Our Club’s Community Service Committee has a big responsibility when it meets, as committee members review grant proposals submitted by non-profits across our community. Committee members strive to be good stewards of the Club’s money that is generated by our three key annual fundraisers. Since there is only so much money to award each fiscal year and so many non-profits in our community submitting grant proposals, decision-making can be challenging.

Committee members consider the non-profit submitting each grant and how the money awarded will serve and impact our community.

At its most recent meeting, our Club’s Community Service Committee approved three more grants for this fiscal year:
•    $2,500 to Sound Affects for their Performance Program so musicians can continue to enrich the lives of the elderly by performing live music in assisted living facilities.
•    $4,000 to Project Self-Sufficiency for its Healthy Families Transportation Fund. This grant will help provide individuals enrolled in Project Self-Sufficiency to have safe, reliable transportation to and from work and/or to/from their post-high school education source
•    $1,000 to Outreach Fort Collins, a street-based outreach program that maintains our community as a safe and welcoming place while connecting those in need to services and supportive networks. This grant will help ensure staff has appropriate gear to safely perform their jobs. 

Our Club’s Community Service Committee also oversees grants awarded specifically to non-profits that provide services to Veterans and First Responders. These funds are raised by our annual Field Of Honor.

In addition to the grants already awarded in this fiscal year, the Community Service Committee approved a grant of $2,000 to Larimer County Dive and Rescue. This grant will go toward the purchase of a new boat.
 

For the past three years, our Rotary has been collecting and providing hygiene products twice a year for Early Childhood Education to distribute to its families in the Fort Collins area. Early Childhood Education is a no-cost and tuition-based preschool program that has classrooms in 21 district elementary schools and 7 community sites in the Poudre School District. The PSD-based program, which offers services that help families build a strong foundation, relies on donations to help families meet a variety of needs

Rotarians delivered 190 boxes of winter coats and snow boots to 29 Fort Collins elementary schools on behalf of the Fort Collins-based non-profit Coats & Boots. The 190 boxes were filled with 1,500 new winter coats and 1,500 pairs of boots for Poudre School District children in need.

“This past year, our Rotary awarded a Community Service grant to Coats and Boots so it could purchase winter coats and boots for school children, and now we got to help deliver those coats and boots—plus a whole lot more coats and boots—to schools that will hand them out to students,” states Bob Melrose, a member of the Club’s delivery team. 

“No child should be without a warm winter coat and a nice pair of snow boots. And it warms my heart to see our Rotary helping keep school children warm now that cold weather is on its way.”