Happy April, Rotarians! The sun is shining, snow is getting "corn-like", streams and brooks are roaring and days are longer. That must mean it is Pond Skimming time and sadly Mad River Glen closing time. But alas. All is not lost. This must also mean that it is time to think gardening and the Farmer's Market is not too far off! Life is always changing and good here in the Valley.
At the recent MRV Rotary Board meeting we discussed our upcoming schedule of meetings. Spring time for us means we will soon begin breakfast meetings at the Toast and Eggs tent. Some dinner meetings will be held at the Lareau Farm barn thanks to Jane Macan. Please pay attention to emails and our online calendar for specifics. Also upcoming this month is an exciting slight change in our schedule for the April 26th (4th Wednesday) meeting. Instead of a breakfast meeting at the Village Meeting House, we will meet at 11:30 a.m. for a lunch meeting at Lawson's Finest Liquids. Speakers of course will be Karen and Shawn Lawson. Thank you to Doug Stoehr for arranging this exciting change and sending out the sign up email last week.
At a recent breakfast meeting, Britton Rogers, Exec. Director of Yestermorrow presented an update of the organization. See the photo below. This week we have Josh Turka of 5th Quarter Butchery and Mary Tuthill from the Mad River Taste Place tag teaming and sharing updates on their delicious, mouth watering businesses. Thank you to Karen Winchell for her hard work on arranging our speakers. You can learn more about our upcoming speaker schedule below.
When you get a chance, please thank Dr. Roger Porter for his unending commitment to managing our grant process. The way this works is that grant applicants apply to MRV Rotary for funding, Roger receives all of the applications, reviews them and presents them to the Board. The Board spends time on each one and ultimately decides if the grant fits within our criteria and if so, how much if not all of the request will be funded. I am on the Board and personally find the work quite rewarding. Also another important Board Member to thank for their work in this area is Ben Olds. Ben is our Treasurer and does a fabulous job managing our funds. Grants come from our Charitable Giving account and those funds are dispersed throughout the year in as evenly a distribution as possible. Recently the Board approved grants for Free Wheelin (a matching District Grant is also requested) and MRV Arts Student Art Show. Last month the Board approved grants for the The Couples Club, Mad River Dog Park and the Governor's Institutes of Vermont. Thank you notes were received for some and included in Stories below.
In terms of ways to get involved... coming up on May 20 is the 2nd annual Rise Against Hunger food packaging event. It's a fun event and a wonderful way to spend a few hours on a Saturday with the family doing good. More on that below in Stories.
There is always room to help by being a Greeter or delivering food to the Community Pantry. You can sign up for either of those by clicking on this link https://www.mrvrotary.org/page/members-only.
Speaking of getting involved.... Tom Emory is retiring from his job of leading the Restaurant Raffle, one of MRV Rotary's most important fund raisers. When you see Tom, please thank him for his leadership with this event and you might want to even offer to take over for next year while he is still offering to provide some guidance. 😀
The Mad River Valley Rotary hosted a super-fun, meal- packaging event on Saturday, May 20th at 10:00 AM in the Harwood Union Middle and High School cafeteria. We recruited 70 community volunteers who assembled 14,000 (!) nutritious, rice-based meals that will be sent to school programs and orphanages in the developing world. We’ll be organizing the event with help from the Waterbury Rotary Club, the Harwood Interact Club, and Rise Against Hunger, a nonprofit growing a global movement to end hunger by empowering communities, nourishing lives and responding to emergencies.
Food insecurity has been one of our club’s primary areas of focus this year both in the Valley and beyond. Global hunger is a pressing problem, one that is expected to be especially severe this year due to the disruption of agricultural production in Ukraine, a major supplier of corn, wheat, sunflower oil and other food commodities. Besides helping hungry people eat, meals delivered to schools provide strong incentives for families to send their children to school, where the meal there may be their only meal. Encouraging school attendance helps lift the literacy rate, a key requirement for breaking the cycle of poverty.
Hi there! We are so grateful for the support of the Mad River Valley Rotary. Yesterday we received the $2,000 check for the MRV Dog Park. Many thanks for your generosity in so many ways: financial support, help with building the dog park, advocacy for this project over the past decade and allowing us to speak at your February meeting. This has become such an important community project and Rotary is at the heart of it.
Attached is your official thank you letter. Happy Spring, we look forward to working with you at Brooks Field!
Thank you so much for awarding this grant! This will greatly help the Couples Club on its goal to raise the funds necessary to erect that new backstop.
In recognition of this award, the MRV Rotary Club will be included on our "support plaque" to be placed adjacent to the new backstop and we will hang the Rotary banner on the outfield fence of the main baseball field this year without asking for the customary annual contribution of $250. And when we get our main sign back up this spring, we will once again affix the Rotary plaque on it.
The MRV Rotary Club has helped Couples Club frequently over the years and that support is greatly appreciated.
Thank you so much for this incredibly generous support. Harwood's Rotary Interact is truly fortunate to have your financial assistance as well as the active participation of Rosemarie in our club meetings and events.
I have forwarded this message to Arianna Clark, our current president. I know she will be excited to share this with our membership at our meeting on Tuesday.
The Mad River Valley Rotary hosted a super-fun, meal- packaging event on Saturday, May 20th at 10:00 AM in the Harwood Union Middle and High School cafeteria. We recruited 70 community volunteers who assembled 14,000 (!) nutritious, rice-based meals that will be sent to school programs and orphanages in the developing world. We’ll be organizing the event with help from the 
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