Stories

Rotarians Learn about Benefits of Sam Johnson Recreation Center for Adults 50+

Posted on Sep 07, 2022

At our club’s Sep. 6 meeting, Supervisor Raney Krev spoke to Rotarians about the benefits of the Sam Johnson Recreation Center for Adults 50+. The center is located at 401 W. 16th Street in Plano, and is managed by Plano Parks and Recreation. It reopened in 2019 after extensive remodeling.

Raney shared all of the center’s offerings, including an expanded equipment room, a billiards lounge, coordinated day trips and affordable lunches. Membership is only $15 per year for Plano residents, and $25 per year for non-Plano residents. If a person already has a Plano Parks and Rec membership, access to the center is included, as long as that person is age 50 or older.

Speaker Raney Krev with President Joy Hinkelman:

During this meeting, President Joy Hinkelman had the pleasure of inducting our newest member to Plano West Rotary, Irvin Barrett.

Irvin was invited as a guest to one of our previous meetings by President-Elect Tamara Thomas. Irvin is a father of two children and also a student at two universities. He has been a pastor for more than 30 years, is running for public office and will be opening an insurance agency later this year.

New Rotarian Irvin Barrett (center) with Fred Bemenderfer and Michal Casavant:

Another exciting moment from the meeting: We welcomed Rotary Youth Exchange student, Olivia. She’s from France and will live with the family of Rotarian Roxana Iannarelli for the school year. More about Olivia to come soon to the blog!

Rotary Youth Exchange Olivia (at right) with Host Rotarian Roxana Iannarelli:

Plano West Rotary meets every Tuesday at noon at Norma’s Cafe at 605 W. 15th Street in Plano. Our Sept. 13 meeting will not have its usual speaker, but will instead have members and guests participating in a fun networking/icebreaker activity. Visitors are always welcome to join us.

Plano West Rotary Helps Provide 200 Backpacks to Collin County Students

Posted on Aug 07, 2022

On August 6 Plano West Rotary Club (PWRC) volunteers helped Jaxson Turner’s N2Y2C Charity stuff 200 brand-new backpacks with school supplies. The backpacks were distributed the next day to Collin County students.

Jaxson Turner is a local teen who started a 501c3 nonprofit when he was just 10 years old to help provide under-resourced individuals with food, clothing, holiday gifts, school supplies and more.

For several summers, Jaxson has raised funds through donations made at his lemonade stand to provide children from low-income families with school supplies, a new backpack and a back-to-school haircut — all completely free. But Jaxson let Plano West Rotary know that his team definitely could use more helping hands this year.

And PWRC got the job done! Service project organizer Jennifer Shertzer gathered 21 total volunteers, including Rotarians Courtney Hitt and Laura Johnson, to serve a total of 28 volunteer hours. Our club helped N2Y2C's team knock out the project in just 3.5 hours.

Plano Mayor John Muns with his wife, Joa Muns (at left):

Plano West’s support of N2Y2C’s backpack project contributes to Rotary’s focus on supporting education. When students show up for the first day of school with a new backpack, supplies and haircut (courtesy of Plano’s Elite Kutz barbershop), they have the tools to focus fully on their education and start the year off on the right foot.

The project also supports Rotary’s focus on growing local economies because parents, grandparents and guardians of the students can now redirect funds to other necessary items like clothing, food and housing.

Plano West Rotary makes it a priority to provide opportunities for all Plano citizens, and we were proud to have volunteers of diverse backgrounds and ages serving our community together at this event. Young children are always welcome to serve alongside their parents at our projects.

We would also like to thank Plano Police Department for the free use of their Wes Hardy Community Room for this event. A few Plano police officers even pitched in to help move supplies!

If you are interesting in volunteering in Plano, please visit our service projects page to sign up.

Jaxson Turner with the backpacks we stuffed (at right):

July 16 Service Project Keeps Avenue K Clean and Safe

Posted on Jul 25, 2022

Plano West Rotary Club once again showed our commitment to protecting the environment and keeping our city beautiful on July 16 when club volunteers cleaned up our assigned stretch of roadside along Avenue K in east Plano.

Six times a year our club members, led by service project coordinator Glen Thornton, don gloves and reflective vests and venture outside – no matter the temperatures – to pick up and discard roadside litter. This effort has been led by Glen for several years now as part of the city’s Adopt-a-Highway program.

The project reinforces Rotary’s focus on protecting the environment. Removing unwanted litter also keeps our residents, pedestrians and drivers more safe. And our club members feel a sense of pride in keeping this area of our city so clean.

On this particular Saturday it was extremely hot! A total of 10 volunteers faced near-100-degree temps to get the job done in two hours.

Rotarians that joined Glen included Alex Johnson (our immediate past-president), Laura Johnson, Fred Bemenderfer, Peter Niehaus and Mark Israelson. Peter and Mark are two of our newest Rotarians, having joined the club in June. Four community volunteers also joined the effort, two of which were teens.

The volunteers picked up 13 large bags of trash on this particular day. Way to go, Plano West Rotary!

If you're interested in helping with this project, the next clean-ups are scheduled for Sept. 17 and Nov. 19. Kids and teens are always welcome! Sign up here.

Plano West Joins All Plano Rotary Clubs to Bring Back Parades!

Posted on Jul 24, 2022

On July 4 Plano West Rotary Club members were honored to work together with members of the other Rotary clubs in Plano, Texas to bring back the city’s beloved holiday parades.

Since 2020 Plano’s July and December holiday parades have been put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Until that point the parades had been produced through a cooperative effort between Plano Early Lions Club, the City of Plano and Plano Independent School District.

Once it was time to bring the parades back in a safe way, the tradition needed a new organizer. The City of Plano approached Plano Rotarians to see if they were interested. The Rotary clubs in our area stepped up to the challenge and offered members to help organize the two parades each year. They will serve this role unified as the Rotary Clubs of Plano.

Rotarians from all of the Plano-area clubs:

This year’s Independence Day was the perfect time to ease into the tradition, as the City of Plano had already planned the All-American Fourth event at Collin College’s Spring Creek campus. Because it was a stationary, walk-through event, the Rotary Clubs of Plano hosted a stationary parade float.

Plano West Rotary’s current president, Joy Hinkelman, served on the steering committee to kick off the first Rotary-led event.

“Rotary International President Jennifer Jones encourages unity and partnership to make a larger impact. I feel that our continued collaboration with our fellow clubs is directly in line with this vision. While Plano West can do a great deal alone, joining with the other Plano Rotary clubs helps to make our impact on the community stronger,” said Joy.

Serving alongside Joy on July 4 were Plano West members Kelley Crimmins, Katherine Goodwin, Nadya Tatsch and Jitesh Mehta. Nadya even brought along her family to help.

Plano West Rotary President Joy Hinkelman at far left:

Our club members supported the event by manning the Rotary information table and spin-the-wheel game. The table allowed event attendees to ask questions and find out more about Rotary and our mission. This event also allowed our club members to honor the individuals who have served our country.

Joy said that fun and fellowship also played a part in our club’s decision to help with this event.

“When you consider how stressful and isolating the last two years have been, participating in the return of a time-honored Plano tradition makes sense, not just for Rotarians but for all of the citizens of Plano.”

Plano West Rotary Supports Collin County Juneteenth Celebration with 23 Volunteers

Posted on Jun 27, 2022

It was a very hot day! But that didn’t deter Plano West Rotary Club (PWRC) from supporting the Collin County Juneteenth Celebration in Plano’s Haggard Park on Saturday, June 18. Juneteenth is a federal U.S. holiday commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans.

Rotarians David Evans and Tamara Thomas co-organize the annual Juneteenth event through their own nonprofit organization, Douglass Visions Committee (DVC). PWRC was proud to support our club members David and Tamara as well as our Black community by lending many hands on Saturday.

Rotarians and event co-organizers Tamara Thomas and David Evans (left); Katherine Goodwin checking in Brett Moore:

PWRC sent 23 volunteers to help set up and break down the event. Volunteers also ran kids’ activities and made sure everyone was supplied with cold drinks throughout the day. Altogether our club’s volunteers served a total of 65.5 hours over four shifts during the day.

Service project organizer Laura Johnson led fellow Rotarians Katherine Goodwin, Jennifer Shertzer, Brett Moore, Rosolayn Johnson, John Stafford and Michael Casavant. Additional enthusiastic community volunteers also answered our club’s call to serve.

Several Rotarians brought along their children as volunteers. PWRC is lucky to have many service projects where kids can learn firsthand the value of serving their community.

By supporting the Juneteenth event, our club impacted Rotary’s focus on promoting peace and supporting education. The nonprofit DVC relies on volunteers to donate their time. By supplying enough volunteers to make a successful event, our club helped attendees learn the historical importance of Juneteenth and its continued significance in our community.

Supporting the event also allowed visitors to be educated on city and nonprofit services that included resources for education, health, Autism, COVID-19 and more. Visitors also shopped from booths owned by local businesses. This supports Rotary’s focus on fighting disease and growing local economies.

Serve with us! Donate a few hours to making our community even better. Find a project that suits your passions here.

Plano West Rotary Serves 69,335 Pounds and 1,840 Boxes of Food with Plano ISD

Posted on Jun 24, 2022

On May 23 Plano West Rotary Club (PWRC) concluded its year-long efforts to assist Plano Independent School District (ISD) with drive-through meal distributions to Plano ISD families experiencing food insecurities.

The distributions occurred at three Plano ISD campuses – Armstrong Middle School, Bowman Middle School and Rowlinson Community Natatorium (next door to Williams High School).

PWRC service project leaders Katherine Goodwin and James Thomas:

The North Texas Food Bank provided the food for the distributions at Armstrong Middle School. Every family received 15 pounds of fresh produce and 20 pounds of shelf-stable items such as pasta, pasta sauce, tuna, vegetables, fruit, juice, rice, beans and cereal.

Minnie’s Food Pantry, in collaboration with PlanoUp, a program proactively serving at-risk youth that is funded by a Texas Health Resources grant, provided the food for the distributions at Bowman Middle School and Rowlinson Community Natatorium. Every family received a box of shelf-stable items similar to the Armstrong drive-throughs.

At each campus, our volunteers helped gather and organize food items for each family, assisting Plano ISD staff, parent liaisons, and in some cases the members of another service organization. Volunteers also communicated with drivers and placed food boxes inside vehicles as they moved through the line.

Katherine Goodwin with Armstrong parent liason Kattia Prado Saenz:

Making a Great Impact on Plano Families

PWRC’s service project lasted 10 months, from August 2021 through May 2022, with club volunteers attending two or three meal distributions per month, for a total of 28 unique dates of service. Our club’s volunteers served a total of 123.5 hours throughout the 2021-2022 school year!

The impact of the meal distributions was substantial. On average, 411 families per month received food.

The year-end total of food distributed at Armstrong was 69,335 pounds. The year-end total for Bowman and Rowlinson was a combined 1,840 boxes of food. The overall total value of food distributed over the 10-month period was $166,120.

Rotarians James Thomas, also a Plano ISD employee, and Katherine Goodwin, a longtime Plano ISD volunteer, served as this project’s leaders every month, and this came right after they led meal distributions throughout the summer months of 2021. In addition to behind-the-scenes work, Katherine and James were present at nearly every one of the 28 food distributions over the past school year.

Plano West Rotary members that also served this project included Jenelle Berry-Cook, Mollie Hancock, Roxanna Iannarelli, Isabel Segovia, Jo’anna Snowden, Fred Bemenderfer, John Stafford, Marty James, Brian Joseph and Jennifer Shertzer. Many non-Rotarians from the community served as well.

These drive-through meal distributions support two of Rotary’s Areas of Focus: growing local economies and supporting education.

Our volunteers helped Plano ISD provide families with healthier meals, allowing those families to reallocate the dollars saved toward other living expenses. Alleviating food insecurity also proactively helps youth who might be at risk for depression and anxiety, according to a Plano ISD June 2021 press release. And students who go to school hungry are statistically less likely to learn as well in class. Our volunteers being there also meant more Plano ISD staff were able to direct their attention to working with students or on other necessary tasks instead of assisting with the meal distributions.

Our club looks forward to helping Plano ISD with food distributions again at the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year. “With the prices of everything going up, especially food, this kind of support will be essential to helping our students and families make educational and economic progress,” said Katherine.

Everyone is welcome to volunteer with Plano West Rotary, including non-Rotarians. Sign up for our Lovepacs food drive supporting Plano students, or another service project, here.

Plano West Rotary Delivers Furniture June 11 to Families in Need

Posted on Jun 15, 2022

On June 11 Plano West Rotary Club (PWRC) volunteers arrived bright and early at the Bed Start parking lot across from Plano’s Custer Road United Methodist Church to deliver furniture to local families in need.

This was our club’s eighth time to volunteer with Bed Start, a nonprofit organization that delivers mattresses, bed frames and other large household furnishings to Dallas and Collin County residents in poverty or crisis. These families often include single parents with children, CPS cases, military veterans, domestic abuse survivors and immigrants.

On this particular Saturday PWRC brought 11 volunteers and served a total of 37 hours. Our crew picked up furniture from a few households in Plano and delivered it to households in north Dallas.

Jennifer Shertzer led the efforts as this project’s coordinator for PWRC, and was joined by Rotarians Brett Moore, Michael Casavant, John Stafford and Julia Stafford. Community volunteers Luke Shertzer, Michelle Hawkins, David Rankin, Everett Rankin and Pryce Rankin also joined the crew.

Brett brought his six-year-old son, Alexander, along with him. Alexander helped lift and assemble some items, and he played ball with a son from one of the families served. It’s never too early to show your children the value of community service.

All ages are welcome to serve at PWRC’s service projects. Minors under 14 must bring a parent with them to volunteer.

This project falls in line with Rotary’s focus on providing clean water, sanitation and hygiene, as well as saving mothers and children. Both of the families we delivered to included multiple young children who had all been sleeping and eating on the floor. We were able to provide them with furniture so the family could live cleaner and more comfortably. We also provided the physical manpower to bring large items to them, to move these items into their houses, and to assemble the bed frames.

PWRC hopes to enrich the lives of our neighbors through Rotary’s motto, “Service Above Self.” Anyone can join us one day a month to roll up their sleeves and spend a few hours helping deliver much-needed items. No one will ever be asked to carry anything they feel uncomfortable lifting, and there are lighter items such as bedding and lamps for volunteers with limited mobility.

Future delivery dates include June 29 and July 9. Sign up here.

Wellness Center for Older Adults Shares Helpful Information at Club Meeting

Posted on May 24, 2022

At Plano West Rotary Club's meeting on May 24, Nora Gravois from the Wellness Center for Older Adults spoke to our members. Nora shared helpful information on the services and resources that the center provides to senior adults for healthy living in Collin County – and many are free!

Most of our Rotarians are already familiar with the Wellness Center, as its executive director is Joy Hinkelman, our incoming club president on July 1. Joy also shared a little bit more about her family and background as part of our weekly features on members and their vocations.

Our club was joined by several visitors today. Modou Lamin M. Camara was a visiting Rotarian from Gambia! David Rankin, Iro Omere and Michael Casavantes also joined as guests.

Visitors are always welcome at our meetings every Tuesday at noon at Norma's Cafe in Plano or on Zoom.

Plano West Rotary Commits to Keeping Plano Litter-Free

Posted on May 23, 2022

The next time you’re driving down Avenue K in east Plano, you can thank Plano West Rotary Club (PWRC) for the clean stretch of roadside you’re traveling on.

On May 14 PWRC members Glen and Michelle Thornton were joined by two community volunteers to spend a couple hours picking up litter alongside Avenue K between Spring Creek Parkway and Parker Road. Seven bags of debris are now properly disposed of instead of harming the environment.

For several years PWRC has cleaned this roadside area bimonthly as part of the city’s Adopt-a-Highway project, and Glen has led the charge each time. A blue sign proudly bearing our club’s name is visible for all to see – a sign of our commitment to the Plano community.

Protecting the environment is an area of focus for Rotary. PWRC’s commitment to bringing volunteers every other month means that less taxpayer dollars are spent keeping the area next to the road clean and free of trash. This creates a safer roadway for drivers, and also inspires our club to be prouder of our city.

An additional bonus is that we regularly have youth volunteers join us for this project. Students learn firsthand the reward of putting in hard work as a service to your community. This truly demonstrates Rotary’s motto of “service above self” in action. Some students are also able to earn volunteering hours for school programs.

Our club will host another Avenue K clean-up in July. Check our Service Projects page to sign up, or find another volunteer opportunity of interest.

Plano West Rotary Supports Asian Community at Plano Asiafest

Posted on May 20, 2022

Plano Asiafest is an annual celebration of Asian culture, showcasing Asian music, food, clothing, art, performance and more. The annual festival helps all Plano residents better understand and appreciate our Asian neighbors, and it promotes peace and goodwill within our community.

Promoting peace is an area of focus for Rotary, and Plano West Rotary Club (PWRC) volunteers were honored to support Plano Asiafest in downtown Plano’s Haggard Park on May 7.

The nonprofit Celebrating Asian American Heritage Foundation (CAAHF) organizes the festival every year, but does not have paid staff to run the festival. It depends on the hard work of volunteers to pull off such a large event.

Morning volunteers:

PWRC committed to bringing a substantial number of volunteers for the event’s busiest times: setting up and breaking down. Volunteers arrived early in the morning to move tables and chairs to the appropriate spots around the park, and then secured tablecloths to the tables. In the afternoon, our volunteers moved tables and chairs back to the loading area for the rental truck. Tablecloths and area trash were picked up and discarded to leave the park cleaner than we found it.

PWRC brought 15 people to work, serving a combined 28 hours in one day.

