Fort Collins Breakfast Rotary is bringing the Field Of Honor® to Fort Collins on Memorial Day weekend, May 24 to May 27, at Spring Canyon Community Park on West Horsetooth Road. The Field Of Honor’s 500 flags flying in formation play tribute to heroes—veterans, active military, first responders, community leaders and personal heroes—and provide a place for individuals to pause, reflect and remember their heroes.

A medallion honoring a hero will be attached to each flag. Individuals wishing to purchase a medallion to honor their hero can do so at https://rotaryfcbreakfast.org/ The back of each medallion will list the honoree, a brief acknowledgement by the donor and the donor’s name.

3rd and 4th Grade Essay Contest Part of Field Of Honor®

Fort Collins Breakfast Rotary is sponsoring an essay contest, “My Hero,” for third and fourth graders in the Poudre School District. Conducted in coordination with PSD, the essays are limited to 250 words and will be submitted via PSD. Entry deadline is May 10.

First, second and third-place winners will receive a medallion honoring their personal hero, plus $100, $75 and $50, respectively. The three winners will be asked to read their essays at a Fort Collins Breakfast Rotary meeting.

Essays earning Honorable Mention will earn their authors a complimentary Field Of Honor medallion.

All submitted essays will be available for the public to read at the Field Of Honor, May 24-27, at Spring Canyon Community Park, Fort Collins.

Civil War Living History Camp at Field Of Honor®

A Civil War Living History Camp featuring the C. CO. 6^th U.S. Infantry Regiment will be in Spring Canyon Community Park, May 24-27. This Civil War Living History Camp will bring the past to life, with knowledgeable Civil War historians demonstrating the day-to-day life of Civil War soldiers.

“Only a small fraction of any soldier’s time was spent in front line combat,” states Jared Maddox, one of the Civil War re-enactors. “Instead, the vast majority of his existence revolved around the routines of camp life, which presented its own set of struggles and hardships. The public will get a firsthand look at a soldier’s daily life during this re-enactment.”

2024 $10K RAFFLE

Are you "Feeling Lucky?"

Winning Ticket Number: 1149

MARCH 14 DRAWING FOR $10,000

Proceeds will benefit the many local and international projects throughout the 2024-25 Rotary Year. Some of the projects from 2023-24 include:

Dolly Partner Imagination Library
Water project in El Salvador
Emergency support - Syria, Ukraine, etc.
Solar panels for Ukraine
Veteran Organizations support
Project Self Sufficiency

Rotarians are PEOPLE OF ACTION. Together, we build parks, award scholarships, develop youth leaders, support first responders and provide disaster relief, promote literacy, distribute food and have nearly eliminated polio worldwide.

New Breakfast Club Members

Rotary Club of Fort Collins Breakfast inducted three new members on Thursday Feb 8, 2024. -James Wedding, Tom Strause, and Ryan McLean!

Ukraine Solar Phone Project

Wilton Lyles introduced Andy Lenec, a native of Ukraine and a Rotarian for over 30 years who developed a process for creating shippable solar panels to Ukraine for charging four cell phones at a time. Our club’s International Service Committee is sending 20 of the solar panels to Ukraine.

Andy introduced Olena Halapchuk-Tarnavska, a past president of a Rotary Club in Ukraine who shared how the solar panels help Ukrainians keep connected to the world and help students continue their remote learning.

Club members helped decorate the 20 solar panels with words of encouragement and colorful flag stickers.

Peaches Helping Preschoolers

2023 Peach Sale Success!

Used Laptop Drive

The Fort Collins Breakfast Rotary Club is looking for used laptops in pretty good condition. If you are thinking of upgrading, why not donate your older laptop which will be cleaned up and made useful for students at Front Range Community College who are in need of one of these valuable devices to get the most out of their education.

For more information, click HERE.

Area of Focus - Environment

Rendezvous Trail cleanup this morning in Fort Collins. We are there once a month to keep the 2 mile section as clean as we can for those enjoying the spectacular trails in Fort Collins. Identified many of the flowering plants along the trail due to the high level of rain we have experienced. Saw signs of elk moving through the area but they are long gone now in July. Thanks to all the folks who thanked us. Makes doing the work more rewarding.

Rotary International President 2023-2024

R. Gordon R. McInally

President 2023-24

Rotary Club of South Queensferry

Scotland

R. Gordon R. McInally was educated at the Royal High School in Edinburgh and at the University of Dundee, where he earned his graduate degree in dental surgery. He operated his own dental practice in Edinburgh until 2016. McInally was chair of the East of Scotland branch of the British Paedodontic Society and has held various academic positions. He has also served as a presbytery elder, chair of the Queensferry parish congregational board, and commissioner to the general assembly of the Church of Scotland.

Gordon joined Rotary in 1984 at age 26. A member of the Rotary Club of South Queensferry, he has served as president and vice president of Rotary International in Great Britain and Ireland. He has also served RI as a director and on several committees, most recently as an adviser to the 2022 Houston Convention Committee and chair of the Operations Review Committee.

Gordon says he looks forward to working with members to build new Rotary clubs and groups. "My vision is that Rotary should exist everywhere in a style to suit everyone who has the desire to be part of us and to help us do good in the world," he says.

