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Here is our 'Kitchen Crew' at our recent Pancake Breakfast to raise funds for The Patrician Society, Expressive Path & Girls First

2024 Club Holiday Dinner Party
Courthouse at Collegeville Clubhouse

Dec 12, 2024
6:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Board Mtg
Dec 19, 2024 10:45 AM
2024 Salvation Army Bell-Ringers (2hr shifts)
Acme (Park Ridge) & Redners (Audubon)

Dec 21, 2024
8:00 AM – 6:00 PM
NO CLUB MEETING (Holiday)
Dec 26, 2024
Board Mtg
Jan 16, 2025 10:45 AM

TRUNK OR TREAT 2024

Norristown Rotary was well represented at the Norristown Trunk or Treat. Thanks to all who participated and donated to the event. We had a great time and it was well appreciated.

AND we won second place for best display.

BETH MEYERS, JUDY BUCKO,DIANE HELM, DAVE BEACH, TIM MEYERS

Thanks to Diane and Tim for organizing the event, but I thought it was a bit over the top for Tim to be passing out his business card, dressed as Damocles.

Fall Service Projects

LITERACY COUNCIL OF NORRISTOWN PRESENTATION

(l to R) Dave Beach-Fundraiser Chair, Eliza Brumbaugh, Executive Director-:literacy Council of Norristown,

Clift Hirst- Literacy Council, Alan Treisbach- President Elect -Rotary Club of Norristown, Dave Shoemaker- President-Norristown Rotary Foundation

The first distribution portion of our annual Pancake Breakfast fundraiser, $11,360, was awarded to The Literacy Council of Norristown at out July 25 meeting. The fundraiser event produced a net profit of $19,000 which has been designated to benefit the Council and the Grace and Cecil Bean soup kitchen, which will be presented at a future date.

NAHS Student Awarded Rotary Student Achievement Award

Several times each year, our club recognizes students from the Norristown Area High School because the excel in areas of high ethical character and display outstanding performance in academics, technology, business, or the arts as well as community service.
It is a proud ddistinction and we are proud to honor both students and parents for the many years they dedicated to coaching and encouragement.

We proudly recognize (Left to right) Christina Fritz, Sophia O'Reilly, Haylie Jost, Riley Logan and Ashton Young for they demonstrated excellence.

Christina Fritz Sophia O'Reilly

Haley Jost Riley Logan

Ashton Young

Used Bicycles Headed to Sierra Leone

PEDALS for PROGRESS

We ended our 23-24 Bicycle collection Saturday. And we will begin again, no sooner than the truck left we got a call with 3 more sewing machines. Despite the incessant rain, we managed a pretty good haul with 43 bikes and 7 sewing machines this year. Bicycles become family transportation and sewing machines are distributed by an off shoot charity called 'Sewing Peace'. Both of these discarded items get a second life where jobs and transportation are rare.

Thank you to all those who donated this year. And thanks to Mary Treisbach for providing lunch.

GARDEN UPDATE

The Garden Committee met at the Garden to begin cleaning out. Diane Helm indicated we are nowhere near finished.

It is fairly large and there is much to do. Work will progress this week.

"Ask this old House" the TV show on PBS recently featured a segment on building local community garden with the Girl Scouts.

The girls learn how to garden, the Community gets great looking gardens and everybody benefits ! Take a look...

Club Donates Commemorative Rotary Brick

Our Club donated a beautiful commemorative brick to the Elmwood Park Zoo in celebration of our 100th anniversary year. The brick is in place and you can view it anytime you visit the Zoo, or take a look when you attend our 100th Anniversary Celebration dinner. Proceeds from the $200 brick benefit the Elmwood Park Zoo.

Happy Birthday Rotary Club of Norristown

Garden Planting Phase 1 Complete

The planting is complete for this stage. The mulch is down. the initial set of annuals is in the ground. Three beautiful new trees were added by the Girl Scouts.

And the township installed our rain barrel. Now we need more weeding as grass is emerging and watering on these dry days. We installed brick edging to hold back the grass.