Rotarian Courtney Hitt served as team lead for this service project. Courtney has ample previous experience with the arts and nonprofits in Plano as the previous chairperson for the Plano Cultural Affairs Commission.

Serving with Courtney were Rotarians Jennifer Shertzer, Laura Johnson, Katherine Goodwin, John Stafford, Nadya Tatsch, Zain Kalson and Brett Moore.

Our club is lucky to have members from the community join us at nearly every service project we do. Non-Rotarians Ivy S., Christy G., Lawrence F., David H., Vika T., Angela T., and Rohit I. also rolled up their sleeves that day.

“Rotary played a crucial role in helping Plano AsiaFest be a success!” said CAAHF president Jeffrey Wang. “This was first time we had a really smooth early morning setup,” noted CAAHF board member Feroz Alpaiwalla.

“Getting to serve our community in a fun atmosphere made this project really special. This is one of the biggest events of the year, and without the help of many volunteers it simply wouldn’t be possible. Hearing this from the event organizers themselves really put into perspective how vital the assistance from Plano West Rotary Club was,” said Courtney.

Afternoon volunteers with CAAHF President Jeffrey Wang (at far left):

Plano Asiafest also supports Rotary’s focus on growing local economies. It enables local vendors and businesses to set up and sell their goods.

Way to go, Plano West Rotary, to show how #planoserves! This was our first year to support Plano Asiafest, but we are looking forward to next year already.

We always welcome the community to join us in volunteering at an upcoming service project in Plano. Check out our Service Projects page to sign up.

DXC Technology Serves Local Students at Plano West Rotary’s Meal Distributions

Posted on May 18, 2022

On May 17 members of Plano West Rotary Club (PWRC) were thrilled to be joined by employees from DXC Technology at our meal distribution service project at Armstrong Middle School in east Plano. Twenty DXC employees from all over the U.S. helped our club pack meal boxes and distribute to families as a team-building initiative during their leadership conference in Plano.

For this entire school year, PWRC has assisted Plano Independent School District three times a month with drive-through meal distributions to Plano ISD students and their families at three campuses. These meal distributions help alleviate food insecurity among our community's underserved families. Our volunteers’ help allows Plano ISD teachers and staff to remain focused on their jobs.

On this specific day, Armstrong teachers had conducted STAAR testing all day, and Principal Melissa Blank thanked the volunteers for allowing the teachers to go home at the end of a long day rather than having to distribute meals in the hot sun for another hour.

Armstrong Principal Melissa Blank with a DXC volunteer and James Thomas (left); Katherine Goodwin with Armstrong parent liason Kattia Prado Saenz (right):

DXC Technology volunteers were led by project organizers James Thomas and Katherine Goodwin. James and Katherine have attended every food distribution throughout the 2021-2022 school year.

Thank you, DXC, for serving Plano students and their families!

Everyone is invited to join PWRC in serving the Plano and North Texas community. Sign up here for a service project that meets your passions.

Guests Welcomed at Our Weekly Meetings in Plano or Online

Posted on May 17, 2022

Plano West Rotary Club (PWRC) meets every Tuesday at noon at Norma’s Cafe at 605 W. 15th Street in Plano. At today’s meeting, our president-nominee, Tamara Thomas, who plans to step up as club president in 2023, took a practice turn at leading our combination in-person/virtual meetings.

President-nominee Tamara Thomas:

Instead of an informative speaker at today’s meeting, our club members and guests enjoyed a fun networking activity developed by membership chair Roxana Iannarelli.

Our youngest Rotarian, Julia Lin, who just completed her freshman year studying at UT Austin, was happy to attend her first in-person meeting in two years.

We also welcomed several guests today. Assistant District Governor Keith Mankin joined us to give a special announcement that the winner of the District 5810’s four-way test speech contest was Madhalasa Iyer, the student who also won first place in the Plano West club-level speech contest.

Assistant District Governor Keith Mankin with Rotarian Julia Lin:

From the Boys & Girls Clubs of Collin County, Brandi Lewis, Senior Director of Partner Impact, and Yemishtha Rutnam, VP of Development, joined our meeting.

We also welcomed two visitors from the current Leadership Plano Class 38, Michael Casavant and Cassandra Shead. Iro Omere and Julie Holmer, a current Plano city council member, joined as well.

Anyone who cannot make it to an in-person meeting is welcome to join us online through Zoom at this link.

Club networking (left); President Alex Johnson and President-nominee Tamara Thomas welcomed visitors (right):

Plano West Rotary Club Offering Scholarships for Local Students

Posted on Apr 28, 2022

Plano West Rotary Club members believe in investing in the development of youth, as well as supporting education, which is one of Rotary’s Areas of Focus. Our club’s members take pleasure each year in serving the Plano community by awarding scholarships to assist students in continuing their education.

This year Plano West Rotary Club is offering six $1,000 scholarships to high school seniors, college students and single parents who will be continuing their education. Eligible individuals must currently live in Plano, attend a school in Plano or attend a Plano ISD school.

This scholarship will be awarded based on three criteria: community service, leadership and financial need. This is not an academic-based scholarship.

“Plano West Rotary Club is dedicated to service above self. One of our goals is to assist those who are preparing for the future by obtaining an education. If we can help a graduating senior, a single parent, a college student or a trade school student toward their future, then we are helping our society and our world,” said Dr. Tamara Thomas, the scholarship chair for PWRC.

The scholarship application deadline is Friday, May 6, 2022 at 11:59pm. Interviews will take place on Saturday, May 21, 2022.

Interested individuals can apply here.

Plano West Rotary Club Leads Multi-Club Adoption Awareness Fair to Help Foster Children Find Forever Families

Posted on Apr 28, 2022

On March 19 all six Rotary clubs in Plano worked cooperatively to support children who have been placed in foster care by hosting an Adoption Awareness Fair that allowed the kids to meet potential adoptive parents in a playful setting. The large event was held in a Plano church and coordinated by Plano West Rotary Club’s Michelle and Glen Thornton, both past presidents of the club.

At the Adoption Fair, almost 50 children ages three to 17 who currently live in foster care were invited by Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (TDFPS) to participate in a day of fun and games led by Rotarians and community volunteers. TDFPS also invited carefully selected adults who are interested in adopting to participate in the fair as well. This allowed for observation, interactions and relationship-building between the children and adults.

Michelle and Glen planned 22 different activities the kids could do, including playing basketball, Connect 4 and minute-to-win-it games. The kids could also decorate cupcakes, visit a gaming truck, pot their own plant, see the inside of a Plano Fire-Rescue truck, check out a Plano Police Department vehicle and much more. As they marked off each activity on their checklist, each child could choose from a large array of prizes.

From left to right: Co-organizers Michelle and Glen Thornton; Members Jo’Anna Snowden and Roxanna Iannarelli with Roxanna's daughter Isabella at the plant-potting station

Snacks, drinks and treats — including snow cones and popcorn — were provided, as well as breakfast and a hot lunch. The event was no cost to the children or adults.

Multiple volunteers commented on the success of the event, and observed that the children all seemed to have a good time, taking advantage of everything there was to do.

Every service project that Rotarians undertake should fall under one of Rotary’s six areas of focus. The Adoption Awareness Fair supports Rotary’s focus on saving the lives of women and children. It is the hope that this event begins the process that leads to children being matched with a nurturing family in a stable home.

Rotary is also about bringing people together to make positive change in their community. This service project demonstrated the monumental effect clubs can have when working together.

From left to right: PWRC volunteer Velavan Murugan with our President-Elect Joy Hinkelman and District 5810 Governor-Elect Howard Templin; Michelle Owen and Plano Senior High School Interact Club members led cupcake decorating

All six Rotary clubs in Plano contributed to making this project a success. Plano West, Plano East, Plano Metro, Plano Sunrise and North Texas Pioneers donated volunteers and physical supplies. Plano Rotary Club donated approximately a quarter of the funds needed for the fair.

Members of Plano West Rotary Club that assisted Michelle and Glen included Roxanna Iannarelli, Jo'anna Snowden, LaShon Ross, Joy Hinkelman, Fred Bemenderfer, Tara Bidwell, Steve Lauten, Ike Kalson, Laura Johnson, Jennifer Shertzer and Brett Moore.

Additional volunteers included members of Dallas Rotary Club, Royse City Rotary Club, Plano Senior High Interact Club, Plano Community Rotaract Club and Christ United Methodist Church. TDFPS also contributed several staff members to the event.

Altogether 75 volunteers put time into this project, totaling a cumulative 375 hours. Donated funds totaled $1,550, and donated supplies were valued at $250, for a grand total of $1,800 in donations.

From left to right: Plano Metro Rotary volunteers made snow cones; North Texas Pioneers Rotary Club led a cake walk

The Adoption Awareness Fair in Rotary District 5810 began about 20 years ago, and has moved around to a few different cities within the district since then. Unfortunately the Collin County adoption awareness event was canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The fair’s lead contact at TDFPS, Laqueena Warren, was happy to see it return this year.

“Words can’t express how much [TDFPS] and our precious children appreciate you and your entire team. The children seemed to have so much fun!” Laqueena said.

For Michelle and Glen, this project was personal. “Ever since Glen and I participated in the Grand Prairie Adoption Awareness fairs prior to 2018, and were subsequently invited by TDFPS to have an additional District 5810 event in Collin County, we have wanted to be a part of this program. Glen was adopted so this project is near and dear to his heart, as it is to other volunteers who have told us their adoption stories. Even if only one child from our event was adopted into a forever family, it would be worth it!”

If you are looking to get involved in a service project that meets one of your passions, please visit our Service Projects page and sign up to serve with us.

If interested in serving at next year’s Collin County Adoption Awareness Fair, mark your calendar for March 25, 2023.

Plano West Rotary’s Four-Way Test Speech Contest Awards Three Student Scholarships

Posted on Apr 15, 2022

Plano West Rotary Club (PWRC) members believe in investing in the development of youth, as well as supporting their education, which is one of Rotary’s Areas of Focus. One way the club accomplishes this is by awarding scholarships to local high school students who excel in the preparation and delivery of a speech based on Rotary’s Four-Way Test.

Created by Rotarian Herbert J. Taylor in 1932, and adopted by Rotary International in 1943, the Four-Way Test asks four ethical questions about the things that Rotarians think, say and do:

Is it the truth?
Is it fair to all concerned?
Will it build goodwill and better friendships?
Will it be beneficial to all concerned?

PWRC’s speech contest is actually part of a larger series of contests. First, all students in Plano ISD are invited to participate in the All-Plano Four-Way Test Speech Contest. To be eligible, each student must write an original speech of 5-7 minutes in length, applying the Four-Way Test to an issue in their everyday relationships.

On March 26 the All-Plano contest took place at Plano Senior High. Community members Kelley Thomas, Mary Jacobs and David Adams served as judges. Students ranking in the top 12 were then divided to participate in contests led by Plano West, Plano Sunrise, Plano East and Plano Metro Rotary Clubs based on their availability and which Interact Club they are associated with.

Judges Kelley Thomas, Mary Jacobs and David Adams

On March 29 three students presented their speeches at the Plano West Rotary contest. The same three judges gave their time. The students spoke on issues that mattered to them, covering social media, bullying and extra-curricular classes.

Ayan Sharma placed third, winning $100. Ravi Pitta placed second, winning $150. Madhalassa Iyer placed first, scooping up $250 and also qualifying to move on to the third speech contest – District 5810’s contest. The first-place winner there receives a $1,000 scholarship.

Altogether nine volunteers served a total of 45 hours for this project. Our club also donated $585 toward the scholarships, which included the $85 registration fee for our first-place winner to attend the District 5810 contest.

Beginning in January, club member Julia Lin took charge of planning both the All-Plano and PWRC speech contests. While also a full-time student at University of Texas in Austin, Julia coordinated logistics of the event days, helped advertise the contest to solicit competitors and rounded up judges. Fellow Rotarian and college student Zain Kalson took over the in-person duties here in Plano on both event days, and Rotarian Glen Thornton also assisted.

This is a service project close to Julia for personal reasons. Last year she was the winner of the PWRC and All-District speech contests while she was still a student in the Plano Senior High Interact Club. Impressively she also helped co-organize the contests last year.

“Students have voices, and we should listen to them. Their message is important, and we want to support them by listening and providing scholarships so they can achieve their goals,” said Julia.

Cooking Up Funnel Cakes, Funds and Fun at Texas Forever Fest!

Posted on Mar 30, 2022

In addition to the myriad service projects our club members participate in every month, Plano West Rotary Club (PWRC) holds a few fundraising projects throughout the year. Funds raised in the past have helped benefit charitable efforts in our community, such as awarding local student scholarships and supporting nonprofit organizations.

On March 26, PWRC sold funnel cakes at the first Texas Forever Fest as a club fundraiser. Texas Forever Fest was organized by the City of Plano and held in Downtown Plano’s Haggard Park. The sheer joy of being at a large gathering after two years of the COVID-19 pandemic was written on the smiling faces of nearly every attendee.

Our club has cooked and sold funnel cakes at the annual Plano Balloon Festival for many years, so we already had the equipment and expertise to get the job done. PWRC was lucky to have Rotarians Mike Walker and Fred Bemenderfer step up to lead this year’s efforts, as both were instrumental to the success of funnel cake sales in the past.

Mike and Fred made sure that the existing supplies — including the large deep-fryer — in our club’s storage area were transported to the festival grounds. They also purchased newer necessary items and set up the vendor booth. On the day of the festival, nine additional volunteers joined in to help make the event a success.

Rotarians Jo’anna Snowden, Jennifer Shertzer, Katherine Goodwin, Isabel Ann Segovia and John Stafford helped mix batter, make funnel cakes in the deep-fryer, add powdered sugar and cinnamon, serve guests, and accept cash and credit card payments. PWRC was happy to have community volunteers Thomas, Indra, Adrienne and Velavan serve with us at the morning shift. At the end of the day, several volunteers broke down the tent and loaded everything back into storage.

Incoming PWRC President Joy Hinkelman said to our volunteers, “Individually, each of you are amazing. Together we are a truly unstoppable force! It is my honor to be involved with such an awesome group of giving souls.”

The event made a considerable profit, and was considered a win for our club. Way to go, Plano West Rotary!

Rotarians and non-Rotarians are always invited to serve with us at a future project. Sign up here.

Plano West Rotary Serves Vulnerable Neighbors at Plano Overnight Warming Shelter

Posted on Mar 24, 2022

On four days this past January and February, Plano West Rotary Club (PWRC) members served as volunteers at the Plano Overnight Warming Station (POWS) located in the East Plano Salvation Army.

POWS was started several years ago as a collaborative effort between the Collin County Homeless Coalition, Salvation Army, City of Plano, Plano Police and area churches. The warming station opens as an emergency shelter when temperatures drop below freezing, and it primarily serves neighbors who are unhoused or without adequate shelter against the elements.

Project leader Courtney Hitt served alongside fellow Rotarian Jennifer Shertzer as well as community volunteer Anjelica Solano. Dates worked by our club included Jan. 21, Feb. 2, Feb. 17 and Feb. 23. Altogether a total of 33.5 hours were served by PWRC.

PWRC volunteers served a variety of roles depending on what was needed each night. Our three volunteers took turns distributing the rules and resources at the Information Table; checking wristbands and handing out bedding at the Bedding Station; helping guests find clothing and hygiene items in the Clothing Closet; and greeting and directing guests upon arrival to the warming station.

This service project supports Rotary’s focus on providing clean water, sanitation and hygiene. Many guests arrive to POWS in soiled clothing and have not had access to a shower or clean clothing in quite a while. Our volunteers are able to help offer a safe, warm shelter as well as a cot, clean bedding, homemade food, clean clothing, a hot shower, hygiene items and other helpful resources.

Although many consider Collin County and Plano affluent, there is a real need for this type of service. According to the Salvation Army, POWS was open on 12 of the 28 nights in February and served a cumulative total of 1,339 guests. The average nightly head count in February was 112.

Although POWS has been operating for several years, this is Plano West Rotary’s first year as an official partner providing recurring trained volunteers. Our club hopes that more Rotarians and community volunteers will sign up for the short training next fall so they are ready to serve when temperatures being to drop in November or December. The average evening shift is four hours or less, and there are daytime set-up and break-down jobs available for volunteers who prefer to stay socially distant.

When there aren’t enough volunteers signed up to serve, the shelter cannot open. Guests risk their lives when they have to sleep outdoors without shelter on freezing nights.

POWS guests constantly reiterate their appreciation for our service. As reported in the Plano Overnight Warming Station newsletter, one guest said, “Thank you for volunteering. You could be at home where it's warm, sitting on your couch watching TV instead of coming out in the cold to be with us. You being here means a lot."

POWS is always in need of clothing or financial donations. For more information on making a donation or getting trained to serve, email PWRC project leader Courtney Hitt.

“POWS impacts us as volunteers in numerous ways. Serving others in need is exactly why I joined Rotary!” said Courtney.

Find a volunteer opportunity that suits your particular passions here.

Richardson and Arlington Sunrise Rotarians Visit Plano West’s March 15 Meeting

Posted on Mar 20, 2022

Members of Plano West Rotary Club (PWRC) were honored to have three visiting Rotarians join us at our March 15 weekly meeting at Norma’s Cafe in Plano.

Rebecca Poynter and Ginger Mayo joined us from Richardson Rotary, and Andrew Walley joined us from Arlington Sunrise Rotary. Two of our guests had previously met club member Tamara Thomas at a training, who in turn invited them. At our meeting, they were able to enjoy an informative presentation from Mona Kafeel, the executive director of Texas Muslim Women's Foundation.

Visitors are always welcome to join us at our weekly meetings for lunch, fellowship and the chance to hear an interesting speaker. In fact, that is one of the perks of having more than 46,000 Rotary clubs around the world – Rotarians are welcome at meetings in any location around the world. Non-Rotarians are always welcome at PWRC meetings and service projects, too.

