March 26, 2008

The Deposit Rotary Club is always busy preparing for its next community project. At our lunch meeting on March 5, Nancy Zacharias took charge in the absence of our president, Harry Dilello, who is currently visiting his son in Costa Rica. During the meeting, Nancy smoothly orchestrated the discussion, allowing us to begin organizing some of our upcoming events.

First of all, Rotarian Tina Strong is busy preparing for the annual Easter Egg Hunt. This year, the hunt will be held on March 22 at Fireman's Park. Rotary members have already begun donating plastic eggs and candies with which to fill them. The Easter Egg Hunt looks to be another fun event for local kids and their families. I will be sure to bring you more information soon and remind you of the event!

We also began planning for our annual activities at the Lumberjack Festival this summer. As many of you know, Rotary is one of the most active groups during the annual festival, providing the big tent that serves as the principal focal point and main meeting place for festival patrons on the field through the entire weekend. Whether folks are buying beer, clams, or shrimp from us, or those legendary barbecue beef sandwiches offered by the Order of the Eastern Star, or beer from the VFW, both of whom share our tent, just about everyone finds their way into the Rotary Tent to relax, eat, chat, or meet up with long-lost friends. In fact, most DCS classes that have planned their reunions during the Lumberjack Festival all meet up in the tent.

The Lumberjack Festival is crucial to the economy of our community, benefiting local businesses and especially all our local nonprofit organizations, which rely on the festival to provide them a solid base for significant fundraising efforts. Rotary is no exception as the monies we raise during the festival from our tent and, of course, our famous duck race in Oquaga Creek are vitally important to sustaining our absolutely innumerable service projects that we conduct throughout the year. In case you have missed all of my previous columns, the Deposit Rotary Club is responsible for the international youth exchange program, raising and donating literally thousands of dollars to the Food Pantry, distributing free hardcover dictionaries to every DCS fourth grader, sending high school juniors to the incredible RYLA conference every year, and trick-or-treating for UNICEF, all the while supporting Rotary International's global charitable endeavors, and giving to countless groups in countless ways right here in our own hometown. I have neglected some other really huge benevolent work our club does, but I would need the space of an entire issue of the Courier to just name them all. To find out even more, check out the Rotary Blog at depositrotary.blogspot.com to read my past columns which discuss some of Rotary's doings just since I proudly became a member in September. I am humbled and inspired by simply being one part of this amazing organization and I encourage everyone to stop by one of our meetings for lunch or, better yet, to join us by becoming a Rotarian.

March 5, 2008

On Tuesday, February 26, I had the opportunity to sit on the RYLA participant selection committee at Deposit High School.  RYLA, the acronym of the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards, is a conference exclusively for high school students during the summer following their junior year with the hope that they will share their experiences with their peers when they return to school for their senior year.  Each year, thousands of students have the opportunity to attend the week-long conferences held across the country and beyond.  In our Rotary district, spanning a huge portion of the Southern Tier from Oneonta to Ithaca, local Rotary Clubs have the opportunity to send students from their communities to the campus of the State University of New York College at Oneonta to meet and bond with other young people, participate in numerous character- and esteem-building activities, and explore their own leadership potential.  This year, the conference will take place over four days from the end of June into the beginning of July, during which the Deposit Rotary Club will be sending three local students to stay in a college residence hall—rooming with a student from another school whom they do not know—and attend the conference's offerings.  RYLA is a highly competitive but highly prized opportunity and nearly every student who attends comes to deeply treasure the experience as an inspiring and life-changing event.  Last year's participants Lindsey Wagner, Kim Bosket, and Amelia Blair were able to share their enthusiasm for RYLA at a Rotary lunch in the fall.  

 

Pete Hempstead, who has served for many years as Deposit's RYLA coordinator, chaired the selection committee which was comprised of Rotarians Tina Strong, Leo Cook, Bill Waldron, Ray Cornwell, and myself.  We were lucky enough to be joined by DCS senior Lindsey Wagner, who, as a RYLA alumna, was able to answer questions from the candidates and provide us all with greater perspective into what candidates could expect from the conference.  After spending the entire morning interviewing the ten truly impressive applicants, the committee finally settled on three students who we felt would both benefit tremendously from their RYLA experience and also well represent our community and their class.  Our deliberations were difficult, but we are very proud to announce our selection of Lydia Krembs, Zachary Matthews, and Brittany Stanton to serve as Deposit's delegates to the conference.  Congratulations to the participants and a big thank-you to all the applicants, Pete, the committee members, and our always-delightful RYLA cheerleader, Lindsey Wagner.

 

I'm also very happy to share that at our weekly meeting on Wednesday, Rotarian and DCS Superintendent Bonnie Hauber announced that, following the presentation of Mary Hogan and Dave Bergstrom regarding the Deposit Family Recreation Group and its valuable project at an earlier meeting, the district was able to enlist the help of a BOCES grant-writer to secure a generous grant from the Mee Foundation in Hancock.  Congratulations to DFRG and thank you to Mrs. Hauber!