President's Message
The success of our club comes from its members and this year we have an opportunity to take Rotary International’s theme to “Reach Within to Embrace Humanity” as a challenge to make our club stronger and at the same time enrich lives of others.
Our club is always looking for new members. Our morning membership is made up of a diverse group of leaders with a mixture of Lee County natives and resident transplants from other parts of the United States and the world. Maintaining and growing our membership keeps our club energized and is essential to our vibrancy and well being. Terry Mullen, our Membership Chairperson, has put in countless hours developing ways to attract new members and as we begin the new Rotary year we already have several prospects for membership.
Our service projects, under Chairperson Matt Garrett, truly reflects this year’s theme. Locally we participate and support the following programs:
· Back Pack Pals – members donate nonperishable easy to fix food items once a month for children who have little or nothing to eat on the weekend.
· Christians United Outreach Center “Peanut Butter & Jelly Day” - members donate peanut butter and jelly once a month to provide emergency food needs for Lee County residents.
· At Halloween we provide parking control at the annual No Scare Fair (an event for children).
· At Christmas our club adopts at least one needy family using money raised at our annual Christmas auction.
· Members get together and pick up litter under the state’s “Adopt A Highway” program throughout the year.
· Character Counts - A program begun under our past president Marcy Santini. Under this program members go to JR Ingram Elementary School and mentor fourth and fifth graders every other week throughout the school year. The goal is to help build positive character traits with the children.
· Stop Hunger Now which delivers meal packets throughout the world.
· Mexico City Clean Water Project – A project to bring clean water and sanitation to a community in Mexico City.
This year we will look to further opportunities of service, particularly with the tornado devastation that took place in our community on April 16, 2011. We express our thanks to our fellow Rotarians throughout District 7690 as well as the world for their concern and support for us in the aftermath of that disaster.
Our members continue to be generous supporters of the Rotary foundation with 100% of our members being Paul Harris Fellows, a distinction our club has had for the past three years. We look to continue that distinction under the leadership of our Foundation Chairperson Paul Dauphin.
As you can see, the sun is truly rising on the San-Lee Sunrise club and in closing, I am privileged and honored to serve our great club this Rotary year as President and I challenge you to be a better Rotarian by deciding to commit yourself fully to Rotary this year. As our International President, Kalyan Banerjee has said, each one of us has a part to play, to perform and to deliver. It starts by reaching within yourself to unleash your inner power and then use it to embrace everything and everyone around you. If you are not a Rotarian we hope you will join us.
Yours in Rotary,
Nolan E. Williams, President
Rotary Club of San-Lee Sunrise