We meet every Tuesday at noon in the private dining room inside Norma’s Cafe at 605 W. 15th Street in Plano. We also live-stream our meetings on our club’s Facebook page.

Furniture Delivery Provides Beds and Hope to Families in Financial Need

Posted on Mar 04, 2022

For the past several months Plano West Rotary Club (PWRC) members have continued supporting Bed Start in its mission to provide beds, mattresses and other large home furnishings to local families experiencing great financial need.

Bed Start is a North Texas-based nonprofit that helps individuals in poverty, crisis and/or financial need by providing household furnishings at no cost. Individuals helped by Bed Start have included veterans, single parents, domestic violence victims, refugees, child protective service cases and more.

Bed Start volunteers go out twice a week year-round to pick up donated furnishings and deliver those items to households in Plano and surrounding cities. Since November PWRC has committed to helping one Saturday a month, inviting volunteers to roll up their sleeves to work on just one of the multiple crews that go out. Our club is especially grateful to Bed Start's Doug Nickols and Bill Brunken for helping facilitate this project with PWRC.

From December through February, our club sent 22 volunteers that put in 85 collective hours of work on just three Saturdays! Volunteers are only asked to stay until 10 a.m. but many of them generously stay until 11 a.m. or noon to complete the job. Our crew picks up and delivers on average $2,000 worth of gently used home furnishings to two or three households per Saturday.

Jennifer Shertzer is the PWRC lead for this service project, and she has been joined by Rotarians Isabel Segovia, John Stafford, Julia Stafford, Tara Bidwell and Kelley Crimmins alongside community volunteers in the past three months. Laura Johnson has arrived early multiple Saturdays to assist with registration as well.

PWRC is directly serving Rotary’s focus on providing better sanitation and hygiene as well as helping save mothers and children.

Every household served so far included families with multiple small children and sometimes also grandparents, all who have been sleeping on the floor, on air mattresses, on soiled mattresses or with multiple individuals sharing one bed for many months. In addition these families rarely have any other furnishings, and have been eating, doing homework and spending all their time together on the floor.

Consistently PWRC has served families who said they’ve fled the economic and political crisis in Venezuela. These individuals arrive in Texas with nothing except their clothing and whatever sentimental items they can fit in suitcases.

Bed Start and PWRC provide these families with beds, clean mattresses, sofas, dressers, dining room tables, chairs and more. In December our crew was able to provide one family with a Christmas tree and decorations. The children excitedly assembled and decorated it while volunteers worked. Volunteers also work together to move heavy furniture which would be nearly impossible for some of these families to do alone. Often the recipients are right there carrying items alongside our volunteers.

The impact of this project is immediately seen and deeply felt by all volunteers who assist. “We are greatly improving these residents’ quality of life by providing furniture, but we are also helping to restore their confidence. For the residents who have come from other countries, we make them feel welcome here. The gratitude and love just pours out of them. There are always hugs all around when we leave a home,” said project lead Jennifer Shertzer.

PWRC hopes to enrich the lives of our neighbors through Rotary’s motto, “Service Above Self.” Anyone can join us one Saturday a month to roll up their sleeves and spend a few hours helping deliver much-needed household items. No one will ever be asked to carry anything they feel uncomfortable lifting, and there are lighter items such as bedding and lamps for volunteers with limited mobility.

Future delivery dates include March 19, April 9 and May 14. Sign up here.

This story also shared on Bed Start's website.

Plano West Rotary Club Supports Plano ISD Students with Meal Distributions

Posted on Mar 03, 2022

Plano West Rotary Club (PWRC) is continuing its steadfast support of Plano Independent School District’s 2021-2022 school-year meal distributions that help feed local students and their families.

The numbers from the November, December, January and February distributions are in. At 11 events over those four months, PWRC volunteers assisted Plano ISD staff with providing 27,055 pounds of fresh produce and pantry items, and 620 boxes of pantry items to families. An average of 370 families per month were served.

See the numbers from August through October here.

Rotarians James Thomas, also a Plano ISD employee, and Katherine Goodwin, a longtime Plano ISD volunteer, have continued to serve every month as leaders of this service project. They have led club members Isabel Segovia, Joanna Snowden, Fred Bemenderfer, John Stafford, Marty James, Brian Joseph and several other community volunteers in serving 60 hours altogether these past four months.

The distributions occur once a month at three Plano campuses – Armstrong Middle School, Bowman Middle School and Rowlinson Community Natatorium (next door to Williams High School). Minnie’s Food Bank and North Texas Food Bank (NTFB) provide the food for these events.

At the March 1 club meeting, NTFB CEO Trisha Cunningham thanked our club for our help feeding hungry North Texans, stating that Collin County has the second-highest number of food-insecure residents in the large area the food bank serves. Within that area, one out of every five children are food-insecure. Our club is directly helping to alleviate that problem.

These drive-through meal distributions also support two of Rotary’s Areas of Focus: growing local economies and supporting education.

“By providing for the nutritional needs of students, we are ensuring the students better health, attendance and performance at school. Additionally, the value of the meals enables families to reallocate the dollars saved towards other living expenses. A healthier and better-educated population leads to growth in local economies,” said Katherine.

If your passion is supporting students, teachers or local underserved families, you can always volunteer at our meal distribution projects even if you’re not a member of PWRC. Upcoming distributions are March 22, 24 and 28. Sign up to serve here.

Plano West Rotary Club Cleans Alongside Avenue K Jan. 29

Posted on Feb 25, 2022

On Jan. 29 Plano West Rotary Club (PWRC) members and volunteers spent a Saturday afternoon working together to clean up litter in the area alongside Avenue K. This stretch of roadside between Spring Creek Parkway and Parker Road in Plano has been adopted by our club for the past four years through the City’s Adopt-a-Highway program.

Club member and past-president Glen Thornton leads the bimonthly efforts, and this month he joined nine others including PWRC members Michelle Thornton, Laura Johnson, Joy Hinkelman and John Stafford, along with a handful of non-Rotary volunteers.

Altogether 20 volunteer hours were served on this day, contributing directly toward Rotary’s focus on protecting the environment, and helping keep Plano the City of Excellence.

Our club has several volunteer opportunities coming up in the next few weeks, including distributing boxed meals with Plano ISD, delivering furniture to families in financial need, working an adoption fair, selling funnel cakes at the Texas Forever Fest and more. As always, non-Rotarians are welcome to serve with us! Find an opportunity that fits your passion here.

PWRC Serves Neighbors Experiencing Homelessness at Plano Overnight Warming Shelter

Posted on Jan 14, 2022

On Jan. 2 and 9, Plano West Rotary Club (PWRC) members assisted neighbors who are experiencing homelessness by serving at the Plano Overnight Warming Shelter (POWS). On each cold evening, approximately 40 individuals sought overnight refuge at the shelter which is located inside east Plano’s Salvation Army.

POWS is a cooperative effort by City of Plano, the Collin County Homeless Coalition, The Salvation Army and local churches and nonprofit organizations. When weather conditions reach freezing temperatures overnight, POWS is activated at sundown, allowing any neighbors in need to have a warm place to sleep for the evening, as well as a meal, access to the coat closet and a hot shower.

Rotarian Courtney Hitt is the team leader for the POWS project. Earlier in the fall she recruited PWRC volunteers for the shelter, coordinated training sessions with The Salvation Army and kept volunteers informed as they moved through the process of getting ready to serve.

On the evening of Jan. 2, club member Jennifer Shertzer served three hours at POWS, distributing bedding to overnight guests after they checked in. On the evening of Jan. 9, both Jennifer and Courtney served a total of seven hours at POWS. Courtney helped guests select a coat, gloves, winter hat and any hygiene items needed from the coat closet. Jennifer checked wristbands on guests and provided them with rules and resources before sending them to the bedding station.

Before serving, Jennifer and Courtney shopped for new coats, thermal undergarments and gloves purchased with their own funds and additional donations from generous neighbors. Altogether $560 was spent on brand-new items to donate to the POWS coat closet for the guests to choose from. Many guests arrived with inadequate clothing for the cold weather, and these items can be lifesaving.

“The expression of gratitude from these people who are normally very happy to receive a used coat was wonderful. The look however on their faces as they received a new coat with the tags freshly removed was incredible!” said Courtney.

Serving at POWS allows PWRC to fulfill Rotary’s focus on providing clean water, sanitation and hygiene. Most of the overnight guests have not had access to clean bedding, a shower or hygiene products in a considerable amount of time.

Our club’s volunteers are able to live out the Rotary mission of “service above self” by also making the overnight guests feel welcome, having a conversation with them, and letting them know there are neighbors and organizations here in Plano that care for their welfare.

“We have a houseless and housing-insecure population in Plano, Texas. These aren't people from surrounding areas that are coming to stay in our overnight warming stations,” explained Courtney. “Just under nearly a year ago [during the February 2021 winter storm], many of us were forced to turn to [a warming station] resource we thought we would never have to utilize. I want people to know that the need for something like this is great, as is the need for people to volunteer.”

There will likely be several more freezing nights in Plano before spring arrives. PWRC is looking for more people – both Rotarians and not – to become trained to work the POWS when needed.

To get information on a future POWS training date, please email Courtney Hitt. If you are interested in serving with Plano West Rotary Club on a different project that fulfills your interests, please check out our upcoming service projects here.

Dec. 18 Holiday Concessions Sales Raise Funds for The Rotary Foundation

Posted on Dec 27, 2021

On the evening of Dec. 18, members of Plano West Rotary Club (PWRC) attended Lights on the Farm, which doubled as both a service project and fundraiser. Lights on the Farm is a family-friendly holiday lights event produced by Plano’s Heritage Farmstead Museum.

Jennifer Shertzer was PWRC’s team leader, and Rotarians Laura Johnson and John Stafford worked alongside four other community volunteers that our club recruited to staff the hot cocoa and s’mores stands. Our volunteers handled cash and credit card transactions, as well as prepared hot cocoa for guests, and served guests with their s’mores-making kits. Seven people served a total of 28.25 hours.

Rotarians also urged guests to leave tips which will be donated to The Rotary Foundation (TRF), in turn allowing PWRC to give out college scholarships in the spring using TRF grants. PWRC raised $100 in tips this evening for this cause.

This service project and fundraiser allowed our club to support two of Rotary’s areas of focus, supporting education and growing local economies.

Because the Heritage Farmstead Museum is a nonprofit, it relied heavily on volunteers to help run this event, which is a fundraiser for the museum. The funds raised by event ticket sales are critically needed for preservation of the museum and for enhancing educational services provided to visitors. Our club’s service also allowed the museum to save money on staff who would otherwise have had to run the stands.

The event was a fun way to meet non-Rotarians interested in community service (shout out, Natalie P.!) as well as kick off the holiday break.

PWRC Helps Honor U.S. Military with American Flag Service Project

Posted on Dec 17, 2021

This November, Plano West Rotary Club (PWRC) members joined Rotarians from Plano East Rotary Club in a meaningful tribute to our past and present members of the U.S. military.

Since 2017 Plano East Rotary Club has produced the Plano Flags of Honor, a weeklong display of 1,000 American flags during the Veterans Day holiday. Local residents can choose to sponsor a flag, and attach the name and information of a loved one who has served our country.

Producing the event is a monumental task, and on Nov. 14 our club sent volunteers to the display at Oak Point Park to help close down the event by taking the flags out of the ground, rolling them up and categorizing them for proper storage until next year’s event. It was also a chance for Rotarians from different clubs to serve alongside one another.

That afternoon our club’s 28 volunteers served 40 total hours. Rotarians from Plano West Rotary Club in attendance were project leader Kayla Stovall as well as Fred Bemenderfer, Erika Gebhardt, Jamie Jackson, Laura Johnson, Jo'anna Snowden and Cristina Todd.

The Plano Flags of Honor event has grown to be a beloved tribute that Planoites look forward to every year. By supporting this project, PWRC reinforces two Rotary areas of focus, promoting peace and supporting education. We are helping to honor our military peacekeepers while ensuring that the public understands the sacrifice these individuals have made.

“It provided a beautiful landmark to honor and celebrate veterans that have served this country,” said PWRC’s project leader Kayla Stovall.

Locals are always invited to serve alongside Plano West Rotary Club. Find a project here that best suits your interests.

Oct. 15-16 Service Project Supports Healthy Living for Plano Senior Adults

Posted on Dec 15, 2021

Plano West Rotary Club (PWRC) supported our senior neighbors on the weekend of Oct. 15-16 with a project that offered resources for healthy living in Plano.

In partnership with the City of Plano, The Wellness Center for Older Adults at the Sam Johnson Recreation Center For Adults 50+ held its first Senior Resource Fair in October. The fair offered COVID-19 vaccinations and boosters, as well as information on health, wellness, estate planning and more.

PWRC volunteers assisted with setting up and tearing down the event, as well as additional support during the fair. This was of great help to the event organizers as they would not have had enough paid staff to successfully run the resource fair.

Our club’s 18 volunteers served a total of 79 service hours. Led by project manager Shannon Modlin, Rotarians Zain Kalson, Isabel Segovia, Nathan Tay, James Thomas, Glen Thornton and Michelle Thornton served alongside community volunteers.

Hundreds of seniors attended the event, hopefully receiving information and services that will lead them to live healthier and longer here in our city.

Check out our Service Projects page to sign up to help at upcoming events. Plano West Rotary Club always welcomes non-Rotarians to serve with us so that we can better our community!

Nov. 13 Furniture Delivery Helps Local Families in Financial Need

Posted on Dec 10, 2021

Last month Plano West Rotary Club (PWRC) began a partnership with Bed Start that our club hopes will continue successfully into the future.

Bed Start is a North Texas-based nonprofit that helps individuals in poverty, crisis and/or need by providing household furnishings at no cost. Individuals helped so far have included veterans, single parents, domestic violence victims, refugees, child protective service cases and more. Bed Start utilizes other local nonprofit organizations to vet and refer the individuals receiving furnishings so that true financial need has been verified.

PWRC has now committed to helping Bed Start with one of its pressing needs, which is more hands to help deliver furniture to local families.

Bed Start volunteers go out twice a week year-round to pick up donated furnishings, and then to deliver those items to households in Plano and Allen. Currently there is a list of more than 200 families waiting to receive mattresses, bedding, furniture and other large furnishings such as washers, dryers, desks and more, but on some service dates only a handful of volunteers can attend. The more people that serve alongside Bed Start, the quicker we can help fulfill the needs of these families in our community.

On Nov. 13 the first PWRC group joined Bed Start to help pick up and deliver furniture. Led by project organizer Jennifer Shertzer, a group of 11 volunteers, including Rotarians Antonio Harris, Joanna Snowden, Laura Johnson and Shannon Modlin, served a total of 37 volunteer hours.

This project fulfills two of Rotary’s Areas of Focus: providing better sanitation and hygiene as well as helping save mothers and children.

On the Nov. 13 project date, all of the recipient households our club visited had children and/or senior citizen family members who did not have beds to sleep in. They were either sleeping on floors and sofas or sharing beds before the new mattresses arrived. Bed Start reports that often the houses they enter have no beds or furniture of any kind, and sometimes children are sleeping together on soiled mattresses.

We also provided a washer and dryer to one home that did not have one to wash clothes. These households will live in much cleaner, safer conditions now.

Bed Start also reports that many of the families they have served consist of single mothers with children, and sometimes these families are the victims of domestic abuse. By providing large furnishings, we are helping these women redirect their limited funds to other items critically needed.

On Nov. 13 we also delivered teddy bears to all of the children, handmade by another local group. Bed Start reports that sometimes these toys we provide are the only ones children will own at the time.

According to project organizer Jennifer Shertzer, the individuals served on Nov. 13 were overjoyed, and some were even overcome with emotion. “They were so thankful, and some repeatedly expressed their gratitude for our service and helped us carry the furnishings inside. Two little girls gave us all hugs at the door, and one family insisted on giving us flowers and a cheesecake.”

Future delivery dates include Dec. 11, Jan. 8, Feb. 12 and more. Sign up here.

Fall 2021 Shoe Drive Supports Micro-entrepreneurs

Posted on Dec 07, 2021

On Nov. 21 Plano West Rotary Club (PWRC) club wrapped up its Fall 2021 Shoe Drive. Led by club members Julia Lin and Snehal Gudadhe, a total of 39 volunteers met on six different occasions from September through November to complete the project.

During the Shoe Drive, our club collected pairs of shoes that will be sold to micro-entrepreneurs in developing countries for an extremely low cost. These small business owners can then resell the shoes at a profit to make a living wage to support themselves and their families. PWRC donates the money received by the sales to The Rotary Foundation, which allows our club to be eligible for district grants that in turn help us do more good deeds here in Plano.

The Rotary Areas of Focus impacted by the Shoe Drive were growing local economies, protecting the environment and supporting education. We help grow the economies where the micro-entrepreneurs reside by providing them with a product to sell at a healthy profit. We help protect the environment by keeping previously worn shoes out of landfills. And we support education when The Rotary Foundation district grants we receive help fund our club’s scholarships to local students.

During the two months of the Shoe Drive, a large bin was set up at the Sam Johnson Recreation Center in Plano where residents could donate gently used or new shoes of any size. Club member Glen Thornton regularly assisted with collecting the shoes and then delivering them to the club’s storage shed on 18th Street before each Saturday morning service date for sorting.

Rotarians Fred Bemenderfer, Jennifer Shertzer, Kayla Stovall and Mehr Hakim assisted in the efforts, as well as a number of community volunteers that included local teenagers. Volunteers sorted the donated shoes, matched them into pairs, rubber-banded them together and then assembled 25 pairs per garbage bag. Volunteers also discarded trash and broke down boxes for recycling.

