Club History 2011 - present

• Our exchange student, Yok, from Thailand arrived in early August
  • She continued studies at Centerville High School and learned to play the violin in the school orchestra.  Unfortunately, due to the COVID outbreak she returned to Thailand several months early.
  • She also worked at our pancake breakfast
• Our first service project was supporting Boomerfest at St Leonard
  • We helped with parking and had a manned Rotary booth to answer questions about Centerville Rotary
• Sofie Amaloot became a US citizen on 15 August
• We held the first Pancake Breakfast Sponsor dinner in August as a kick-off to the Pancake breakfast season
  • The purpose was to thank our sponsors, let them know what Centerville Rotary does for the community and the world, and to let them know we are good stewards with their money
  • Adam Manning and Carrabba’s catered an excellent meal and everyone had a great time
  • Even though many sponsors could not make the meeting, they appreciated the invitation and thanks us for what we do
• We went on to have an outstanding Pancake Breakfast Sponsor response collecting $ 15,549,  after the breakfast sales and expenses, we had an exceptional income of over $26,600
• My thanks to Adam Manning & Brad Huffman as the committee leads, Arnie Biondo and Sofie Amaloot for Sponsor sales and to all the members for their hard work to make this happen
• We also has our District Governor, Sigrid Solomon join us in September to outline what the Rotary 2019-2020 goals would be

• We received District Grant Checks for Operation Warm for $2,500, in conjunction with Happy Bucks, we purchased 534 children’s coats donated to Hannah’s Treasure Chest to distribute for needy children in the southwest Ohio area (we have donated 2964 coats over 6 years)
• We received a grant check for $1,700 for our Literacy program and purchased 793 dictionaries and 864 Thesauri for 3^rd and 5^th graders in the Washington TWP and Centerville schools
• BOGG – food distribution in Chevy Chase Apartment area
• Dayton Food Bank – Prepared holiday distribution drums with stickers
• House of Bread – prep and serve meals to 250+ individuals
• Adopt A Family – clothing toys books for 20 needy children at  Christmas
• St Vincent DePaul – bedding, personal supplies
• Boomerfest – St Leonard
• Providing How to Books at Habitat for Humanity home dedications to the new homeowners (cook book,home repairs, gardening, Financial planning, & how to grocery shop)

• We submitted Rotary District grant requests for 2020-21 and were awarded the following
  • Operation Warm – winter coats for children - $2,500.00
  • Literacy – Dictionaries/Thesauri - $1,500.00
    • Both available in August
  • COVID-19 Foodbank Support - $500.00

• Ron Hollenbeck worked for Global Grant for Haiti Life Pumps (goal was 11), but details didn’t fall into place, between Centerville and other district clubs, they donated over $30,000 to purchase 3 Life Pumps from Design Outreach for Haiti

• Club Donations to the Rotary Foundation are over $20,000 ($778 polio)
• Happy Bucks
  • Operation Warm - $7660. + grant $2500= $10,160
  • Dayton Food Bank - $1517 (club donated $1,000 + $500 Covid Grant) $3017 total
  • Alzheimers Association - $1665
  • The Castle - $2,205 – send in Happy Bucks if you haven’t
  • Other Donations
    • Artemis Center - $550
    • BOGG - $550
    • Haiti Life Pump Project - $5,000
    • Guatemala Literacy Project - $1,000
    • Diversity council & Kalaman Golf outing sponsor - $500
    • (total $44,647) with scholarships: $54,647

• Thanks to Judy Budi and the Education Foundation for Interviewing 11 student scholarship applicants via Zoom and selecting 5 for $2,000 scholarships.
  • Students will be attending (1) Bowling Green U, (3) The Ohio State U, and our first trades scholarship to Hobart Institute of Welding Technology

• At our Christmas Party in December we had enjoyed a good meal, listened to the Centerville High Jazz band, and were honored with the attendance of our District Governor Sigrid Solomon
• To close the event, we announced the winners of the Service Above Self Awards, presented by Sigrid to Arnie Biondo for leading Pancake sales and putting the clubs name out in the community with a sign for the portable dog park; to Adam Manning for his Pancake support and catering the Sponsor Thank You dinner; and to Kitty Ullmer for her ongoing support to publish the weekly club news bulletin.
• The Rotarian of the Year was presented to Sofie Amaloot for volunteering and leading numerous club drives and maximizing sponsor sales  for the pancake breakfast

• The new year got off to a smooth start
• Kisha Taylor held a successful 4 Way Speech contest in February
• Planning was being done for service projects in April, we were lining up students to attend RYLA, District 4 way speech contest, we were getting information on the District Conference in Wilmington in April
• However COVID-19 raised its ugly head and our face to face  meetings were stopped, and all District meetings, conferences and training were cancelled in March
• Our last in person meeting was on 12 March.  We continued club communications through a weekly e-mail and 8 weeks ago we started Zoom Club meetings and have also had Zoom corporate board meetings and club socials.

 

President Boyd Preston provided this summary at the annual Rotary Christmas Dinner.

