freetly, member of the Rotary Club of Petaluma, took over the task, calling it the Dictionary Program. They had a Friendship Feast which earned enough money for 400 dictionaries but were 600 short. Harvey solicited everybody and everything to make up the difference. Price at that time was $11 per dictionary plus shipping and use tax.

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The Dictionary

The MACMILLAN DICTIONARY for children ages 8 to 12, published by Simon and Schuster, is an inviting book to open because it is colorful and full of photographs and diagrams. The Reference Section is loaded with 35,000 fascinating entries and there is a Thesaurus.

The book finds use in a home where English is a second language. It can be used by brothers and sisters of the child who received the book. Many times during the presentation process we have discovered this book will be the only book in the home.
 

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Dictionaries Project Rotary Club of Santa Rosa West

Terri Evans was the club’s first Dictionary Project chairman for the Rotary Club of Santa Rosa West. For the first time she and her committee personally delivered dictionaries to Santa Rosa Schools. It was a very rewarding experience and she convinced our club how important it was to continue doing this wonderful service. Unfortunately for us, Terri’s job moved to a new locale.

David McDonald replaced Terri as chairman for the Dictionary Program. In 2003 our club purchased 320 dictionaries and delivered them to local elementary schools: JX Wilson, RL Stevens, Wright, St. Rose, St. Eugene and Kid’s Street.

In 2004 Rotary Club of Santa Rosa West also distributed 200 Webster Bilingual Dictionaries, both English/Spanish and Spanish/English. These will be used by students, teachers and parents and were given tothose in greatest need for bilingual dictionaries.

The Multi-cultural Preschool has been operated since 1972 by the West Santa Rosa Local Action Council, a tax-exemptnon-profit corporation founded by a group of parents. With financial assistance from the State Department of Education, the School has provided basic education and developmental activities in the skills for daily living to 62 poverty level children each year for the past 25 years. These children are in the 3 – 5 year age group. About 40% are from Caucasian families. The remainder are from a wide assortment of different racial and cultural backgrounds. English is the language of the school. Nearly all the children speak the language fluently at the end of two years. Parental involvement is required.

For 20 years, the School was housed in the Knox Presbyterian Church. This became an increasingly crowded and unsatisfactory arrangement. In 1993, The The Rotary Club of Santa Rosa West was asked to help raise the funds to build a building for the School on a site provided by Knox Church for that purpose. This project was undertaken.

The initial budget was $459,000. The project was completed at a final cost of $501,000 and the building dedicated on June 2, 1997. The ceremony was attended by 200 people, including the Mayor of Santa Rosa and many other dignitaries. The event was combined with a regular meeting of the Rotary Club of Santa Rosa West.

This was perhaps one of the largest projects of its kind undertaken by a single club in District 5130. Recognition has come from many sources, including the award for best Community Service for the Club and District Rotarian of the Year for the Project Director.

The hard work and continuing support of The The Rotary Club of Santa Rosa West and many volunteers from the community made this project possible.
 

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Dear Fellow Rotarians:

As Executive Director of the Multi-Cultural Center I want to express the preschool’s gratitude to Rotary for the club’s continued support of our preschool program. It has been three years since your fundraising efforts provided us with our wonderful new facility, which we have very much enjoyed.

During that time:

• We have provided over 200 children with a quality preschool experience. We were successful in increasing our funding to serve more children. This year we have increased our enrollment from 64 to 80 children enrolled. We still have a waiting list of over 30 income-eligible children.
• We have increased our staff from 10 to 14 part and lull time employees. One of our new staff is a teacher-in-training from the TRECC program (welfare reform training program) in collaboration with SIUC. The TRECC program subsidizes this additional staff member 50%. One of our parents has successfully completed her training through the TRECC program and is now a regular member of our teaching staff.
• Four of our teachers are participating in the Governors California Reading and Literacy Project and have received 40 hours intensive training in early reading instruction. The teachers will also attend 5 Saturday training sessions and will assess the results of the new program by testing and tracking the progress of their students over the academic year (2000-2001). I am proud to note that these teachers have chosen to participate in this program even though they receive no compensation for their extra time and effort in doing so beyond a small stipend in recognition of their dedication and commitment. Ours is the only preschool in Sonorna County to participate in this project.
• In collaboration with volunteers from Knox Presbyterian Church, we have provided free English Improvement classes for parents and family of Multi-Cultural preschool children for the past three years. Children have a greater success in school when the parents are also literate. Rotarian Carl Anderson is the energy and leadership behind this effort. Free childcare is provided for families who attend the classes.
• We are continuing our collaboration with the Vocational Nursing Program at SRJC. Nurses are observing child development in our program as part of their OB/Pediatric training rotations. This semester 20 nursing students will participate in this program at Multi-Cultural.
• We also continue to mentor teachers in training from SSU. This semester we have two student teachers working and studying in our program. It is a rich experience for them in teaching diverse groups of children, as our children this year represent 10 different linguistic groups. English, Spanish, French, Arabic, Tigrinia, Vietnamese, Lao, Malay, Chinese, and Creole.)
• We have been working on improving our outdoor learning environment. We have expanded our gardening curriculum, adding new planting areas. We have replaced old equipment (non-compliant with new playground safety regulations) with new, safer and more challenging equipment. This Rotary Club assisted with grants to replace our tire swing and add shade to the playground. Rotarian Bill Dodson provided technical advice and assistance with the shade structure.
• With donations from the community we have upgraded the technology of the center with office computers and have added computer learning to our curriculum for children. A community volunteer comes in several times a week and introduces cornputer learning to the children.
• We continue to serve two full meals to each child per day. We have managed this despite increases in food costs because we are able to shop at the Food Bank, another program that has received the support of Rotary.

All of us at the Multi-Cultural Center are proud of the progress we have made in the last three years. Much of tbese improvements would not be possible without our fine, new facility that allows us greater opportunities for successful endeavors. We thank the Rotary Club for its generous support and assistance on behalf of children.Sincerely,
Anne Abrams
Executive Director
The Building Project

You can see the project Santa Rosa Rotary West is funding. We believe our donation will be the focused of, the pig maternity. The entire center is sustainable, all what is produced here the children utilized for food. CIMA lives of donations since they can’t sell anything for profit, due to the type of taxing/paper work it is required in Peru, tedious and impossible. Visit https://www.facebook.com/groups/rotaryclublimasunrise to learn more.

The club was sponsored by the Rotary Club of Santa Rosa, which had been organized 44 years earlier — in 1921.  The chartering District Governor was Stan McCaffrey, who would later serve as the President of Rotary International in 1981-82.

John W. (“Bill”) Fisher was installed on May 22, 1965 as the charter president with 23 other community leaders as charter members.  The club commenced meeting at the Los Robles Hotel every Monday at noon until the Los Robles ceased operations.  The club quickly became the primary service provider and source of leadership for Santa Rosa, west of highway 101.

In 1965 the club financed and installed a soccer field at Roseland elementary school.  In 1969 it established, furnished and staffed The House – a facility that provided support for young people coping with drug abuse.  The Club was at the forefront of the committee of local business leaders who established the Luther Burbank Art Center (now the Wells Fargo Center).  The club spearheaded, organized and completed the building of the Multi-Cultural Development Center, a significant community project on Stony Point Road that involved community-wide support and took over three years to complete.

The club annually recognizes individual scholastic achievement with scholarships at Piner High School.  It provides financial assistance to SRJC to graduates of Ridgeway Continuation School for attendance at Santa Rosa Junior College.  The Club was a primary partner in establishing and funding the SOS (Support our Students) program in Santa Rosa to deal both with truancy and the need for supportive family counseling.  Since its chartering the club has successfully raised over a million dollars, much of which has been used to support charities and service providers in the community in addition to directly financing Santa Rosa West Projects.
 

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Santa Rosa West has looked beyond borders of the local community and provided support to other Rotary Clubs and individuals around the world as part of its commitment to international service, good will and the goal of world peace.

The Club was an early and a strong supporter of Rotary’s commitment to eradicate Polio from the face of the earth.  Additionally, the club has built water wells in Mexico and Vietnam, supported the University for Peace in Central America (Costa Rica), provided support to projects in Russia and Uganda, financed numerous projects in District 4150 through the Festival of Brotherhood  and developed an annual youth exchange program with a sister club in Holland.

The club has provided strong leadership in the club and beyond.  Our members have served at the helm of the District Membership Committee, the Group Study Exchange program, the Ambassadorial Scholarship Program, RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Awards), Rotaract, Interact, the District Visioning Program, the Institute for Leadership Seminar, the District Speech Contest and as Assistant Governor.  The Club has provided three District Governors to serve as the District’s officer of Rotary International:  John Withers in 1973-74, Dick Keith in 1982-83, and Mike Merrill in 1999-2000.