Altogether, the volunteers served a total of 74 hours and donated 1,252 pairs of shoes.

One of the project’s organizers, Julia Lin, spoke about the importance of the Shoe Drive. “This project was especially meaningful for me because I helped run it last year. It's amazing to see the community come together for this simple yet impactful project. We clean our own closets, help support micro-enterprises in developing countries and reinvest in our local community. It feels great to hit different levels of our world,” she said.

Although the Shoe Drive is wrapped up for this year, anyone interested in making a positive difference – locally and globally – can volunteer with PWRC. Non-Rotarians are always welcome to serve with us. Find future service opportunities here.

Plano West Rotary Club Pecan Sales Fund Scholarships for Plano Students

Posted on Nov 18, 2021

Plano West Rotary Club (PWRC) believes in the training, development and mentorship of youth, and we’ve put our money where our collective mouth is for decades now. For more than 30 years, our club has awarded college scholarships to local high school students who show qualities of a future Rotarian, as well as scholarships for students to attend Camp RYLA, a youth leadership experience.

For the past 35 years, PWRC has held a pecan sales fundraiser in the fall. From November through January, our club members will sell 14-ounce bags of shelled, Texas-grown pecans for $10 each. The goal is to raise money to fund these scholarships.

In addition, an annual donation in honor of past-club president Brenda Taylor as well as a district grant from The Rotary Foundation have raised the additional funds needed to provide the scholarships.

The criteria for a local student to be considered for a scholarship include participation in Rotary Youth Services and/or volunteering in the community. In spring of 2021, four students received a $700 scholarship to attend Camp RYLA, and three high school graduates received $2,000 scholarships to attend college.

Now studying at University of Texas in Austin, Julia Lin was one of the 2021 college scholarship recipients as a student at Plano Senior High School. “Rotary taught me how to be a leader. I learned how to use my voice to advocate for others. I learned how to implement project plans to give back to the local and international community,” Julia said. “I am still a work in progress, but I am glad that Rotary chose to continue investing in my leadership and education into college. “I am blessed to know that there is a community who is willing to support me in my endeavors.”

PWRC president Alex Johnson emphasizes that Rotary believes in developing the next generation of leaders. “Developing future Rotarians is the dream. Plano West Rotary Club has been exceptionally good at it. The kids of yesterday are the community leaders of today. I’m proud to call them my peers, friends, and fellow Rotarians.”

How to Purchase Pecans

We are asking our neighbors to help Plano West Rotary Club in our commitment to fostering leadership development in local students. To purchase a 14-ounce bag of shelled, Texas-grown pecans for $10 each, the public may contact any PWRC member, call 972-905-0293 or email info@planowestrotary.com. The following locations will also carry pecans:

Crave Popcorn - 4021 Preston Rd #619, Plano

King Arthur's Clock - 1201 N Central Expy, Plano
Southern Maid Donuts - 2492 K Avenue, Plano
Hirsch's Meats - 1301 W Parker, Ste 100, Plano
Huffines Chrysler Jeep - 4500 W Plano Pkwy, Plano

Collin County Courthouse - 2100 Bloomdale, McKinney

PWRC Continues Support of Plano ISD with Meal Distributions Throughout School Year

Posted on Nov 15, 2021

Plano West Rotary Club (PWRC) did such an outstanding job supporting Plano ISD’s drive-through meal distributions during this past summer and the preceding school year that the school district has again asked for our club’s support throughout the entire 2021-2022 school year.

Rotarians James Thomas and Katherine Goodwin have returned as project leads in support of the meal distributions. Katherine is still responsible for managing the volunteers and project reports, while James again oversees the scheduling and relationship with Plano ISD.

PWRC assists with meal distribution at three Plano campuses – Armstrong Middle School, Bowman Middle School and Rowlinson Community Natatorium (next door to Williams High School). Volunteers serve once a month at each campus, and each service project lasts about 1.5 hours.

Project Leads Katherine Goodwin (left) and James Thomas (right) with fellow Rotarian John Stafford (center)

How It Works

At each campus, our volunteers gather meals together as directed by Plano ISD staff, and place the meals in vehicles as they move through the line.

At Armstrong Middle School, fresh produce, dairy products and pantry staples are provided by the North Texas Food Bank. The parent liaison and other school administrators are in charge of ordering the food and directing our volunteers. Armstrong teachers and staff also assist.

The parent liaison and staff there are familiar with the families coming through the line, so no paperwork is required at that time. Armstrong has been distributing meals for some time, and their drive-through distribution is widely known in the community.

At Bowman Middle School and Rowlinson Community Natatorium, our club collaborates with another service organization sanctioned by Plano ISD to distribute boxes of food pantry staples provided by Minnie’s Food Pantry. Plano ISD Student Services interns and counselors also assist at these two drive-throughs.

Minnie’s Food Pantry requires the gathering of recipients’ information at both locations to add the families to the food pantry’s outreach program. Once a family has been assigned an identification number, they no longer have to fill out a form when they receive food in the future.

Making a Substantial Impact

These drive-through meal distributions support two of Rotary’s Areas of Focus: growing local economies and supporting education.

Our club is helping Plano ISD provide these families with healthier meals as well as allowing the families to reallocate those dollars saved towards other living expenses. And because of our volunteers, more Plano ISD staff can continue to direct their attention to working with students.

The impact is substantial: From August through October, our club assisted Plano ISD in distributing a total of 19,600 pounds of fresh produce and pantry items, in addition to 520 boxes of pantry items. An average of 360 families per month have received food so far, and a total of 44.5 volunteer hours have been served by our club in these three months.

Plano West Rotary Club welcomes all Rotarians and non-Rotary volunteers to serve with us! Sign up here to help distribute meals on Nov. 15, 16 or 18, or find another service project that meets your passion.

Sept. 25 Avenue K Clean-Up Beautifies our Roadside Areas

Posted on Oct 15, 2021

Bright and early on the morning of Sept. 25, Plano West Rotary Club member Glen Thornton led several club members in the clean-up alongside a stretch of Avenue K between Spring Creek Parkway and Parker Road in east Plano.

The service project is in cooperation with the City of Plano’s Adopt-a-Highway program. Our club has adopted this particular area to keep clean for the past four years, led by Glen, and we pick up roadside litter there every two months.

Our club’s nine volunteers, including Rotarians Glen, Michelle Thornton and Laura Johnson, spent a total of 20 hours collecting nine garbage bags full of litter. Six non-Rotarians, including five high school students, volunteered with our club. Their efforts directly impact one of Rotary’s Areas of Focus, protecting the environment.

The next roadside clean-up will take place Nov. 20. Volunteers will meet at Good Tree Academy parking lot at 8:00 a.m. Non-Rotarians are always welcome to serve with us! Sign up for this clean-up or other service projects here.

Sept. 25 North Texas Pride Festival Service Project Supports LGBT+ Community

Posted on Oct 07, 2021

On Sept. 25, Plano West Rotary Club members and non-Rotarians volunteered together at the North Texas Pride Festival in Downtown Plano’s Haggard Park. The annual event is organized by the nonprofit North Texas Pride Foundation, and our club joined other community volunteers and festival organizers in helping unload vehicles, set up vendor booths, rope off the festival perimeter, staff the entrance/exit gates, and direct attendees throughout the day’s festivities.

Project lead Tara Bidwell led fellow Rotarians Alex Johnson, Laura Johnson, Jennifer Shertzer, Rosolayn Johnson, Courtney Hitt, John Stafford, Joanna Snowden and James Thomas in our efforts to support the festival. Five other non-Rotarian volunteers joined in as well. Our club’s 14 volunteers served a total of 60 volunteer hours that day.

The North Texas Pride Festival is an annual event celebrating and providing resources for the LGBT+ community and its allies. The North Texas Pride Foundation advocates for diversity, equality and inclusion in our community. These are values that Plano West Rotary Club holds as well. By supporting this event, our club is also promoting peace in our community, a Rotary Area of Focus.

“It was great to see Rotary practicing a spirit of inclusivity by helping in a successful Pride event,” said Tara.

Non-Rotarians are always invited to serve alongside our club members, with no obligation to join. We welcome anyone who wants to provide “Service Above Self.” Find all of our club volunteering projects here.

Sept. 4 Clean-Up and Repair Project Shows Gratitude for Generous Club Member

Posted on Sep 17, 2021

For many years, Plano West Rotary Club (PWRC) member Chuck Spence has allowed our club to use his Downtown Plano property as storage space, free of rent. We store our funnel cakes trailer and supplies there, as well as utilize the property for occasional service projects, such as the organizing the shoes donated for the shoe drives.

Club member Glen Thornton noticed that some minor repairs were needed at the property, so he gathered fellow Rotarians Mike Walker and Christina Todd to help tackle the problem. On a Saturday morning, the volunteers spent a total of 4.5 hours repairing a broken gate leading into Chuck’s property, as well as cutting up and moving fallen tree limbs.

This donated storage space saves the club an estimated $2,000 on rent per year. This impromptu service project is just one small way our club can repay Chuck for his generosity, as well as protect our environment, which is one of Rotary’s Areas of Focus. The clean-up and repairs also allow our club to efficiently continue our shoe drive project and get ready for future funnel cake needs.

“He’s one of the many unsung heroes of the club,” PWRC President Alex Johnson said of Chuck, who has provided this service behind the scenes for years with no desire for any type of recognition. “It’s a perfect example of Service Above Self,” said Alex.

Once again, members of Plano West Rotary Club demonstrate that we are all in this together.

COVID-Awareness Block-Walking Helped Increase Vaccination Rates in Plano’s Spanish-Speaking Community

Posted on Sep 10, 2021

On Aug. 14, Plano West Rotary Club (PWRC) wrapped up a five-month-long project to help spread flyers with information about the COVID-19 vaccine to our Spanish-speaking neighbors in Plano. Lower vaccination rates in this underserved community led staff at the City of Plano to believe that this population was not receiving timely information in their native language, or may not have had access to the internet or other communications.

Beginning April 17 and continuing twice a month for a total of 10 Saturdays, club members and non-Rotarian volunteers went out distributing flyers from door to door in neighborhoods and apartment complexes that the City of Plano had identified as having majority Hispanic families. The flyers contained helpful information about COVID-19 and the vaccine in both Spanish and English. Volunteers were not there to persuade people to become vaccinated, only to provide the resources needed to make an informed decision about getting vaccinated and helping curb the spread of the virus.

This project was completed in partnership with the City of Plano, with Plano West Rotary leading the efforts to get North Texans educated about the vaccine.

By the conclusion of the service project, 40 apartment complexes and three different neighborhoods had been reached, for a total of 6,570 homes to receive the flyers. The flyers donated by the City of Plano were valued at $525, and 340 hours of labor were donated by our volunteers for the betterment of the Plano community. Data provided by the City of Plano shows that in the zip codes our club targeted, vaccination rates continue to increase.

Antonio Harris, Bruce Mang and Mehr Hakim were the leaders of this service project, which is remarkable as all three are young college students, while the average Rotarian is middle-aged. PWRC President Alex Johnson believes these youth are learning and applying skills they will use their entire lives by meeting and working with our civic leaders.

“I think it’s important for Rotary to provide leadership opportunities for young adults. How many young adults make impactful change in the community from a leadership role?” Alex said.

Helping educate citizens on how to reduce the spread of COVID-19 is part of Rotary’s Area of Focus on fighting disease. These efforts go hand-in-hand with Rotary’s decades of work to eradicate polio through vaccination.

Though this project has concluded, Rotarians and non-Rotarians are invited to sign up here for future service projects to continue bettering our Plano community.

Summer Curbside Meals Wrapped up August 3, Providing 95,312 Meals for Plano ISD Students

Posted on Aug 23, 2021

As published on Local Profile

A healthier and better educated population leads to growth in local economies. And this can begin with something as simple as a free, healthy lunch.

This summer Plano West Rotary Club (PWRC) was a proud to be a partner in the school district’s Summer Curbside Meals program. The program provides boxes of healthy food items, as well as nutritional information and recipes, to Plano ISD students and their siblings throughout the summer, free of charge. Plano ISD Food and Nutritional Services (FANS) works within the state of Texas Agricultural Department to provide these meals under the direction and funding of the USDA.

Many students who normally rely on their campus to feed them breakfast and lunch may find themselves hungry when school is out for the summer. By providing for the nutritional needs of these students from June through August, Plano West Rotary Club and Plano ISD are helping to ensure these kids better health. Additionally, receiving these meals free of charge enables families to reallocate those dollars saved towards other living expenses.

The summer project’s leads were club members James Thomas and Katherine Goodwin. James is a Plano ISD employee who has continually worked as a conduit between our club and the ISD for the past year, and he assisted this project with scheduling, campus coordination and Plano ISD-specific issues. Katherine has a strong background in PTA and took on managing the large number of volunteers needed to carry out this project.

Every Tuesday of this summer, from June 1 to Aug. 3, our club members and non-Rotarian volunteers helped staff morning and afternoon meal distributions at three campuses across our city – Bowman Middle School, Clark High School and Shepton High School. That is 60 unique volunteering opportunities that the club had to recruit volunteers for and help oversee!

Plano ISD provides FANS staff to distribute the meals, but during the school year, there were teachers and other school staff to assist them with the drive-through distributions. However, during the summer there were no other school personnel available to assist.

Our volunteers at Summer Curbside Meals could be trusted to stand out in the hot sun and service the cars in the drive-through while FANS staff packaged meals in the kitchens where food handling certification is required. Volunteers helped package breakfast and lunch foods, including milk, produce, frozen foods and pantry staples into bundles, and place the appropriate number of bundles per child into vehicles. Bundles had enough food for seven breakfasts and lunches for each child.

PWRC volunteers enabled FANS staff to more efficiently complete the distributions, so they could end their shifts more quickly. Most of these folks didn’t take any time off during the summer and have been working abnormally hard since virtual learning started in March 2020.

The Curbside Summer Meals program received a number of eager volunteers through the summer, but in addition to the project leads, fellow Rotarians Jo’Anna Snowden, Erika Gebhardt, Rosolayn Johnson, Tara Bidwell and Kaitlin Jones were exceptionally helpful to this program. These club members helped greet new community volunteers and get them up to speed until Katherine or James arrived onsite for each shift at each campus.

By summer’s end, the program had served a total of 95,312 meals to Plano ISD students and siblings, with 234 volunteer hours worked. Way to help make a difference, Plano West Rotary Club!

The work our club did to aid Summer Curbside Meals falls under the Rotary Areas of Focus by growing local economies and supporting education.

The summer partnership was just one way that PWRC has partnered with Plano ISD so far, in addition to food distributions last spring. The school district has been so impressed and positively impacted by our volunteers that PWRC has been asked to help support food pantry distributions at Armstrong Middle School, Bowman Middle School and Rowlinson Natatorium each month for the next year.

You can sign up here to volunteer at an upcoming drive-through distribution Aug. 24 and Aug. 30.

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Rotary Community Corps Provides Crucial Resources to Douglass Community and Leads to Exponential Club Growth

Posted on Aug 17, 2021

As rallies for racial justice happened throughout the U.S. last summer, members of our club felt compelled to find a COVID-safe way to help create equity for the Black community as well as get more Black citizens involved in Rotary’s efforts.

Our President, Alex Johnson, brought his concerns to Dollie Thomas and David Evans, community members with deep roots in the Douglass Community, Plano’s historically Black neighborhood founded in the 1800s. Working together, the Rotary Community Corps of Plano Douglass Community was formed June 26, 2020 to complete service projects in support of this underserved community.

Boots on the Ground

Almost immediately after its creation, the RCC proved successful in engaging non-Rotarians in community service. A diverse group has volunteered alongside Plano West Rotary Club in at least 21 service projects so far.

A total of 929 volunteer hours have been served, and $174,937 worth of in-kind goods have been distributed to neighbors in the Douglass Community.

Members of the RCC and PWRC unloading donated boxes of food

The majority of in-kind goods received were food boxes donated by Plano-area food pantries and food banks. Over seven months, PWRC and the RCC went out 11 times to deliver an approximate total of 1,500 food boxes door-to-door to needy neighbors in the community. On every delivery date, between 125 and 200 homes received boxes filled with fresh food and nonperishable items.

Meals were delivered to individual homes because not all community residents had vehicles or could drive. “Some residents won’t go to a food pantry out of pride. Some are concerned with being called poor, underprivileged or impoverished. Our goal is to serve and empower,” explained PWRC President Alex Johnson.

The RCC and PWRC have also partnered to collect and donate shoes for international micro-entrepreneurs and received funds to repair the roof on the home of an elderly Douglass Community resident. Volunteers also came together to help provide students in the community with critical resources, supplies and meals for the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year.

Helping organize shoes for the Shoe Drive

All of these efforts align with Rotary’s Areas of Focus on growing local economies and supporting education.

PWRC and the RCC are working to plan future projects that continue serving the residents of the Douglass Community, including a community garden, tutoring and life skills education.

Service Leads to a Growing, More Diverse Club

The aid that PWRC and the RCC provided to the Douglass Community caught the attention of many non-Rotarians. Through highly visible acts of “Service Above Self,” our club grew its membership significantly, attracting members of the RCC that wanted to be more involved on a permanent basis.

In May 2020 before the formation of the RCC, Plano West Rotary Club had 21 members. In the 14 months since the RCC was formed, the club has tripled to 65 members. PWRC is actually the fastest growing of the 7,485 clubs in the U.S., according to Rotary International.

The growth has also increased the diversity in the club’s membership. Fifty four percent of the club members are women, 34 percent are under 40 years of age, and 51 percent are people of color. The club includes immigrants from eight different countries, as well as members of a wide range of ages, including several college students.