He is a patron of the UK-based nonprofit Hope and Homes for Children and led a partnership between that organization and RIBI to support children in Rwanda who had been orphaned in the genocide there. He is a patron of Trade-Aid, an initiative of the Rotary Club of Grantham Kesteven, England, that provides sustainable humanitarian aid to individuals, families, and businesses in the developing world. He is also an ambassador for Bipolar UK, a national mental health organization. In August 2022, he was made a laureate of the Sino Phil Asia International Peace Awards Foundation.

In his free time, Gordon enjoys rugby, good food and wine, and stick dressing, the traditional Scottish craft of making walking sticks.

Gordon describes The Rotary Foundation as "the engine that provides the energy to do Rotary service." He and his spouse, Heather, also a Rotarian, are Paul Harris Fellows, Major Donors, Benefactors of The Rotary Foundation, and members of the Bequest Society.

Gordon wishes to dedicate his presidency to making the world a better place for his granddaughters, Ivy and Florence, and all the children of the world, to live and thrive.

Learn more about presidential initiatives, view select videos, and download resources
Learn about the president's theme and watch his theme speech
Read the president’s monthly message
Find presidential theme materials
Download photos of the RI President and their spouse
Learn more about Rotary’s structure

International Service Projects

The Fort Collins Breakfast Rotary Club has turned $28,000 into $400,000 to fund international projects around the world. The original $28,000 has come from individual members and generous community members and businesses supporting the Club's local fund raising events such as the $10K Raffle, Field of Honor, and Peach Sales. Additional funding from The Rotary Foundation and from Rotary District 5440 grew the $28,000 to $400,000.

Teacher of the Month May 2023

Andy Graham from Kinard Core Knowledge School is the teacher of the month for Rotary Club of FC- Breakfast.

Andy shared is passion of teaching middle school age kids!

$1,000,000 in Donations

The Rotary Club of Fort Collins Breakfast is celebrating that its generous members have contributed over $1,000,000 to The Rotary Foundation since the club’s founding in 1989!

The mission of The Rotary Foundation helps Rotary members to advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace by improving health, providing quality education, improving the environment, and alleviating poverty.

Donations to The Rotary Foundation result in life changing impacts:

For as little as 60 cents, a child can be protected from polio.
$50 can provide clean water to help fight waterborne illness.
$500 can launch an antibullying campaign and create a safe environment for children.

2023 Field of Honor®

The Third Annual Field of Honor® (FOH) will be held Memorial Day weekend, May 26 to May 29 at Fort Collins' Spring Canyon Park on West Horesetooth Road. Medallions that honor your hero, including military veterans, first responders, or personal heroes are available to purchase and will hang on one of the 500 American flags that will make up the field. Order medallions: www.rotaryfcbreakfast.org

IDEA Committee

The IDEA Committee is responsible for the following on behalf of the Fort Collins Rotary Club Breakfast:

Raising awareness of diversity,
Supporting of diversity, inclusion, and belonging within the club and in the club’s interaction with the community,
Liaising with the other club committees.

To find out more, click here

3rd Grade Literacy Project

Thank You to All Who Supported the 3rd Grade Literacy Project!

It was a successful day at the Holiday Twin Drive-In theater for the 2022 Peach Delivery. Close to 800 boxes of delicious Palisade peaches were loaded into cars along with Ginger & Baker peach pies and jalapeño jam, and Savory Spice peach spice.

Following delivery members of the club were actively volunteering and selling more peaches at the Fort Collins Peach Festival.

2022-23 Rotary International President Jennifer Jones

Jennifer Jones, Rotary International’s first female president, is the perfect leader to spread the word about the good Rotary does in the world, and inspire its members to keep going.

Jones, 55, was born in Windsor, Ontario, and — save for a few post-college years working in the Turks and Caicos Islands and Manhattan — has lived there her whole life. The oldest of three children, she'd run lemonade stands to earn money to give to charity, and recalls organizing a carnival in her family's yard to benefit kids with muscular dystrophy. "Growing up, my parents had given us wings to do service in our community," she says. Today, her mom, dad, and one of her brothers and his wife are Rotarians. Her other brother created a painting that inspired Jones' presidential-theme ties and scarves.

Read more about RI President Jennifer using the following link:

https://www.rotary.org/en/2022-23-president-jennifer-jones-eager-advance-rotarys-narrative?source=rotaryorg_frontpage_hero

Rotary Responds to Ukraine Crisis

At Rotary, we are deeply concerned by the escalating loss of life and humanitarian hardship caused by the war in Ukraine. We’re using our deep networks and decades of experience to take swift action in the region.

Molly Skold

Molly Skold, a native of Fort Collins and third-generation resident, is a proud FCHS Lambkin and CSU Ram. Her father, Thomas, contributed to the community as an active member of the Fort Collins Rotary Club and served as its President.

Ryan McClean

I joined Rotary to find a community of like-minded individuals who are committed to helping others and working together for the common good. After attending some of the meetings as a guest, I really appreciated the warmth and friendliness of the group. I am excited to be a part of Rotary and to help contribute in whatever way I can.

Judy Thompson

I am originally from the Kansas City area; graduated from the University of Kansas, taught for 6 years in the Shawnee Mission School district. For several years following that, I worked for Raytheon Educational Publishing division and for Macmillan Publishing, as a professional speaker and marketing agent of textbook materials. In 1998, we moved to Wisconsin for my husband’s work. We enjoyed being in the Great Lakes area, which is well known for winter and summer outdoor activities, as well as arts and music.

At convention find breakouts tailored to you

A labor of love

Rotary projects around the globe April 2024

Heat is on for urban planners

Food of the future