The mulch was donated by Ralowskey & Trailer on Pottshop Rd.

We even installed a brick planter in our favorite shape. Brick for the planter was donated by Norristown Brick Yard.

The Rain Barrel catches rain fall from the Township shed.

Rotaplast Team Arrives in Medellin, Columbia

The Rotary Rotaplast Team arrives in Medellin, Columbia and gets to work.

The Rotaplast team has safely arrived in Medellin, Colombia! "It was exhilarating to see many deep friendships renewed as new friendships formed before your eyes. Tonight, our Rotaplast team of volunteers was born. We all look forward to meeting the families and children tomorrow as we continue the life-changing journey of Saving Smiles and Changing Lives."

Follow along on their blog being kept by Darlene Scott

Blog

Rotarian Judy Bucko happy to be there.

Camp Neidig Jig

It will soon be time to send our campers of to leadership camp.

It is such a great experience and adults visit often and say have you guys sent me to Rotary camp.

Here is a little song written by one of the tribes. It is so cute, it is hilarious, you'll enjoy it.

(Click on the picture, make sure you click the speaker on the top when it comes up, so volume is on)

Listen closely to the lyrics

'But WAIT.......Did you say...Camp Neidig for freeeeeee

NAHS students honored 3-14-24

Posted by Mark Call

NAHS STUDENTS HONORED JAN. 25 BY ROTARY CLUB OF NORRISTOWN

DENISE ASHE Club Youth Services Chair, Brandon AMBAR TORRES RAMIREZ,

EMILY PLUMMER, KATIE LE, DUSTIN ARMAS, CHASE EICHOLTZ,

J EFF McMARIA-NAHS Counselor, MARY ONAMA- Club President

Brandon Zuniga Rodezno
Veronica Ritter
Edward Fisher
David Caldwell
Jeremiah McCray

At our January 25th meeting, THE ROTARY CLUB OF NORRISTOWN, honored 5 students from the NORRISTOWN AREA HIGH SCHOOL. The students were recognized for their exemplarily achievements in the areas of scholastic excellence, participation in school activities and special interest groups, community volunteering, sports, and demonstrated leadership in leadership and helping others. They all are honor roll students and often are National Merit Scholars. They have participated in student government, math and robotics club, school board representation , STEM programs, English teaching of local kids just to list a few. Their sports include golf, soccer, track and field. They intend to continue their education in the fields of landscaping / environmental studies, civil engineering, manufacturing engineering, and the very popular- undecided.

We wish them all great success in the future, and thank them for sharing their experiences with us.

Scholarship Thank you Letter

You're very welcome. It was our privilege to honor such deserving students and hopefully give them a head start in their educational endeavors.

NAHS STUDENTS HONORED

At our November 16 meeting, the Club honored six students from Norristown Area High School. These students, selected by teachers and school staff, were selected on the basis of their academic achievements, their participation in school activities, and their involvement in community service. All plane to continue their education next year, pursuing degrees in: Automation Engineering, Robotics, Psychology, Music, Med School, Communications, and other areas in science.

We congratulate each one and wish them continued success in their educational future.

Club President, MARY ONAMA welcomed the students to our meeting- (l to R) Mamadou Bah , Kayla Huynh,

Izabella Gurreonero, Xiomara Smith, Jack Rosen. In the back is school counselor Jeff MacNamara,

who introduced the students.

Dictionary Project Delivery This Week

Garden Planting Sept 23, 2023 9am

There is a garden planting planned for Sept 23rd at 9am at the Padden Park Community Butterfly Garden.

Come help us plant mums and clean up weeding. - Sign Up online in 'Upcoming Events'

See Mary

Our Club receives a Citation

Congratulations to 2022-2023 President Sunanda Charles in leading our club through a banner year of achievement last year. Over 800 service hours all going back to the community. Achievement of nearly all our goals including establishing a Club foundation. Past District Governor Len Geisler and 2022-2023 Rotary International President Jennifer Jones have awarded the club this citation of achievement.