The RCC attracted a more diverse group of volunteers

Alex is certain the RCC impacted the community in a way that PWRC could never have done on its own. “The need came from the community, and we focus on partnering first. We prefer to never do it alone.”

Serve with us! Non-Rotarians are always invited to join our club for service projects in the Plano community. Sign up here.

July 31 Avenue K Clean-up Keeps Plano Clean and Beautiful

Posted on Aug 13, 2021

On July 31, a team of seven volunteers, led by project leader Glen Thornton, collected trash along K Avenue from Spring Creek Parkway to Parker Road in Plano. On this particular Saturday, seven 40-gallon bags were completely filled with roadside litter, but Plano West Rotary Club’s efforts in protecting our city are much larger than this, as our club has been picking up trash on Avenue K every other month for the past four years.

Past-PWRC President Glen Thornton has been the Avenue K Clean-up project leader for all four years of the club’s efforts. “I was [originally] the person that started the alliance with the City of Plano's Adopt-a-Highway program and signed us up. I was looking for another service project our club could do and thought this would be a good option. I enjoy it,” said Glen.

Assisting Glen for a combined total of 10.5 hours on Saturday were club members Laura Johnson, Shannon Modlin, Michelle Thornton, Erika Gebhardt and Fred Bemenderfer. High school student Lola also volunteered her time, and has volunteered with our club before.

Spending just a few hours cleaning up a roadside in Plano helps our city maintain its pleasant appearance, and improves the health and quality of life for residents and travelers in that area. The year-round Avenue K Clean-up project falls in line with Rotary’s Areas of Focus: Protecting the environment.

The next Avenue K Clean-up is Saturday, Sept. 25 beginning at 8:00 a.m. at Good Tree Academy on Avenue K. Invite a non-Rotarian friend to join you, and spend just two hours making a visible difference in Plano! Sign up for Sept. 25th here.

Summer Curbside Meals with PISD

Posted on Jun 15, 2021

Our club member Katherine Goodwin is doing an amazing job leading our club's Summer Curbside Meals with PISD service projects! We had 15 volunteers that gave a combined total of 27 hours towards handing out meals to families in the community. They were able to distribute over $7,000 in donated goods and services.

Way to go team! Want to join us next time? Check out our service page: https://bit.ly/planoserves

Summer Curbside Meals with PISD

Posted on Jun 08, 2021

Plano West Rotary Club had another successful Summer Curbside Meals service project with Plano ISD on June 8th. Several of our club members came out to give back, and they were joined by fellow community volunteers! Together they served a combined total of 24 volunteer hours and had a blast while they distributed nutritious breakfast and lunches to disadvantaged students.

Personal Shower/Hygiene Kit Assembly

Posted on Jun 01, 2021

Thanks to the eight volunteers who helped us support the non-profit organization Streetside Showers with donated Personal Shower Hygiene Kits!

We set up the assembly line outside Greek Isles restaurant in Plano, and assembled 225 hygiene kits, containing eight items: shampoo, conditioner, soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, razor, hand sanitizer, and some Q-tips.

Streetside Showers provides free showers to those who do not have access, so they can clean up, feel good and carry on with their day refreshed!

May 15 COVID Awareness Block Walking

Posted on May 15, 2021

It was a great day to help educate the community around us! Several Plano West Rotary Club members met up together to increase vaccine confidence in our community by distributing flyers in underserved Plano neighborhoods. Together they served 23 hours while practicing basic Covid-19 prevention measures.

Plano Police Appreciation Lunch Delivery

Posted on May 11, 2021

Plano West Rotary Club worked with Greek Isles restaurant and Rowdy Energy Drinks in order to provide 250 meals and 250 drinks to on-duty officers working for the Plano Police Department. Our club members demonstrated the true meaning of "Service Over Self" as they braved the rainy weather to bring the hardworking officers lunch. An amazing total of $22,687 in donated goods and service value was collected, way to go PWRC!

May 8 COVID Awareness Block Walking

Posted on May 08, 2021

Shout out to our Plano West Rotary Club member Antonio Harris. He has been leading our club's Covid-19 block walking projects. Today he led a group of 24 volunteers who served a combined total of 54 hours distributing information door-to-door about the Covid-19 vaccine. It is always great to see volunteers come together to strengthen and educate the community around us!

Waterford COVID Blockwalk

Posted on May 07, 2021

Thank you to the managers at Waterford on the Meadow apartments in Plano! They assisted our club's Covid-19 awareness efforts by delivering 350 door hangers with Covid-19 vaccination information for us. It is incredible what we can accomplish when we all work together!

COVID Awareness Block Walking

Posted on May 01, 2021

Kudos to one of our newer members, Antonio Harris, for leading this important effort to distribute information to increase COVID-19 vaccine confidence while reinforcing basic prevention measures.

He and his team of 12 volunteers spent two hours providing door hangers with key information to neighborhoods in Plano. Thanks to this great team, which included six Plano West Rotary members, but also other dedicated volunteers.

Hygiene Kits for District Conf

Posted on Apr 24, 2021

Plano West Rotary Club members and community volunteers worked together to collect and assemble donated items to create hygiene kits. The hygiene kits were then gifted to families in financial need as well as individuals experiencing homelessness.

In total, there was a value of $842.12 in donated goods and services. Way to go, PWRC!

April 24 COVID Awareness Block Walking

Posted on Apr 24, 2021

Plano West Rotary Club members Laura Johnson and Antonio Harris teamed up with six other community volunteers to distribute Covid-19 vaccination information at nearby apartment complexes in Plano. The team of eight served a combined total of 20 hours as they helped educate our community about preventing the spread of Covid-19.

Armstrong Middle School Pantry Drive-Thru

Posted on Apr 20, 2021

Plano West Rotary Club members Katherine Goodwin, Antonio Harris, Isabel Segovia, Zain Kalson, and James Thomas assisted the staff at Plano ISD's Armstrong Middle School by handing out meals to students and their families.

Together a total of goods and service value of $1,500 was donated. Thanks to all of the volunteers, students can focus on school instead of where their next meal may come from.

Interested in serving and giving back to your community? Check out our upcoming service projects:https://bit.ly/planoserves

April 17th COVID Awareness Block Walking

Posted on Apr 17, 2021

Plano West Rotary Club members and friends, totaling 14 volunteers, walked through apartment communities distributing information to increase COVID-19 vaccine confidence while reinforcing basic prevention measures. Our club feels it is important to make sure everyone in our community knows their options and opportunities to improve their health and help prevent disease.

Great American Clean-Up

Posted on Apr 17, 2021

Three teams picked up trash for the Great American Cleanup. Fifteen volunteers from Plano West's members and friends contributed to the cause by picking up 18 bags of trash! Way to beautify our community!

Adopt-A-Hwy Sponsored by Plano West

Plano West Rotary has sponsored a stretch of roadside in Plano for trash cleanup for a few years now, started by former club president, Glen Thornton. Since then, we have picked up trash on Avenue K between Parker Rd and Spring Creek Pkwy every other month.

Congrats to everyone who has helped because it sure looks NICE over there! This is a great way to serve your community and stay safely distanced during a pandemic, too. Check out our Service Projects page for the next event, or many others!

Armstrong Middle School Food Pantry Project

Posted on Mar 23, 2021

Thanks to Katherine Goodwin and James Thomas for leading this new, recurring meal distribution helping our community!

Plano West Rotary and our other awesome volunteers assisted the administrators, teachers and staff of Armstrong Middle School to organize and distribute food from the North Texas Food Bank through a COVID-19 safe drive-thru to students and their families affected by food insecurity. We contributed nine volunteers, including four 4 PWRC members, in combination with their volunteer team, and provided a lot of nutritious food (valued at $1000) for 1.5 hours on a Tuesday afternoon.

All Plano 4-Way Test Speech Contest

Posted on Mar 20, 2021

A newer member of our club, Julia Lin, led the planning and execution of our Rotary Four-Way Test Speech Contest for high school students to receive feedback on public speaking and earn scholarship money. Many of the Rotary Clubs in Plano participated. Awards were valued at $500, and the winner was Julia Lin. Way to go, Julia!

Clean Up Plano Oak Point

Posted on Mar 20, 2021

Thanks to Plano West members and our awesome volunteers for helping us support the City of Plano with their Clean Up Plano event. Our team had 17 volunteers and 37.5 hours of service. Way to go, y'all!

Door Hangers w/City Services Info

Posted on Mar 13, 2021

Thanks to the Plano West Rotary team who worked quickly to pull this together! This group of 11 volunteers were tasked to handout 161 door hangers to residents of Stratford Estates, providing them with valuable Neighborhood Services from the City of Plano. Way to go!

Supported Emergency Warming Station

Posted on Feb 19, 2021

Four of our Plano West members assisted the City of Plano in coordinating efforts to staff an emergency warming center during the winter ice storm. We helped volunteers sign up for different time slots, as well as served as points of contact. Many of us had to do this while being without various resources at home ourselves.

Many thanks to newer member Courtney Hitt for leading this very important impromptu service project, responding quickly to our community's needs. Way to go!

Homeless Care Package Project

In this service project, lasting about 2 weeks, Rotarians and members of the Plano community came together and worked with the City of Plano to help residents experiencing homelessness. To do this, volunteers formed care packages and food packs and donated sleeping bags and socks to help those in need. As such, we hope that our service impacted those lives, and we hope to continue our drive to help others in the future.

This project included 13 volunteers (4 were Plano West members) and provided donated items estimated at $500.

Thanks to Taha, one of our newer members, for taking the lead to make this project happen!

Providing Food for our Douglass Community

What an amazing success we have had working with the Douglass Visions Team & RCC to provide food to those in need in the Douglass Community for MANY months! The Douglass Community leaders have SO much passion and heart for their neighbors, and even reaching to other cities. And, this specific event was no different. We had 31 volunteers providing food valued at $6,351 this time. What a blessing for all involved! Thank you to all who participated :)

Food For Families in PISD - Barron

What an awesome project with an awesome turn-out! Thanks to our new member leader, Roxana (first pic), for pulling this all together with the numerous others who helped her lead and volunteer! This project had 53 volunteers for at least 2 hours, serving $90,000 worth of food to those in need during this pandemic!

What a great example of Plano West Rotary leaders working with so many amazing people in our community!

New Roof Provided in Douglass Community

Plano West Rotary was excited to use our earned funds from our Shoe Drive last year, to further support the Douglass Community by providing a new roof to an owner who desperately needed one! She now has a safe home, and it was just in time for the 2021 winter weather.

Plano West Rotary works with the Rotary Community Corps of Plano Douglass Community to support the Douglass Community in many ways.

Thanks for Providing Nutritious Lunches

Once a quarter, Plano West helps provide nutritious lunches to those in Plano who are currently experiencing homelessness and food insecurity. We provided 54 lunches with a hearty meat & cheese sandwich, along with bars, fruit, nuts and waters to folks who are truly grateful.

We are able to do this with the help of the non-profit Collin County Assistance Center who provides the back part of their parking lot, and to the non-profit Streetside Showers organization providing dignity through free showers, along with the add-ons from other organizations like churches and Rotary to provide the additional value of free clothing, free reader glasses and free lunches.

Weekly lunch Sign-ups are coordinated by Christ United Methodist Church to make sure that lunches are provided every Wednesday in East Plano, through their Sandwich Blessings serving opportunity.

Thanks to all who signed up on our Rotary sign-up for this opportunity to provide lunches as well as additional needed toiletry items, like toothpaste & foot powder!

A Windy Trash Pick-Up with a Record Number of Volunteers

Thanks, everyone, for helping us pick up trash on Avenue K in E. Plano!

We postponed from a VERY cold morning earlier in the month to this one - sunny and mild, but VERY windy. Much better! :)

We had a record turn-out of 14 volunteers - woohoo! And, some folks heard about us from our newer members, so that's awesome, too.

This service project is part of the City of Plano's Adopt-A-Highway program.

Addressing Loneliness in our Senior Population

Due to COVID, so many people are experiencing isolation and loneliness as they try to stay healthy & safe. Plano West Rotary partnered with the Wellness Center for Older Adults in Plano, TX to help provide fun items & friendly notes to guests of their new Front Porch Program - a program designed to bring people together for conversation and community (with safe distancing), as well as an activity and theme.

Here are some comments from the first event in late January:

* Definitely meeting the needs of some of our isolated seniors.

* They were incredibly appreciative of the gift bags.

* I really think we are making a difference in peoples lives.

* One woman had said that this was a life saver to her. She lives alone, struggles with depression on and off, and is tired of the isolation. Her joy was seen throughout the event!

Thanks to everyone who participated by donating requested items for the Valentine themed event. Thanks also to our Wellness Center program leaders for coordinating and attending the event!

Happy New Year - Time to Help Others!

We hope everyone had a happy & healthy holiday season, and Welcome Back!

It's a new year, and a new opportunity to make a difference in our community, so let's get back to what we do well - SERVING!

Here is the link to our Service Projects kicking off this year!

We are supporting connection & community for senior citizens, as well as providing food to so many in need, focusing in East Plano, whether it's the Douglass Community, the neighborhoods around Barron Elementary School, or helping those experiencing homelessness and food insecurity.

We are also finishing up our Pecan Sales fundraiser for scholarships for high school seniors heading to advanced learning, as well as our highway clean-up every other month.

Please come join us!

Cards for Nursing Homes

During December, volunteers made cards and sent them to nursing homes to help with loneliness as a result of the pandemic. For this month, 6 volunteers (including 2 members of Plano West) were involved and donated cards at this important time.

This service project will be on-going through the 2021 year, so watch out for more good news! And, thank you, Carolyn, one of our newer Plano West Rotary members, for stepping up to lead this important service project!

Supporting Barron Teachers

Plano West Rotary has a long track record of supporting our teachers at Barron Elementary and the support goes both ways!! Barron teachers have had their Friday Night volunteering at our annual Plano Balloon Festival Funnel Cakes booth, which provides the majority of our club funding for donations. We would not be successful without their support! They have also allowed us to have an annual lunch meeting at their school, where the kiddos run the program and give us a tour of the school. They are great kids who are being led and taught by great teachers!

This event was a chance for us to give them our love and support during a COVID year where we did not have our last funnel cake fundraiser or annual school visit, not to mention the Color Run and Field Day events we have also helped out with - we haven't seen our friends....until this! Due to social distancing, we didn't get to give or receive hugs, but a couple of us got to see and serve our favorite teachers, providing a Taco Cabana breakfast taco breakfast (100 tacos) for 70 teachers and staff, along with 72 orange and apple juices.

We give them our love, and hope we have encouraged them through another tough week, teaching in-person! Barron Elementary has the highest percentage of in-person students in Plano ISD at 75%, so our kids and teachers are doing their best to teach & learn during these tough times. Thank you, Barron Elementary, and hang in there!!

Thanks for helping the US Census 2020

Way to go, Plano West!

Our help with the US 2020 Census, along side our club's RCC and also in partnership with the Douglass Visions Committee, has gained their recognition.

Thanks for helping make a difference!

"Your contributions can positively impact your community's healthcare services, schools, senior centers, roadways, public transportation and public libraries over the next decade. These improvements can make a difference in the lives of so many Americans."

Meals in Douglass Community

Thanks to our MANY volunteers from the community, the Douglass Visions Committee RCC, other Rotarians, friends & Plano West members! We have been providing meals in the Douglass Community every other Saturday for months now, and we are down to our last 2 meal deliveries, finishing up the 2020 year.

Come on out and help us!

Go here, to find the last two sign-ups for meal delivery (as well as many other opportunities to serve):

https://planowestrotary.com/page/service-projects

PJ's for Veterans' Kiddos

Four members and a few other volunteers donated new pajamas to support veterans' kids via a program with the American Legion and Veterans Affairs. We appreciate our veterans and the services they provide to our country, including our freedoms - THANK YOU!

Cleaning up Plano

Thanks to our members, other Rotarians, and friends who helped us with our AdoptA-Highway clean-up that we do every other month, over on Avenue K, between Spring Creek Parkway and Parker Roads. It looks "marvelous"! :)

This is one of our easiest and most-socially-distant service projects you can do, so join us sometime! It's only about 1.5 hours, you can listen to your favorite music, and help make Plano beautiful.

Inspiring Young People w/Life Skills via Jr. Achievement

Four of our members donated their time to support Junior Achievement (JA) in the mission of inspiring young people with support, and preparing them with good life skills. We were able to help JA support teachers during school by providing speakers via live stream or pre-recorded videos sharing our career journeys and providing lessons learned to these students.

Lunches for People Experiencing Food & Home Insecurity

Once a quarter, Plano West helps provide nutritious lunches to those in Plano who are currently experiencing homelessness and food insecurity. We provided 60 lunches with a hearty meat & cheese sandwich, along with bars, fruit, nuts and waters to folks who are truly grateful.

Thanks to all who signed up on our sign-up genius to provide these various food & toiletry items!

Shoes for Micro-Entrepreneurs Complete

Congratulations to a very successful Shoe Donation Drive, all in the name of supporting micro-entrepreneurship in developing countries, and earned funds that will support our local Douglass Community.

We collected 3,195 pairs of shoes. Our partner will ship them to developing nations, where small business owners clean the shoes to make them "like new" and sell them in their communities to help build the economy, and help families lift out of poverty! We'll receive a small amount for the shoes. The proceeds will support and build the Douglass Community in E. Plano, Texas.

Flags of Honor, supporting our Veterans

Just a shout-out to Plano East Rotary Club for a successful year at Plano Flags of Honor, honoring our veterans and first responders with a beautiful display of over 1000 flags!