“Service Above Self” is the principal motto of Rotary International as it conveys well our philosophy of unselfish volunteer service. Since the club’s founding in 1972, we have focused on that mission and as a result, 2018 was another strong and productive year for the Centerville Rotary Club.

Service in our Community is very important to all club members. In 2018:

• We fielded six service days, starting in March and ending in November
  • 15 events were conducted, helping 8 local non-profits, with work done by 100 volunteers (including 75 Rotarians), involving over 300 volunteer hours. Typical locations & projects:
    • CW Park District:  mulched, cleaned up grounds, painted tables
    • Foodbank of Dayton: Sorted food, prepared after school food kits
    • BOGG: Helped distribute healthy food where people live
    • Hannah’s Treasure Chest: cleaned & organized donations, prepared spring appeals letter for mailing, changed outdoor lights, worked in landscaping beds
    • House of Bread: Helped prepare & serve hot meals to over 200 people
• Provided a set of five “How To” help books for every new Habitat for Humanity homeowner- a member of the club presented the books to the family at each dedication- 10 done in 2018
• For “Project Read”, the non-profit fighting illiteracy in the Miami Valley, the club purchased 10 reusable collection bins for ongoing use over the past 4 years. Over 5500 books were collected in 2018.
• Sent two high school students to the Rotary Youth Leadership Award at Camp Kern.
• Provided five $2000 college scholarships to local graduating seniors.
• Sponsored & Supported the CHS Interact club, which now has 106 students. 
• Through our literacy program, provided 725 Dictionaries and 820 Thesauri to 3^rd and 5^th graders at nine elementary schools in the area this past Fall.
• Our Operation Warm effort provided 630 coats to Hannah’s Treasure Chest to be distributed to children in need of a new winter coat. This makes over 2400 coats the club has donated over the last five years.
• Fielded another highly successful Pancake Breakfast in October and served over 900 guests. This is our primary annual fund raiser to help pay for the scholarship program and other charitable activities.
• Supported Centerville schools’ “Adopt-A-Family” Christmas program by adopting15 families. 
• Sponsored another great Rotary Exchange Student for the school year -Rodrigo Garnica from Arequipa, Peru.
• In November, we tied in with Veterans Day to dedicate a meeting to celebrate and honor the 13 members of the club who are military veterans.

While this is fantastic news, we lost two long time members in February 2018 who will be missed.

• • Jack Workman was part of the foundation of this club. He joined in June 1972, just as the club received its charter from Rotary International. He was our club president in 1981-82 and went on mission trips to help fight polio and to help less fortunate people living in Central America.
  • Rick Terhune joined our club in January 1993 and over the next 24+ years was an active member who was always ready to lend a helping hand where needed. He was our club president in 2000-01 and a true mainstay of our pancake crew.

Club Awards

We ended the year with our annual holiday dinner in December which included recognizing some of our members for their outstanding contributions:

1. Rotarian of the Year Award – Adam Manning

The Rotarian-Of-The-Year award is given to a person in sincere appreciation and recognition of distinguished service, loyalty, and devotion to the ideals of Rotary.

• Adam has been involved in a number of club activities, both from a participation as well as from a coordinating effort perspective.
• But he is best known as our leader of Pancake Day. Over the past two years he has helped the club raise over $40,000 for our scholarship program and other charitable activities that we field. He has done so with a clear focus, strong leadership, dedication and the strong team he put together.
  • He also strongly supports our mixer program that generates new candidates and gives existing members a chance to socialize in a casual environment. He also hosted both a mixer and a new member orientation get together at his restaurant for the club.
• He does it all with a positive, friendly all-inclusive attitude and hard work every day

2. Service to Humanity Award- Ron Hollenbeck

This award is a first-time issue for our club. It recognizes the true global focus of the recipient and while it was awarded by the Centerville Club, it has the full support of the District for that reason.

• It started as an opportunity for our club to help provide 1 water pump in the country of Mali. With Ron’s leadership and vision, it has grown to an effort to help thousands of Haitians have clean water and better sanitation every day.
• Along the way, Ron went to Haiti in June to help install a new pump and improve an existing pump’s performance.
• He has since shared the opportunity through presentations to over one quarter of all the clubs in our district and has raised $22,000 to date from us and other clubs.
• Recognizing each pump has the potential to help around 2000 people regularly, Ron’s dedication to helping others is driving these pumps to be installed which will in fact, change lives on a great scale.

3. “Service Above Self” awards recognize specific members’ outstanding dedication and service to the club and Rotary International. These Rotarians demonstrated their commitment to helping others by regularly volunteering their time and talents: 

• 2018 recipients were: Sofie Ameloot, Mark Febus, Jennifer Gibbs, Charles King and Harvey Smith

 

President Judy Budi provided this summary of her Rotary year: The Fall was very busy with Pancake Breakfast planning, Super Bowl Raffle, Happy Bucks for Operation Warm, Dictionary and Thesauri distribution, Centerville School Family Christmas gift, Annual Foundation letter and request to all members, and weekly meetings.  The Club received three district grants; The Castle, Operation Warm and the Dictionary and Thesaurus project.