We are so proud.

President Mary received the following memo from Past DG Len Geisler

" Congratulations to you and your club for earning the Rotary Citation, the most significant award a Rotary club can achieve, for 2022-23. During a year that was challenging for many Rotarians and clubs around the world, your club demonstrated a commitment to achieve your goals, which ultimately helps strengthen Rotary and shape our future.

Please share this certificate with your club. Thank you for your support and dedication last year. I truly appreciate it. "

Len Geisler

Thank you Sunanda, for leading our club in reaching this very high achievement last year. It was a good year.

Trunk or Treat

TRUNK or TREAT

We had a blast at the Norristown Rec Center on Monday night. The club set up an elaborate grave yard to celebrate Halloween. The community came in droves and the rain held out until the end of the night. Three or four hundred local youths visited the center. The club gave out 50-60 lbs of candy to worthy costumes of all kinds. This is our 4th appearance at this annual event and always a ton of fun.

SCHOLARSHIP AWARDS 2023

Last Thursday, the ROTARY CLUB OF NORRISTOWN honored three scholarship recipients from the Norristown Area School District. These students were selected by our Scholarship Committee, working with the school district, and were based on exhibited strengths in the areas of academic excellence and community involvement. Each student received $200 towards their education plans. We congratulate these students and wish them continued success in their future educational and occupational endeavors.

Winners:

Emma Josephine Carpenter - Plans to attend University of Delaware with courses leading to Veterinary School.

Dulce Maria Vargas Ochoa - is heading to Cabrini and is undecided at the moment, but is leaning toward majoring Education or Business

Christian David Carbone - Plans to attend Villanova with studies in business and finance

Logan Hendricks (not present) will attend Rochester Institute of Technology $2500

Our three scholarship winners in attendance are welcomed by Club President Mary Onama and Committee Chair Tim Meyer

STEMYEA

This year for the first time, our Rotary club made an investment in the future (other than grants) in the area of STEM education. We sponsored middle school students attending the Rotary STEM Youth Explorer Academy host at Kutztown University in early July. This year Christopher Jordan from the Eisenhower Middle School joined 42 other students in the eastern PA area at the camp to broaden their horizons and advance scholastic opportunities in STEM. Here are a few pictures of the experiments, all students received a backpack and a white lab coat.

Bike Collection 2022-2023 Successful

It was a drizzly day last Saturday. Due to the planned fireworks, West Norriton decided to postpone 'West Norriton Day' celebrations until Sunday when the weather was better. But the 'Bike Collection' went on anyway since the event was pre-advertised and we had made truck arrangements with Pedals for Progress coming from New Jersey. Their schedule this time of year is pretty tight. And more often than not, our drives have occurred on rainy spring Saturdays.

It was a good collection. We picked up the bikes we had collected all year and loaded the truck and headed to the high school. We had numerous visitors dropping bikes at the high school including some looking for the fireworks. Pedals for Progress provided training on breaking down a bike to make it small for shipping.

We processed the new bikes coming in and with 15 minutes to go, we started to break down the tent, and another donor came with 5 bikes. But we have plenty of help from Dave Shoemaker, Judy Bucko, Jack Rule, and Alan Treisbach and made quick work of it.

This is our 15th year collecting bicycles. Rotarian Jim Jones began this project originally in 2008. Around 2012 we started collecting bikes year round. Collections were down during the pandemic and are only now starting to come back.

This year we collected 65 bikes and 2 sewing machines saved from the landfill. The bikes are headed to the country of Belize in June and will become family transportation where they have no cars nor public transportation.

These bikes and sewing machines mean remote jobs and education and help the environment by keeping clean energy bicycles out of our landfills.

Dictionary Project Comes to a Close

Chair Judy Bucko says, we are caught up from the pandemic. No third grade classes missed their dictionary in the chain. We completed the special Spring distribution of 550 dictionaries to 6 schools.

Chairperson Judy thanks all the Rotarians who can out to support and enlighten the students of Rotary's focus on Promoting Literacy.