Plano West Rotary is proud to support them via helping with installation and teardown of the flags. A special kudos to Fred, who has always helps them survey the land and make sure those flags are evenly spaced - beautiful job, Fred! :)

Volunteer Support for CRU Golf Tourney

Thanks to the Plano West Rotarians who helped support a dear member who is a leader in the CRU organization, by providing assistance with registration of golfers!

This annual golf tournament raises money to provide the funds Cru needs in order to scholarship students to their Summer Conference at Biola University in LaMirada, CA during June. This Camp develops leaders in a fun environment and expands the breadth of the program in the schools. The camp, speakers, activities and airfare costs $650 per student. The golfers provide a big chunk of the costs through the entry fee and by contributing scholarships during the Award Ceremony and Dinner.

Annual Halloween Fundraiser for Veterans

Plano West & North Texas Pioneers are grateful for all the wonderful donations and support of our annual Halloween Party fundraiser!

This year was VERY different with COVID to deal with; however, we still had great fellowship! (N. Texas Pioneers in the back area of Greek Isles Grille and Plano West outside in the front) And, we still grossed $2674 from proceeds from Greek Isles Grille dinner (dine in and take out) options, a (non) silent auction, a wine pull and a bake sale. We couldn't have done it without everyone contributing items to sell, and buying items!

This year, both clubs are again donating to veterans organizations - a net of $782 for each club. Plano West is donating our half of the net proceeds to provide PJ's for children of veterans, in cooperation with the American Legion and Veterans Affairs.

Thank you all for your giving hearts!

Thank you to our Plano Fire-Rescue Employees!

What a great effort by everyone to support our elite group of Plano Fire & Rescue employees who serve our community with courage...every day! We appreciate YOU!

We had 32 volunteers and 29 volunteer hours along with $1350 cash donations, plus in-kind donations near $3,000, all provided to support our 130+ Fire & Rescue employees with a fabulous lunch from Greek Isles Grille - Plano for everyone, plus a gift basket of goodies for all 14 locations!

We were all so devoted to providing these items, and keeping those lunches hot, that we forgot to take many pictures. :(

But, rest assured, everyone gave it their best!

Here is a close-up of the gift baskets with homemade fireman cookies :), hand-warmers, pain cream, breakfast/snack bars, gatorades, snack size candy bars and an appreciation note. And, the only picture (LOL) we have of volunteers loading up Greek Isles lunches to deliver.

Thanks everyone!!

Organizing Donated Shoes (through end of October)

We had another awesome group of caring volunteers come out to help process the donated shoes, so we can have them delivered internationally in support of micro-entrepreneurships, as well as some earned funds that will support local career training for the Douglass Community.

Way to go team!

If you want to help this month, here's the sign-up info:

Here's the sign-up for future donations and volunteering

Meal Delivery to Douglass Community in E. Plano

What a great day! The weather was perfect, and we had many caring volunteers help us deliver meals. :)

For this event, we had 32 volunteers helping with the process of delivering meals to 200 families in the Douglass Community. Volunteers came from Plano West Rotary, our RCC (w/Douglass Visions Committee), as well as Interactors (high school-aged version of Rotary), and some awesome new & repeat volunteers who have not yet ;) signed up to be official members of Rotary.

It was wonderful getting to know each other better while serving our community! And, one thing we ALL have in common is a serving heart. Thanks to all!

Plus, the Douglass Visions Committee was also providing Voter Registration for anyone, and continuing our joint efforts to collect gently used shoes to support both the Douglass Community and also micro-entrepreneurship in other countries (to help families create sustainable businesses).

Texas Website to GO VOTE

Sign-up for future shoe donations & volunteering

September Adopt-A-Highway Clean-Up

Plano West Rotary sponsors a stretch of Avenue K in Plano where we clean up trash every other month through the City of Plano's Adopt-A-Highway program.

We had 5 volunteers this month (only 2 Rotarians, 1 repeat volunteer, and 2 NEW volunteers!) help us clean up trash in our community. We were able to share the common Rotary theme of "Service Above Self" to our new friends! :)

Organizing Donated Shoes

A group of volunteers consisting of 4 Rotarians & 7 Interactors showed up to help bag shoes, for our 2nd organization event.

Shoes will be donated internationally, and the funds earned for the shoes will provide career training for the Douglass Community.

Here's the sign-up for future donations and volunteering

Deliver Meals to Douglass Community

Plano West Rotary, working with our RCC in the Douglass Community, delivered boxes of food to 183 families.

We are serving this community bi-weekly through December 2020.

For this event, we had 30 volunteers and provided food from Minnie's valued at $14,400

We also love having off-duty support from our local Plano Police Dept - the best there is!!

Way to go, everyone! :)

Join in at our next event Sept 19th!

Safe Places for Victims of Human Trafficking

Young Victims of Human Trafficking Need Safe Places

The average age of entry into the commercial sex industry in the U.S. is between 12 and 14 years. Texas is ranked the #2 state in the US involved in human trafficking.

Plano West Rotary already led a collection of items in partnership with Greek Isles Grille and Taverna, including $25 gift cards from Kroger & Tom Thumb, non-perishable foods, paper products (toilet paper, paper towels, etc), eating utensils (paper plates, plastic utensils & cups, etc) and small craft projects for kids ages 4-9 years old.

These items are supporting the Refuge City nonprofit that provides places of restoration and safety for domestic victims of human trafficking and/or sexual exploitation.

This cause is important to the Kostas Family & Greek Isles Grille and Taverna, the "home" of Plano West Rotary Club.

The Kostas family is very generous with their hearts & their time, so please continue to support this local family-owned business by eating at their establishment! I recommend the spanikopita :)

Greek Isles Grille and Taverna
3309 North Central Expressway, Suite 370
Plano, Texas 75023

Shoe Drive for Dual Causes: A Kick-Off

This day kicks off Plano West Rotary Club's "Shoe Drive Challenge for International micro-entrepreneurs and Douglass Community Development", which was a vision of the Douglass Community RCC, and now led by our fearless new member, Jennifer! This exciting project allows YOU to donate gently used shoes, which will be donated to international micro-entrepreneurs to help them build businesses to support their families and communities! At the same time, we will receive some funds in exchange for the shoes, which will be donated career training in the Douglass Community of Plano, Texas. This community was founded by freed slaves and is culturally and historically significant for North Texas.

A group of volunteers consisting of Rotarians, Interactors, and someone who found this opportunity on Dallas Serves' Facebook page all showed up to help bag shoes. We first organized the shoes by pairs. Then, when the plastic bags and rubber bands arrived, we tied each pair of shoes in rubber bands to bind them together, and we put 25 pairs of shoes in a bag. We completed this within an hour! Then we closed up shop and are waiting for the next delivery and bagging day. This first collection involved 15 volunteers, at least 15 hours of work, and collected 199 pairs of shoes valued at nearly $80. Thanks to all who donated shoes, or helped organize and bag them!

This Shoe Drive Challenge is still on-going through the end of October, so tell your friends, and search those closets for gently used shoes that you just don't wear anymore! :) Here's the sign-up for future donations and volunteering

Deliver Meals to Douglass Community

Plano West Rotary, worked with our RCC in the Douglass Community, to deliver meals, frozen & non-perishable, to 114 individual households in need of food donations.

We are serving this community bi-weekly through December 2020.

For this event, we had 50 volunteers and provided food from Minnie's valued at $26,280.

Way to go Plano West! :)

Nutritious Lunches for our Neighbors in Transition

During the month of August, Plano West continued our quarterly-ish service project of providing nutritious lunches to our neighbors in Plano who are experiencing homelessness.

It was a VERY HOT day, hitting 100 degrees F, so there was no surprise seeing a line for cold hearty lunches on Wednesday, August 12th at 11:15am. We had 13 volunteers who purchased and assembled 54 lunches containing 4oz-deli meat sandwiches, cold grapes, an orange, a breakfast bar, and cashews, as well as plenty of ice-cold waters to go around!

We also provided lots of supplies for the non-profit, Streetside Showers, who provides free showers at the same time as the lunches. Our volunteers provided the following types of items that were needed: razors, foot powder, deodorant, Q-tips, toothbrushes, soaps, sunglasses and wipes. Streetside Showers is always very appreciative of our supply donations, as well as the lunches.

If you want to help, we will collect food & supplies again, by November 17th, for delivery on the 18th at Streetside Showers in E. Plano on 18th street, behind the Assistance Center of Collin County, who help provide "people in crisis with information regarding agencies, non-profits and faith-based organizations to contact for assistance" and "help individuals and families with temporary financial assistance related to housing and utility payments to avoid eviction and/or utility disconnection".

Also, this lunch program was initiated and organized by Christ United Methodist Church in Plano, Texas, to serve those in need in our community.

How one pair of old shoes can change two communities

Please see the article titled "How one pair of old shoes can change two communities" in the Plano Star Courier, dated August 9, 2020, written by an upcoming prospective member of our Plano West Rotary, Carolyn Diaz. :)

https://starlocalmedia.com/planocourier/news/how-one-pair-of-old-shoes-can-change-two-communities/article_a3d76f26-d910-11ea-8f8c-37a6a4b436ac.html

A Little Fun...

Plano West Rotary has been growing by leaps & bounds, so here are a few more pictures from our back-to-school fair and meal delivery service project, focusing on pictures of our current, new and soon-to-be inducted club members! We are SO happy to have such wonderful, serving people in our club!

Our amazing president Alex & first lady Laura :) helping to share Plano West Rotary shirts with volunteers. They were also helping out all over the day's events (but this was the only time I could "catch" them to take a picture)

We now have 2 Freds in our club, and Saturday they dubbed themselves The Fred "Twins".

One of our newer members, James, shared some history with us about growing up in the Douglass Community.

Back-to-School Fair & Meal Donations

Plano West Rotary worked with PISD and Douglass Community leaders for this free community event providing Douglass Community students & their families with back-to-school resources and essentials necessary for a successful school year.

They received school supplies and information for transportation, as well as physical & mental health assistance programs, including immunizations, vision & COVID-19 tests. There were also booths available in this "drive-thru", "contactless", safe event where they could get important information about the Census 2020 and voting. Lastly, on the way out of the parking lot, they could choose to receive a box of food, with the help & partnership of Minnie's Food Pantry. Additional boxes of food were also delivered door to door to identified residents in the Douglass Community.

Now for some stats! :)

We had 48 volunteers serving a total of 136 people-hours on August 8th, providing 323 backpacks to students (a value of over $16,000) and 189 meals (valued over $11,000).

And, some great pictures of these amazing volunteers!

Plano West a Hometown Hero from Van Taylor

Congratulations to Plano West for making a difference in our community!

We have received congressional recognition by our very own United States Congressman, Van Taylor.

Keep up the good work!

Plano Magazine: Plano West Partnership Serves Douglass Community

Check out the article in Plano Magazine by Hunter Lacey on July 29th, titled:

Plano West Rotary Club Partnership Serves Douglass Community

http://planomagazine.com/plano-west-rotary-club-partnership-serves-douglass-community/

Delivering Meals to Families in Plano

After recently knocking on doors of all 225 homes in the Douglass Community to see if they wanted to fill out the Minnie's Food Pantry recipient form, this was the day that 142 boxes were delivered to over 70 households, by 23 volunteers. Meals can be delivered directly to homes when residents do not have access to transportation.

Collect Meal Delivery Forms in Douglass Community

Thanks to our 9 volunteers who worked a total of 18 hours to help collect food delivery forms in order for Douglass Community families to receive additional food from Minnie's Food Pantry.

The Douglass Community is a diverse, low-income community in Plano, TX with cultural and historical significance as a former Freedman town. Volunteers walked door-to-door to collect recipient forms from each family. The forms are necessary for delivery of meals from the food bank.

Plano West Rotary partnered with Rotary Community Corps of Plano Douglass Community, Plano Senior High School Interact Club, Plano Police Department and Minnie's Food Pantry.

July Adopt-A-Highway Clean-up

We were so lucky to get slightly cooler weather for our July trash clean-up! And, we had a great team of 8, and we were done in 1.5 hours total.

Thanks to all who signed up and helped clean up 8 bags of trash in our community!

Stuffing Backpacks for Back-to-School

Plano West Rotary Club, Rotary Community Corps of Plano Douglass Community, Plano Community Rotaract, Plano Senior High School Interact and Clark High School Interact all worked with Plano ISD Education Foundation to stuff backpacks for its Back to School Fairs.

The volunteer effort was so successful, that the program finished a week early. Now the backpacks are ready to go and many will be distributed at the Douglass Community Back-to-School Fair on August 8th, along with other assistance programs and information, to support our community of students as they head back to school!

Donated School Supplies for Douglass Community

Plano West Rotary & Rotary Community Corps (RCC) of Plano Douglass Community have partnered together to collect school supplies in partnership with Plano Independent School District Education Foundation.

Together Plano West & our partner RCC coordinated volunteers in providing 650+ backpack school supply items from 23 benefactors, totaling $4,317!

It's amazing what we can accomplish when we work together as a community!

1st Responder Rotary Blood Drive

Plano West supported our District 5810 Blood Drives the week of July 6-11 in Plano (at Harrington Library). We helped by inviting people to donate blood, assisting with any questions on-site, and/or donating blood. At least 3 Plano West members helped and at least 2 gave blood, so thank you!

Carter Blood Care is now checking for COVID-19 antibodies when you donate blood, in case donors can further support our community and save even more lives! Please go donate, if you can!!

The importance of communication in nursing homes

Please see the article titled "The importance of communication in nursing homes" in the Frisco Enterprise, dated June 26, 2020, written by an upcoming prospective member of our Plano West Rotary, Carolyn Diaz. :)

https://starlocalmedia.com/friscoenterprise/eedition/page-a03/page_c3ccc87c-975b-5605-919c-1d339c84168d.html

Gifts for Father's Day in Nursing Home

Thanks to our Plano West Members AND Community Volunteers for helping make Dad's Day special tomorrow!

Your generous donations will be given to 20 dads living alone in a nursing home in our community where there has been a strict lockdown since February. Items included, slippers, socks, chapstick, candy, potato chips, and puzzles & games.

The nursing home has the items, and will assemble goodie bags for these 20 dads! Thank you!

Teaching With Jamaica - Program & Donation

We really enjoyed seeing our friend, Donna Walsh, and her friend Patti, as they shared updates from Teaching With Jamaica this week! If you missed our meeting and are interested, the video link is below (thank you, Mr. President, Alex!)

Plano West loves supporting Teaching With Jamaica since they do a great job of teaching teachers in Jamaica and providing them with the skills, training & tools they cannot easily acquire locally, but are so helpful for teaching & learning! We were also very excited to present Teaching With Jamaica with a check for $1200, as they continue to support their teachers in Jamaica!

We learned that last year was their largest traveling team of teachers at 24! They held a 3-day conference for local Jamaican teachers, which was "sold out" at 160 registrants max - a few teachers even came each morning, hoping there would be room for them to jump in. After last year's successful trip, they came home to start preparing for this year's trip, but the pandemic threw a kink in their plans for travel. But, the good news is - they just had their first Zoom meeting with 23 Jamaican teachers last night, plus 6 US teachers, AND, they will be meeting every night this week!

Please stay tuned for more information from Teaching With Jamaica about how Plano West Rotary as well as other Rotary clubs and our community, can help support their efforts with a list of supplies they need, and a potential future service project!

And, for more information about Teaching With Jamaica, please find the link to their website on the left column of our website.

link to video of program:

https://youtu.be/BjtTltAhkkE

May Adopt-A-Highway Clean Up

Thanks to the 8 people who helped this month with Adopt-A-Highway trash pick-up! Plano West organizes this every other month, and we are assigned by the City of Plano to a stretch on Avenue K between Parker and Spring Creek Pkwy in East Plano.

We changed our path this time (for "safe distancing"), and half the team walked one direction, and the other half walked the other direction - hence two pics.

This was a great turn-out and our first clean-up during COVID-19...can you tell?

District 5810 Matching Grant for N Texas Food Bank

Thanks to matching grants from our Rotary District 5810, we were able to turn our $500 donation to North Texas Food Bank into a $1000 donation! Woohoo!

Today we delivered the 2nd half to NTFB. :)

Plano West Supports Those w Food & Homestead Insecurity (again!)

Thanks to Plano West AND our honorary members, the Wellness Center for Older Adults!

Together, we made a total of 44 lunches, and had a few extra cuties & waters that we also left with Streetside Showers. Some of our clients were there at 11:00am and thanked us for the food, as well as the Streetside Showers staff. I didn't collect detailed statistics on the supplies, but I think we donated a little bit of everything on their list. You can see their newly donated shower trailer in the background!

If you would like to know more about Streetside Showers and their mission to provide FREE showers (and lunches) to those without permanent homes, see their website:

https://streetsideshowers.com

Also, thanks again to those who also donated adult briefs to the Wellness Center for Older Adults! There are very appreciative of our donations, and 4 of their employees donated most of the sandwiches as well as other lunch items for this project, as well.

For more information on this organization that Plano West supports, please see their website and the many services they offer!

https://www.wellnesscenteronline.org

Donation to Veterans

Plano West Rotary was pleased to have Barry Jordan speak to our club this week on our Zoom meeting, sharing information about the various veterans organizations that Operation Veteran Support (OVS) researches and recommends for North Texas Rotary Clubs to donate. OVS focuses on organizations that provide at least 92 or 93% of donated funds directly to veterans (and not operations). Plano West will now research the recommended organizations, and donate $2137 in total, so STAY TUNED! Thank you, OVS!

Barron Elementary Donation

Plano West is SO pleased to donate $2700 to our favorite elementary school - Barron Elementary!

They have helped us make & serve funnel cakes at the Plano Balloon Festival for many years, so that we can earn money to donate to charities, education and other Rotary strategic focus areas. Thank you, Barron teachers!

