Let’s Go Back To the 80s! This weekend we will host our 4th Annual Gathering For Good! This year our live auction will have a Vegas condo again, a wine tasting, beer experience, and crab boil experience. We have several unique items listed for our silent auction as well. It will be 80s night with a DJ playing 80s tunes all night. Everyone is encouraged to dress in 80s attire of your choice. This is not required though. We will also have 80s trivia. The live auction will feature our auctioneer extraordinaire, Charlie Moon, once again. This year, the Gathering For Good will be held at the Doubletree by Hilton in Lawrence. This event will be a very fun filled night with all of the funds raised going to The Rotary Foundation Annual fund in the name of the person purchasing any item that is available. DGN-D Michelle Sink has been reaching out to the club presidents about putting together club baskets for our silent auction. We have already seen some great ideas! If you have an idea for a silent or live auction item, please contact me (fbarr@t-mfinancial.com) or Michelle Sink (msink@kansasbigs.org). We can discuss where your item or auction package can be placed. Last year, we raised over $25,000 in one night and had a wonderful time! I hope you can join us and help us raise even more this year.
Just as a reminder, any of us in the District Foundation committee would be happy to speak with you or present to your club on several Foundation topics, including Endowment/Major Gifts, Global Scholars, Global grants, District grants, Paul Harris Society, Polio Plus, and alternative ways to give a significant gift to The Rotary Foundation (TRF). I encourage you to reach out to us if you would like us to present to you.
As of March 28th, we have, as a district, given 48% of what we contributed last year to TRF Annual fund and 63% to Polio Plus. With 3 months left in our Rotary year, we are getting closer to matching or exceeding our numbers from last year. 78% of our clubs have donated at least something to one of the Rotary Foundation areas and we are all very delighted you did. If you have not made your contribution to TRF yet this year, I would encourage you to do so in the next three months. Your District Foundation committee is dedicated to helping our members with various ways of contributing to TRF and with various ideas for projects that can benefit from those funds.
An example of how your TRF funds are being utilized is through our Global Grants (GGs). We have five GGs currently in process, two that are waiting for approval, and three that are being drafted. Our Global Grant committee just agreed to commit $5,000 to a project in Panama which would be providing interactive classrooms in their schools for a better learning process. This grant is currently seeking more funding. If you or your club would like to be a part of this global grant for Panama, please contact me for more details. We have 19 Rotarians from our district and D5680 going to Guatemala this month to serve the Patanatic community and observe the Global Grant currently being implemented that is designed to train 18 health promoters in their community. If you would like to learn more about any of the Global Grants our district is involved with, please reach out to me. I would be happy to discuss them further.
If you would like to learn more about Major Gifts and Endowment giving, please join us at 3:00pm at Doubletree by Hilton on April 6th (just before the Gathering For Good) for a session led by RI Major Gifts Officer, Eric Thompson. He has graciously agreed to meet with us to discuss the many unique ways in which you can make a significant gift to TRF.
We also see the impact of all of your District Grant projects throughout our district and in your community. Thank you for all of your efforts so far!