The club had a very successful Pancake Breakfast  exceeding our goal and experiencing a net income of $18,493.04. We tried a new approach to fundraising for the event asking all members to find a corporate sponsor and raised over $10,000.00 in donations. Almost every club member participated by either volunteering to work that day or through soliciting donations or by making a significant personal donation. Carol Kennard and Gerry Eastabrooks chaired the Committee.89% of the Rotarians worked the event, 96% participated in some way and we had 21 new sponsors. The club sold Super Bowl tickets prior to and at the Pancake breakfast and we raised $1,400.00 for the club.

Another club highlight was the work completed by the Foundation Committee. Bill Abrams chaired the committee and they met on a regular basis. Bill had a wonderful guest speaker talk about the Foundation in November which is Rotary Foundation Month and all members were sent a letter encouraging Paul Harris Fellowship Participation. By the end of the year xx members where Paul Harris Fellows and the club was recognized at the District Meeting as having the second highest donations to the Foundation per capita.

Happy Bucks during the year went to Operation Warm, The Castle, Food 4 Summer and House of Bread.

The club provided significant support to The Castle during the year; through donation of supplies for the center, support of an Eagle Scout project for stairs and a handrail for the raised gardens and by serving as a member on their Committee planning a community event to raise awareness about Mental Health.

Dan Johnson agreed to chair the membership committee and he attended several community events to recruit members, developed a system to follow up with individuals that attend meetings, held a new member orientation and coordinated a new member fireside chat event. The club netted 5 new members in 2014.

The Club provided donations during the year to Blue Star Mother’s, Kalaman Golf outing, Little Free Library project, Spirit Chain, Diversity Council and Americana.

International projects supported include sending books and donations to Mae Berkel’s club Indonesia, sending a cash donation to Amanda George’s school in Nigeria though the local Rotary, a donation to a water project in Nigeria coordinated by the Dayton Rotary Club from the GSE team that had visited the previous year..

In the late Spring the Club’s focus becomes Youth. We sent two Centerville Students to the RYLA program and one of them attended the club meeting in June sharing how the weekend was life changing for her. An Alter student participated in the 4- way Speech Contest. Deb Dulaney,  Director Youth Services was the district coordinator for the 4-way Speech competition and the club hosted Sabrina Dong, the winner at a meeting in June so all of the members could hear her speech. The Educational Foundation provided 6 scholarships again this year, increasing the amount to $1,500 and giving 4 to Centerville seniors and 2 to Alter seniors. Brad Thorp shared with the club several times information about the Foundation’s investments.  The Foundation has enough income proceeds to begin to fund some of the scholarships. Kim Senft-Paras did tremendous work during the year to invigorate the Interact Club.  The club provided $1,000 in seed money and the students designed and purchased T-shirts to raise awareness of Interact and sold water bottles, the proceeds of which went to the Dayton Rotary to support the Nigerian Water Project. The student advisor Liz Cameron and Kim will work together in 2014-2015 and we hope to see this positive energy grow.

Carol Kennard managed a transition to an updated version of the website software and provided members training during the year. The PR committee worked to raise awareness of Rotary by coordinating three speaking opportunities on Centerville Reports, a story on women in Rotary in the Centerville magazine that has since been discontinued, weekly Facebook postings and starting a Linked In presence.

Throughout the year the club had many interesting programs. Ed Flohre was recognized as our Rotarian of the year for his 12 years of service as secretary and his overall participation in club activities.

The Centerville Rotary Club grew slightly during the year, contributed to both local and international projects, provided fantastic support to the Rotary Foundation, energized the Interact Club and members were engaged Rotarians. All of these activities are not possible without a great Board and engaged membership. Thanks to all for a great year!!!

President Kim Senft-Paras said her goal of having the club examine and think about Rotary's 4-Way Test during her presidential term has been fulfilled. She said members worked towards the TRUTH of becoming a really successful club. As for FAIRNESS, members contributed through their club and community service, as shown by the Peace Through Service presidential citation the club received. Members spread GOODWILL AND FRIENDSHIP by making the club stronger  with projects such as the dictionary/thesaurus distribution, the Nigerian exchange group visit, Operation 1,000 Cherry Trees, and the club's college scholarship program.

She asked that the club recognize those who often work behind the scenes, such as members Ed Flohre and Bob Fry. Fry has spent ten years as secretary/treasurer, and will be looking for a replacement soon, she said.

With the passing of member Hans Berkel, Bill Abrams and Ram Nunna took over the Rotary International Program for the club, she said. She recognized Ron Hollenbeck for his community service work for the club and Carol Kennard for her work as Club Affairs director, calling her the club's "superglue." 

She also recognized new club president Judy Budi for her work towards the Rotary goal this year: Engaging Rotarians and Changing Lives.

Kim commissioned the making of 60 blue paper peace doves to be given to those at the meeting. She found a young man good at origami to fashion the doves. One happened to later land in the hands of a young Japanese girl born here in America.