Barron wanted to have a big check to show the school that the community (and Rotary) are supporting them, so, thanks to Steve L, we got them their own Big Check for the kids to see when they return to Barron!

Speaker Chief Stuart Blasingame from Prosper Fire & Rescue

We had an awesome Zoom turn-out (75% of our members!) to hear an amazing speaker, Chief Stuart Blasingame from Prosper Fire & Rescue, who updated us on the status of various points related to COVID-19 in Collin County and Plano, including availability of hospital beds & hospital staff (doing good here!) and other stats around cases, recoveries, etc.

He spoke very highly of our Plano Fire and Police, reminding us that they are world class. (but we knew that, right?)

We also received praises for his talk after the fact. One honorary member, Joy Hinkelman, from Wellness Center for Older Adults in Plano, said the following:

"All I can say is WOW! I have “attended” multiple Zoom sessions seeking a method of filtering and navigating the overwhelming data that is plaguing the media. The Chief’s presentation was by far the most informative and helpful session I have participated in. Chief’s message was absolutely impressive!!! I am very appreciative for the opportunity to hear his message today!"

Here is the link to the video presentation from Chief Blasingame: https://youtu.be/9V2CMcyKkUk

Also, here are some informative websites from Chief Blasingame regarding COVID-19:

https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/c00baf45f12a4899aae1c812e29d6cde
https://www.collincountytx.gov/healthcare_services/Pages/news.aspx
https://gis-covid19-dentoncounty.hub.arcgis.com/?fbclid=IwAR3sM_MTerRAVgB29OrnanK6rKrnXl9c8DMzN__HboipFrACdX3c4XtSN7I
https://gis-covid19-dentoncounty.hub.arcgis.com/pages/covid-19cases
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/us-map

Plano West Supports ShelterBox!

Today, for our virtual Plano West Rotary Club meeting, we had Bruce Heller join us - he is a fellow Rotarian (Allen Sunrise) and a volunteer for ShelterBox.

He talked about the wonderful things ShelterBox is doing to help families when they have lost everything! They help people in areas of natural disaster as well as war zones, providing tents and other necessities for displaced families. They gave helped 3500 families worldwide this year!

Plano West is so pleased to present ShelterBox with a donation check for $2500!

Donation to N. Texas Food Bank for Food Insecurity

During this insecure time, we have neighbors who have increasing need for food. Our Plano West Benevolence Committee "met" to address an opportunity from our District 5810 for matching grants to support N. Texas Food Bank during this time, and both our Committee and our club Board approved reallocation of funding to donate $500 to the food bank, and we were also approved by the District for matching funds!! Yay!

April 27th, we gave the $500 check to N. Texas Food Bank, and next we will submit our final report to receive matching funds from the district, and then we can write ANOTHER check for $500!

Thanks to our club and to our Benevolence Committee!

Donation to N. Texas Food Bank

Congratulations, Plano West! One of our quarterly charity buckets last year for helping to address Hunger & Homelessness was recently donated to the N. Texas Food Bank (NTFB).

The amount was $236 and they told us that it would pay for over 700 meals!! The NTFB is able to take funds and get volume pricing on food, so our dollars can buy more food!

Proud to be a member of this club - serving our community weekly!

AAH Jan 2020

Great team for our January 2020 Adopt a Highway! Club members and Interacters!

Funds to Christmas Cops & Toys for Tots

This December, Plano West Rotary donated our raised funds from our funnel cake sales at the Snow Day at Willow Bend Mall. The funds were given to Christmas Cops and Toys for Tots. We raised funds totaling $1906 and split the funds evenly between the two organizations. We also had some members donate their time to Christmas Cops. Both organizations provide toys to children at Christmas time, plus Christmas Cops also provides many other household needs to families, including supplies for babies and food.

Christmas Cops:

Toys for Tots:

Adopt A Highway Clean Up

Well, we seem to be growing! :)

We had 11 volunteers this time for our highway clean-up, including lots of Interacters as well as Plano West members.

We do this every other month, so come join us next time! Thanks, everyone!

Honoring our Veterans

Plano East Rotary Club did an awesome job honoring our veterans with the Flags of Honor setup in Oak Park, and I particularly want to call out our own club member, Fred, who surveys the flags for setup every year - beautiful job, Fred! :)

Battle of the Branches

Posted on Nov 09, 2019

Funnel Cakes Fundraiser for Kids!

We did our first funnel cake fundraiser with Shops At Willow Bend's Snow Day event, and raised over $2000 to be shared between Toys for Tots and Christmas Cops for this holiday season - supporting kids at this important time of year!

Thanks to all who helped pull this event together, including our awesome volunteers!

Halloween Party & Veterans Fundraiser

Our annual Halloween Party & Fundraiser with sister-club North Texas Pioneers was a big success this year!

Thanks to everyone who donated wine, silent auction items, helped decorate, volunteered, and spent money - all to support our veterans!

We raised over $2000 combined, and each Rotary Club will donate their half to their chosen veterans organizations.

What an Awesome Plano Balloon Festival Funnel Cake Fundraiser!

Wow! So many thanks to Rotarians, Rotaract (young adults), Interact (high school), as well as some of the organizations Plano West Rotary supports including: Barron Elementary, Wellness Center for Older Adults (in Plano), and CRU, and other friends and family! It took a village to pull this together under the leadership of Mike W (thanks, Mike!) and we needed every single one of you, so THANK YOU! The proceeds will go to support charities and education, and we couldn't be happier about that! :)

Thanks Community Rotaract for helping with Adopt A Highway!

We had a great time, and helped to clean up Plano with our Adopt A Highway morning clean up. Thanks all!

All 6 Plano Rotary Clubs in the Plano July 4th Parade

We had a great turn-out of Rotary Clubs (all 6!) at the annual July 4th parade in Plano!

We gave out candy to kids, had our decorated Rotary float, a sign showing the local organizations Plano Clubs support and a bunch of corvettes, some of which had signs for the different Rotary clubs.

Plano West also had participation from the Interact and Rotaract Clubs we sponsor! Yay! We had the new president for our Clark High School Interact club - Arianna - as well as the new president - Vivi - and a couple members from our Community Rotaract Club! So glad to have the support from our young people!

Helping Allen Sunrise Sell Funnel Cakes

A core team of Plano Wester's, under the lead of Mike Walker, facilitated a Funnel Cakes fundraiser with Allen Sunrise at their annual July 4th celebration called Celebration USA. The goal was to load our equipment and consult, in exchange for some of their proceeds. Although a bad storm came through 1.5 hours into the event and lasted at a couple hours, we were STILL able to sell TONS of Funnel Cakes, with huge lines the minute we were up and running again. Although we may not make a whole lot of money from this first-time event, it was great to have some camaraderie and fellowship with another Rotary Club, led by Bruce Heller (our friend who works at ShelterBox).

Allen Sunrise's President-Elect and President, holding the tent from blowing away!

Other Allen Sunrise members, getting Funnel Cakes out the door ASAP (and still smiling!)

The Plano West team, Glen, Tim, Tim's friend Mickey, and Mike! They were cranking out lots of funnel cakes!

Makin' batter...

Making Sandwich Lunches for Homeless in Plano, again

Thank you, Plano Westers!

What a great turn-out to our club meeting where we packaged up hearty sandwiches and healthy snacks for folks in Plano who are experiencing homelessness right now. We made over 40 sandwiches - ham & turkey, with cheese - as well as bagging up some grapes, and pecans, as well as other snacks and waters. Thanks, also, to Daniel & Michelle who handed out the lunches the next day at the Assistance Center of Collin County, where we probably served over 25 people in need.

Thanks, again, to all! #PeopleOfAction

Plano Community Rotaract - In Action!

Plano West sponsors the ONLY community Rotaract Club in District 5810, and they made us proud at our recent District Assembly and Training meeting by having a table with information about their service projects, as well as a raffle to raise money for a wheelchair for a young man in Columbia with level 5 Cerebral Palsy. #PeopleOfAction

Plano West Loves Partnering with Barron Elementary!

Every year, Barron Elementary invites Plano West Rotary Club to come help them with their Field Day event for all the kids, and it's always lots of fun watching and helping the kids with their different challenge events.

Barron also invites us every year to have our lunch meeting in their library, where we sit and each with their Student Council, and get a tour of the school. These kids are SO amazing and smart, and we are excited for their futures! This year we were able to present them with some books for the kids to read over the summer and with a small financial donation ($600) to help out where they need it.

Clark HS Rocks at Interact's Spring Fling Event

Interact Spring Fling is an annual end-of-the-year celebration of what the District 5810 Interact Clubs have accomplished for the school year. The 58 Interact & 65 Rotary Clubs work together on 2 service projects while the Interact students play games and get honored for their achievements.

Clark High School won honors for both: Small Interact Club of the Year & Most Successful First Year Interact Club

There were 293 high school Interact students from all over District 5810 in attendance. The Puerto Rico School Supply Drive, that was a multi-club, multi-district International Service Project was a complete success! 500 Backpacks were collected and 2,102 pounds of school supplies! And, the Sock Drive collected 566 pairs of socks for the Samaritan Inn Homeless Shelter - What to go, Interact!!

And, we are proud of our club member, Alex Johnson, who is leading our young adults for our whole District as District Interact Chair! Way to go, Alex!

Thanks for a Successful Adoption Awareness Fair!

Our first Rotary Adoption Awareness Fair in Plano was a success - especially if you are basing it on smiles!

Thanks to our Plano West participants, as well as volunteers from Addison Rotary, Royse City Rotary, Dallas & eClub Rotary clubs, North Texas Pioneers, Plano Sunrise, Plano Club, Plano Metro, and additional friends & family members! We couldn't have done so well without all the help!

CPS invited 26 kiddos, 23 attended, and they invited 50 potential parents and about 40 attended. We will report any other statistics we may receive from CPS.

We had delicious hamburgers, hotdogs, tator tots and french fries, as well as snow cones, popcorn, waters and sodas. We also had crafts, games and virtual reality, plus candy and prizes for the kids. The pictures are limited since we cannot post pictures of any of the kiddos, but we saw many happy kids.

Here are a couple pictures with some of our Plano West'ers and some N. Texas Pioneers.

From Plano West club, we had Daniel, Rose, Don, Tom, John, Alex, Lisa, Michelle & Glen (almost 50% of our club!)

Helping Wellness Center Move In

Plano West Rotary was happy to assist our Wellness Center Honorary Members by helping them move in to their new offices this last Saturday. The new building is beautiful and their offices are right up front! Thanks to Mike, Don, Rose, Glen & Michelle from Plano West (sorry! forgot to take pictures!)

In this week's program, the Wellness Center will share about all their recent changes.

Barron Elementary - Chili Cook Off Judges

Plano West Rotary was excited to participate as some of the judges for the 2nd Annual Chili Cook-Off at Barron Elementary. There were 7 different chilis, including several beef, plus turkey, buffalo and two vegetarian chilis, one with Jack fruit! They were ALL delicious, but we could only pick one winner!

We love to support our favorite elementary school, and eating chili was just a bonus!

Valentine's Dinner & Food Donations for Cub Scouts

Thank you all for a wonderful Valentine's Dinner party! The company and the food were fabulous.

Congratulations to Diana for guessing the count & winning the jar of candy, and to Tom & Daniel for winning the Valentine's Trivia game.

Thank you, also, for all the food & monetary donations to support Cub Scout Food Donation to the North Texas Food Bank!

Daniel will be delivering the donations to our Cub Scouts ASAP.

Another Successful Adopt-A-Highway

Thank you to our Adopt-A-Hwy crew this month: Founder, Tom; friend of the Thornton's, Jeff; President's hubby, Glen; and newest member Alex, and his wonderful family! Y'all rock!

Plano West's 39th Anniversary Social

What a great time, and thanks to all who came to celebrate our 39th club anniversary, and to honor current member and founder, Tom Posey!

We had some delicious appetizers, enjoyed talking with one another, passed around some older pictures and club bulletins, and heard some stories from our club's history.

What a Great Day to be a Rotarian!

Making & Delivering Sandwiches for Homeless in Plano

Thank you, Plano Westers!

Almost the WHOLE club (17 out of 21, I think) showed up at this Tuesday's meeting to make sandwiches and pack other lunch items to help provide for those experiencing homelessness in Plano - woohoo!! I only wish we remembered to take a picture of our service together.

We made a total of 44 sandwiches (ham and turkey), bagged up 21 baggies of cashews and 19 baggies of grapes, as well as providing 35 waters (left over from Plano Balloon Festival) and also 15 bananas and 48 nutrigrain bars!

Thanks to Don and Rose who helped distribute the food at the Assistance Center of Colllin County, on 18th street, about 3 buildings down from Chuck's place. We probably served about 25 to 30 people. Another couple brought soup, and there were also some clothing items there for the taking. The recipients were very appreciative and really seemed to enjoy the food choices we brought. Thanks, again, to all!

3rd Quarter Charity Bucket donations

Our 3rd Quarter Charity Bucket donations will support Food Donations & Homelessness!

Your contributions will go to good causes.

For example, we are making & delivering sandwiches for homeless in Plano on Jan 22nd, and we will also save up to support our new Sam's Gift initiative with all Plano Rotary Clubs in June (which started last year, honoring Sam Johnson).

Holiday Blood Drive 2018

Posted on Dec 12, 2018

Our Interact Club in Service!

Our new Clark High School Interact Club is going strong!

They meet every couple of weeks (please see calendar for upcoming meetings - Plano West members can attend!) during block lunch. This week, Steve, Alex & Michelle attended the meeting where they were making school signs to sell pecans & collect coats for people in need.

They are collecting coats for the All-Plano Rotary Clubs Coat Drive where we bring them to the Christmas/Holiday Party (this year it's Dec 6th) at Haggard Party Barn, and the Christmas Cops representatives are there to collect them from Rotarians. Coats collected after Dec. 6th will be delivered to Christmas Cops organization. Thank you Clark HS Interact for your support!

Plano West's Board also offered our Interact Club (and Rotaract Club) the opportunity to sell our pecans and collect $2/bag for the charity of their own choosing (rather than the funds going to scholarships, like our pecan proceeds).

Clark HS Interact is selling pecans to support victims of hurricanes.

We are so proud of their "Service Above Self"!

Pecans Are In !!

Our pecans are in earlier this year!

Some have already been distributed to Hirsch's Meat Market in Plano, as well as Southern Maid and the Collin County Clerk's office.

We will have them next Tuesday at the meeting, so you can take some home with you, and find other places where they will help sell them for us! The 14 oz. bags are $10.00 and our profits will go to scholarships for Plano seniors in high school, same as usual.

World Polio Day, Oct 24

We had a nice cozy World Polio Day event yesterday, despite the rain!

So far, Rotary has contributed more than $1.8 billion to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. https://www.endpolio.org

I believe we had representation from at least 4 Plano Rotary Clubs: Plano West, North Texas Pioneers, Sunrise and Plano Metro....and a couple people from a Dallas club (don't recall which one!).

And, I have to give a shout-out mainly to Vivi from our sponsored Community Rotaract Club who used her cellphone to provide sound to our live stream Polio video, but also to Daniel, Glen and John who all helped make it work, so we could watch together!

Thanks to John & Greek Isles for donating 10% of food & drink proceeds to End Polio, and for letting us "sneak peek" the Ghost - his specialty drink for our Halloween Party next week! Halloween Party Details

First Clark HS Interact Meeting!

Julia, president of Plano West's first Interact Club (at Clark HS), did a great job sharing information about Rotary and Interact to other students at Clark HS! There were up to 14 people at the meeting, as well as Mike & Michelle from Plano West. Julia had some great ideas and goals for this club, including 1 community service project each month & 1 international service project each quarter. The club expects to meet at lunch every 2 weeks.

Also, Vig, our Rotaracts Club's president, did a great job as the speaker at Julia's first club meeting. He is a former RYLA student as well as Rotary Youth Exchange (RYE) student, and that's what he talked about. He shared how RYE works as well as his experiences in Taiwan and showed off is RYE blazer with all the pins he exchanged with other RYE students.

Adopt a Highway for October

Thanks to those who were able to help us clean up our Adopt-A-Highway stretch in east Plano this past Saturday! We had three from Plano West Rotary, 1 from our new Interact Club at Clark HS, and 1 from our Rotaract Club! We really appreciate the help!

Annual Interact Summit

Interact Summit 2018

What a great Summit, totally planned by our 5810 youth!	Plano West president with the 5810 Interact Chair & Plano West's new Clark HS Interact Club president
There were various Rotary tables in the hall for Interactors to get more information. The Rotaract info table just happened to have Plano West's awesome Plano Community Rotaract Club members!	The Interactors planned a Refugee Care Package service project as well as this Peanut Butter collection for North Texas Food Bank. The goal was over 1000 pounds of peanut butter and they BEAT the goal with 1,312 pounds of peanut butter, loaded with the help of Plano West, and delivered by Glen to the NTFB Monday after the event.

Lunch & Tour with Fire Station #12 B

Our Pictures with Fire Station #12

We had a great turnout for our lunch & tour of Fire Station #12 B - Thank you to all who came!

Plano West, with great support from our sister club North Texas Pioneers, enjoyed Greek Isles lunch together with Fire Station #12 in the bay, said the pledge of allegiance, presented them with an official Texas state flag from House of Representatives rep Jeff Leach, and got a tour of the site.

About half way through our tour, they showed us a beautiful handcrafted table made from wood salvaged from various fires they fought. Right after that, about half of the on duty team was dispatched on a call. Not 10 minutes later, the rest of the team was also dispatched, and we watched them take off in the fire engine!