The talks about Rotary changing the World were spirited and highly interactive. They enjoyed showing what they learned and they were eager to explore their new books and write their names in the cover.

We let them know we will be back in the Fall right back on schedule.

Gotwals

Hancock

Earth Day 2023

It was so much fun ! Noristown Area Girl Scout troops, community supporters and the Rotary Club of Norristown participated in Earth Day 2023 in Padden Park, West Norriton.

For Earth Day, we cleaned out the community garden, cleaned up debris, planted oxygenating trees, removed weeds, restored natural drainage, planted butterfly and insect pollinator friendly vegetation. Mulching is next. The scouts and their supporters donated 3 beautiful new trees and all planted many new annuals to bring color to the garden for our coming butterfly visitors. Come visit 2101 Oakland Drive behind the playground.

We are planning our June 15th Changeover picnic at the park.

The new brick planter fashions the familiar gear shape. Not intended to be official branding, the gear is convenient shape for a circular plater.

Scout, community and club supporters/member donated 3 trees for the garden park area. They are stunning trees elected properly for their location and use.

The girls had so much fun working together planting annuals.

Thanks to all our Rotarians who came out to help. Especially to Diane for all of her planning to make it a success.

Rain barrel to provide water for thirsty flowers and plants.

A Successful Day !!

DERRICK WOOD- NORRISTOWN CHIEF OF POLICE

Rotary Plays Cupid

Rotary Plays Cupid

The Rotary Club of Norristown played cupid to residents of the Montgomery Park Senior Housing Facility. The 50 unit site is the new low income housing facility at 1301 Powell Street former site of Montgomery Hospital. On Thursday 12/13, the club was greeted by Christie Jones, a social worker at the facility, who subsequently reached out to us and mentioned how "very grateful and happy they are and they've been calling". She said, "my residents truly appreciate it and it really made their day". Residents were given 56 bags containing items to show someone cares, such as a reusable mask, puzzle book, pen, note pad, Lysol wipes, hand sanitizer, body lotion, chapstick, chocolate Valentine heart, Rotary flyer and a valentine! Thanks to Denise Ashe and Judy Bucko for organizing this.

2020 Bell Ringers

Rotary Bell Ringers are out Helping the Salvation Army

Every year for the past nine or ten years The Norristown Rotary Club gives the Salvation Army seasonal bell ringers the day off and step in the weekend before Christmas. It is typically aa very large collection day and often the coldest day of the year also.

Normally the club collects at multiple doors at Walmart in Trooper. This year. Walmart was remodeling and had only one entrance.

So, Project Chair Judy Bucko arranged to collect at both Walmart in Trooper and Redner's in Audubon.

Also, retired Salvation Army Major Fred Hagglund and his wife Major Ruth Aston Hagglund brought their instruments and played during an extended shift and treated shoppers to Christmas Carols. Since we are experiencing a pandemic, the club was masked and observed social distancing guidelines. Also a gift containing hand sanitizer, gloves and a mask were distributed to the shoppers this year.

PATRICK WALSH-ELI WENGER- Catholic Social Services

At our meeting on September 24, we had two guest speakers from Norristown's Catholic Social Services, PATRICK WALSH and ELI WENGER. They came to give us an update on what the organization is doing currently in the community. Their area of concern is in food distribution to the people facing family hunger. They run a drive -thru service that distributes upwards of 350 famine packages a day . Catholic had just recently converted their food distribution to a 'choice' food market where client could choose the food items that fit their needs. With the onset of COVID-19 complications and increased demands, they had to streamline the operation and pass out pre-packaged food assortments to the stream of cars visiting their facility. They strive to maintain the relationship developing atmosphere that existed in the former set-up, but social distancing make that very difficult. What they stress , is that individuals they help, whether it be in hunger relief or other services, that what they have learned and help others in the community. They have reached about 6000 families each year.

Those interested in helping their efforts can contact them at http://www.catholicsocialservicesphilly.org

Thank you Patrick and Eli

We wish you the best in you efforts in this critical time.