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COMMUNITY SERVICE

The Monroe-Woodbury Rotary Club has coordinated the local Salvation Army kettle drive since 1983; we’ve raised $141,641 for the Salvation Army to date. We held a walk-a-thon for the Monroe Library Building Fund that netted $7,000. Our club has a long tradition of hosting events for the senior citizens of Orange County’s Valley View facility. We have built playground structures in the Monroe and Woodbury parks, and resurfaced a ballfield in Harriman. Our Rotarians have “adopted” a road, two roadside gardens and a building at Museum Village. Our club supports the Monroe and Woodbury Food Pantries, both with monetary contributions and with truckloads of food. In 2008, we started a FARA (Friedrich’s Ataxia Research Alliance) fundraiser that has raised $1,414 so far. Our club has been active in the Shots-for-Tots effort to immunize young children in Orange County. We donate to Orange County Safe Homes, Stand for Children, the All-Night Graduation Party, Teen Mission and the Allegro Orchestra Music Camp. Our Rotary Club founded and supports an active DARE program to teach our youth about drug issues. Local Rotary scholarships provide $2,500 annually to service-minded high school seniors, and we send several students to RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Camp) each spring. We’re proud to sponsor a dynamic Interact Club at the high school, and some of our community projects see Rotarians and Interact youth serving side-by-side. In the “larger community,” we work with District 7210's Appalachia Project and we frequently support club-to-club disaster relief in other parts of the United States.

We are also host to Interact Kids

In 1983, Monroe-Woodbury Rotary members Cliff and Marcy started a tradition of Salvation Army bell ringing and headed it for 19 seasons. Over the 26 years, we've raised $141,641 so far. We plan to be the top volunteer Salvation Army kettle in the region once more. That was a record Marcy and Cliff were able to get the club to reach for all 19 seasons.

We support the annual Thanksgiving Bingo event at the Valley View Residential Health Care Facility in Goshen. We had been having Thanksgiving luncheons and other programs with Valley View for over 20 years.

INTERNATIONAL SERVICE
As the most international service organization, Rotary can effectively perform worldwide service and peacemaking. Rotary’s Youth Exchange program, an 80-year success story to improve world relations, sends 7,000 students from every continent to spend an academic year abroad. Our club has participated in youth exchange for over 20 years, recently exchanging with Sweden. Elsewhere in the world, we helped build a school kitchen in Peru, sent well pumps to Nigeria, gave hurricane relief to Central America and helped launch a much-needed water taxi in Africa. We assisted with the cost of a four-wheel-drive medical vehicle for an amazing doctor in Kenya, and sent shipments of supplies to orphans in Bulgaria. Our club supports Rotaplast, which provides reconstructive surgery in developing countries. Our Rotary Club has given over $20,000 to the PolioPlus campaign, Rotary’s effort to immunize all the children of the world against polio. Polio is no longer endemic in the Western Hemisphere or in Europe, and we are very close to eradicating polio worldwide as Rotary begins its second century of service.

Recently we have been forging a new friendship with the Mefou and Etoile Rotary Clubs in Yaounde, Cameroon, Africa through Elizabeth Essoka who has just recently been installed into Rotary, congratulations! Below are pictures of her installation.