Our speaker from North Texas Food Bank

This week's program was Jeffrey from the North Texas Food Bank, sharing what's new and the Grand Opening of their new building in Plano on Sept 16th. Afterwards, we presented our speaker with a Certificate of Appreciation acknowledging a $10 donation in his name to the PolioPlus Fund. With the 2 to 1 matching funds from The Bill & Melinda Gate Foundation, this donation provides a Polio vaccine for about 50 children!

#EndPolio

Great time packaging food for Send Hope children

Plano West #PeopleOfAction listened to a program about Send Hope (http://www.send-hope.org) and how they are improving the lives of children in Honduras with education, medical attention and packaged nutritional food. Afterwards, we donated funds and packaged food for these children and families.

We packaged 1,080 meals in about 30-40 minutes! That will feed 3 children for 1 year!!

Successful Adopt-A-Hwy this morning!

Thanks to our team of 6 who were up and out at 7:30am on a Saturday to help make Plano, Texas beautiful!

#PeopleOfAction

Charity Bucket for July - September

Our Charity Bucket will go towards books for our sponsor school, Barron.

You may also buy and bring books - see left column for book list links, by grade.

July 4th Parade - Rotary Clubs of Plano participation

Plano West bought candy that all Rotary Clubs handed out to kids during the parade.

Here are pics of our decorated Plano Clubs float, and Plano West Rotary signage on a Corvette Club car!

Rotary International Convention in Toronto June 23-27

A princess, 3 prime ministers, and a former first lady join 25,000 in Toronto to celebrate Rotary’s good work and plan more of it!

See link for convention videos:

https://www.rotary.org/en/2018-convention-wraps#page-content

Plano West Luncheon at Barron

Plano West Rotary club had our 9th annual meeting at Barron Elementary. The 5th Grade Student Council entertained us and showed us around.

Barron Elementary - Color Run

Plano West Rotary helping out with Barron's first ever COLOR RUN!!!!

PWRC - What We Do

Adopt a Highway

Valentine Dinner 2018!

Journey of Hope - dinner

This is the Plano West crew that served dinner to Journey of Hope on Nov 7th.!!

Greek Isles for providing the meal!

The Nutts are in:

Posted by Daniel Long

As always it is time to get your 2017 Pecans for the up coming Holidays.

Two of the great location that will have a good supply are:

Greek Isle, 3309 N. Central Expwy #370, Plano, TX 75023

AND

Southern Maid Donuts, 2492 Ave. "K", Plano, TX 75074

Happy Hour 24Oct2017

PWRC - Hurricane Harvey

Plano West donated $500 for food and supplies for victims of Hurricane Harvey.

Interact / Rotoract Leadership Summit

Great turnout on Saturday, Sept 30th for this year's Interact / Rotoract Leadership summit!

Funnel Cakes 2017

The Bemenderfer Crew getting ready for the Saturday night crowd! We sold a gazillion funnel cakes! All proceeds going to our charities!

Plano clubs and Hurricane Harvey

Here is a shot of the bus that went to Houston to deliver goods to those in need after the hurricane, from the clubs in Plano Texas

PWRC - Hurricane Harvey Support

Plano West Rotary jumped in to support those in need in the Houston area. Here is a picture of the goods we purchased for $500 to go towards helping those in need after the devastation of Hurricane Harvey.

Camp RYLA 2017

This year's camp RYLA was a huge success! Plano West sponsored four great future-leaders to attend this great event. They will be speaking on October 10th at our normal club meeting to tell us all about it!

Our 2017 - 2018 Rotary Logo

Posted by Daniel Long on Jul 25, 2017

Plano Battle of the Badges Blood Drive

Posted on Jul 04, 2017

End of Rotary Year News Letter

Posted on Jul 01, 2017

https://online.flippingbook.com/view/326424/

This is the last of the Rotary District News Letters from Rotary Year 2016 - 2017

As today starts a new Rotary Year 2017 - 2018

What a great "RIDE" - Thanks to all that worked to make it GREAT

Money to help SO many

Plano West 2017 donations

CRU $1,400.00

Wellness Ctr. $1,000.00

OVS $1,000.00

Strengthening Families $1,000.00

Barron El. School $1,500.00

Total Local $5,900.00

Shelter Box $1,000.00

Teaching w/Jamaica $1,000.00

Total International $2,000.00

Club Donation PH $1,000.00

Scouts Account $250.00

GRAND Total 2017 $9,150.00

Rotary 5810 FUN photos

Photos of a FUN Rotary event.

https://goo.gl/photos/PQu98HWLteqAr8aw9

More great Photos of the past Rotary year

https://goo.gl/photos/SyFd2UFw9fCsaqa28

Barron Games

Plano West Rotary made some fun games for Barron's upcoming Carnival last Saturday! YAYY!!!

Field Trip

trip to Collin Courthouse

Road trip to Collin County Courthouse!

Valentine / Mardi Gras Dinner

Plano Community Rotaract Club

Posted by Daniel Long

The Plano West Rotary Club - Is very happy to sponsor a great group of young people, working for the good of the world. Photo taken 4Feb2017 at Rotary/S.M.U. Plano campus at the 4th Peace Symposium - this year The Human Rights Symposium with over 200 of the area young people.

Merry Christmas

Happy Thanksgiving Day

ALL 5 Rotary clubs in Plano

Posted on Nov 05, 2016

October Party Time

Plano Balloon Festival

Posted on Sep 23, 2016

Fly High at the Plano Balloon Festival – Sep. 23 – 25, 2016

September 9, 2016

This year mark’s 37 years of Ballooning in Plano, Texas. Join in the Celebration at the InTouch Credit Union Plano Balloon Festival weekend, a spectacular three-day event beginning at 4:00pm Friday, September 23rd at Oak Point Park, 2801 E. Spring Creek Parkway, Plano, TX 75074.

The weekend event offers something for everyone; entertainment on the FOX 4 community stage and KLUV main stage, Saturday evening spectacular fireworks show, special kids activities, sky divers, an enormous variety of food to tempt your taste buds, merchandise and handmade products showcased, and of course the incredible hot air balloons. The balloons will launch Friday at 6:00pm, Saturday at 7:00am and 6:00pm, and Sunday at 7:00am and 6:00pm (weather permitting).

The major draw for this Balloon Festival will be the 45 magnificent, colorful, hot air balloons. Fun for all ages, are the Special Shapes that attend the festival. The featured Special Shapes that will be participating this year include: Joelly the Baby Bee, Betty Jean the Butterfly, Flying Purple People Eater, Pepe, Baby Dino, Bimbo Bear, High Diddle Diddle, Peg Leg Pete the Pirate Parrot, and the always popular High Jack.

For the adventurous, the RE/MAX parachute team will perform Friday, Saturday, and Sunday afternoons at 5:30pm by jumping from their plane over the park and landing right in the middle of the launch field.

Saturday evening catch the BOOM, BANG, and SIGHT of the spectacular Fireworks presented by Bimbo. The Festival fireworks show is custom designed and orchestrated by Pyrotex providing an amazing array of colors in the night sky.

Enjoy the fun and interactive inflatable rides this year. Race through the obstacle courses, zip down the huge slides, ride the pirate ship or the berry-go-round. Be sure to check out the “Toddler Zone.” Designed with young toddlers in mind, they can experience the fun of inflatables that are just their size. Children can enjoy the creative make and take art activities in our FREE Kids Korner as they make their way through the different craft stations. Get your Face Painted and explore music at the Plano Symphony Orchestra Instrument Area.

Friday and Saturday evenings, some of the balloons will provide a breathtaking sight as they inflate and glow after it gets dark. The glows are a must see!

Thank a Cop

On Monday, August 8th, members of Plano West Rotary and North Texas Pioneers Rotary presented the Plano Police Department with this banner.

Send Hope packing day

Last Saturday, Plano West Rotary and Plano North Texas Pioneers Rotary met at Greek Isles to pack food for Project Send Hope. These packets will be sent to Honduras as part of the Send Hope Organization.

Kids Against Hunger!

Backing the BLUE

Posted by Past President Daniel Long for the Dallas Rotary Club

Dear Rotarians,

To say that we are saddened by the tragedy that unfolded on Thursday night does not begin to express the many emotions we are feeling today. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of our fallen officers, the injured, the entire DPD and Chief Brown, the DART police force and DART Chief J.D. Spiller, and our entire city.

We wholeheartedly support Chief Brown and his officers. The efforts they have made in the area of community engagement are to be commended and their programs are models for other police departments. By all accounts, the protest Thursday was peaceful and our officers treated the protesters with respect and dignity, which makes the outcome all the more tragic.

If, like many in Dallas, you are wondering what you can do to help, we have some suggestions for you:

If you would like to donate to help the families of the fallen officers, the DPD has directed us to the Assist an Officer Foundation. You can mail a check to the foundation at 1412 Griffin St. East, Dallas, TX 75215 OR donate directly by going to https://atodallas.org/donate.

If you see a police officer, thank them! Buy them a meal; deliver cookies to a police substation in your neighborhood; give out Starbucks gift cards; write a supportive note or letter. We have seen how those gestures are so appreciated.

The Rotary Club of Dallas, in partnership with the police support group Safer Dallas Better Dallas, is having banners made to show visible, tangible support for our officers. This is something Chief Brown has requested from the public. The banner is shown at the top of this letter and the cost of the banner is $75/each. If you would like to order banners for display, please contact Barbara Daniel at barhdaniel@aol.com for more information. If you would like to change the Rotary logo to reflect your own personal club, there will be an additional art fee on top of the cost of the banner. We suggest that each Club purchase the banners to distribute to elementary Schools in their area.

The Rotary Club of Dallas is holding a golf tournament on Monday, September 12th, with half of the proceeds going to benefit the Dallas Police Department. If you would like information on how to participate in our golf tournament, please go to our web site to see options for sponsorship: https://www.rotary.org/golftournment.

Thank you for your continued support of the Dallas Police Department.

Yours in Service,

Michael Perry John Forest

President, The Rotary Club of Dallas Chairman, Safer Dallas Better Dallas Committee

Plano July 4th Parade

The Five Rotary Clubs of Plano participated in this year's Plano July 4th PARADE!!!!

2017 District Conf & Cruise

Rotary District 5810 Service Cruise

Posted by Happy Franklin

on Jun 05, 2016

Please make plans now to join DGE Bill Dendy and Rotarians from Texas on a 7 night Caribbean cruise!

We are already taking reservations, with the best cabins (and potential upgrades!) going to those who reserve and make full payment first.

Please invite your friends and family to join in on this once in a lifetime adventure!

Cruise Itinerary on “Liberty of the Seas” Ship

DAY	DATE	PORT	ARRIVE	DEPART
Sun	23 April 2017	Leave from Galveston, TX		4:30 PM
Mon	24 April 2017	At Sea (Conference)
Tue	25 April 2017	Cozumel, Mexico (Service Day)	7:00 AM	4:00 PM
Wed	26 April 2017	George Town, Grand Cayman	10:30 AM	6:00 PM
Thurs	27 April 2017	Falmouth, Jamaica (Service Day)	8:00 AM	5:00 PM
Fri	28 April 2017	At Sea (Conference)
Sat	29 April 2017	At Sea
Sun	30 April 2017	Galveston, TX	7:00 AM

To book a cabin, please contact Kim Montgomery at 214-239-4715 or to send her an email, please click here.

For non-booking related cruise questions, please contact District Conference Chair Happy Franklin, by clicking here.

To access the PDF registration form. Please click here.

Cabin Selections Rates are Per Person; Based on Double Occupancy Tour Rate Taxes + Fees Total Fare Opt. Insurance
Inside Cabin ( Category M)	$ 489.00 $100.40 $ 589.40 X 2 = 1178.80 $29.00 pp
Outside Cabin (Category I)	$ 569.00 $100.40 $ 669.40 X 2 = 1338.80 $59.00 pp
Outside Cabin (Category H)	$ 569.00 $100.40 $ 669.40 X 2 = 1338.80 $59.00 pp
Balcony (Category D3)	$ 799.00 $100.40 $ 899.40 X 2 = 1798.80 $59.00 pp
Suite (Category JS)	$ 1189.00 $ 100.40 $ 1289.40 X 2 = 2578.80 $89.00 pp
Reservation Deposit Amount	$ 250.00
Optional Prepaid Gratuities	$94.50 per person

- See more at:

DG Bill Dendy & Jeff Crilley

https://www.youtube.com/audio?video_referrer=watch&v=izY_mlpiw7Q

Plano West Rotary Club Party

New Rotary Theme 2016-2017

Just out at the DG training - International Assembly

Pecans

From all of us to all of you 2015

Tue. 24Nov2015

Please remember that we DO NOT have a meeting on Tue. 24Nov2015 - as that is the Thanksgiving week and many are very busy or out of town - From all of us at Plano West Rotary Club, have a safe and blessed Holliday with your love ones, and please come to the next club meeting on Thu. 01Dec2015.

End of Polio

Posted on Oct 23, 2015

Thanks to all of the friends and members of many Rotary clubs in district 5810, for Celebrating Rotary’s World Polio Health Day, with us at Plano West Rotary & Greek Isle. Thanks to the local chair of this event Lynne McNamee, PDG, Charles (Bud) McBrayer & wife Peg, DG, Larry Webb and so many other Rotary members. A percent of all money raised with this event will be given to the Rotary Foundation to help with the eradication of Polio.

Time to cook

It's time !!!

This is our time to shine!

Come out and make this year's big fundraiser the best ever!!!

ALL club Rotary Happy Hour

Rotary 4th of July

Freedom All Club Luncheon

Installation Dinner 2015

Club service

Plano West Rotary Club is now accepting donations of your old glasses, including prescription, reading, protective goggles, and sunglasses. These will be donated to a local non-profit eye clinic team where they will be given to someone who does not have access to eye care and glasses. Please bring your glasses to our meeting at Greek Isles and place them in the provided box. Thank you for leveraging this simple service to help others!

Adoption Awareness 2015

Last year many of our club members took part in the Adoption Awareness Carnival 2014. We had a FUN day and helped to get many young people adopted into a new home. We all must complete ALL of the forms for CPS or we can NOT get into the event. GO TO: Rotary5810.org (can be found bottom right of our Club Runner home page). UNDER: Up Coming Events, look for Adoption Awareness , Click on Registration and enter your information. Below the Registration link, Down Load ALL four (4) forms listed as Attachments. MUST have a set of forms for each and every person that will volunteer. Complete all of the forms and give, send, or E-mail to me OR, PDG, Linda Elliott. The dead-line for the forms is Wed. 14Jan2015 - so that we will have time to get them back to us. If you have kids or grand kids YOU will love this event.

Board Meeting this Tuesday!

PWRC,

We will be having our monthly board meeting this Tuesday, Feb 17th, at 10:30 at Greek Isles. All are welcome!

Valentine & Anniversary Dinner

Plano West Facebook

As a member of Rotary - go to https://www.facebook.com/PlanoWestRotaryClub and be a friend to all of us at Plano West Rotary in Plano, TX

Find out more about "Did You Know" ??

Did you know??...

Little known facts and tidbits about our Club.

For example:

Did you know... that we are coming up on our 35th anniversary? Yes, Jan 29th, will be 35 years since Plano West Rotary was chartered.

Holiday Rotary Party

Plano West Rotary 2014 Christmas Party

RI Polio Day

Party with Plano West

Come to a great Party with Plano West Rotary Club - on 30Oct2014, 6:30pm (see all the fun on this page) AND you can party with the kids on 31Oct2014.

Great week-end

What a GREAT Week-End and Funnel Cake Booth/s that we had - your leader will report all about it if you were not working with so many of us.

This is a note to let all of you know that we are now LIVE with the NEW Club Runner Ver-3 - If any of you have any problems with the new software, please call or E-mail me (Daniel) or Glen, and we will work with you and this new system. Hope to see all of you on Tue. 30Sep2014, when President, Glen will show all of us how to work this page & our on-line dues payments.

support

Using the funds we get from our annual Plano Balloon Festival, Plano West Rotary is Proud to Support these Organizations for 2016 - 2017

Barron Elementary School,

CRU Plano

The Wellness Center for Older Adults,

Operation Veterans Support,

Shelter Box,

Strengthening Families of North Texas,

Teaching with Jamaica,

Send Hope,

Thanks to all of the hard work from members & friends, the Plano West Rotary Club is happy to Support the names above for this Rotary year. 2016 - 2017

? are you ready ?

Posted by Daniel Long

It is time for the BIG week-end, hope to see all of you out at the great event.

Club Board meeting

Posted by Daniel Long

Plano West Rotary Club's board of directors business meeting this week Sep. 16 at 10:30am and remember it is a makeup meeting for all club members.

Balloon Time

Posted by Daniel Long

Save the dates; September 19, 20 & 21th - sign up to help our club with this years big event.

Rotarian

Posted by Daniel Long

I have often been asked - "What is Rotary" and like a lot of people I sometimes have trouble describing Rotary in a few words. A fellow Rotarian shared this with me today and I think it says it better than I ever have - "Rotary is a global service organization dedicated to improving lives and communities across the globe. Along the way, the members develop lifelong friends and social contacts."

If you aren't a Rotarian now, you should be.

The above is a copy, from PDG, Ean Sullivan on FaceBook

Honoring and Remembering - 2014

The 5 Rotary Clubs in Plano have joined forces to host the second annual Honoring and Remembering 9/11 event. Last year’s event was quiet a success with over 300 attendees and not a dry eye in the house. This year we have engaged two retired NYPD officers to be our speakers; their stories will be very interesting I am sure. The purpose of the event is multi fold: to remember and thus never forget the events of 9/11 (the speakers), to honor first responders and survivors (honor the speakers with a Paul Harris Fellow), to provide community awareness of what Rotary does for our community and to raise a little money (hopefully) for Polio Plus.

I am sure you are aware of the debilitating effects of Polio and how it attacks children. We are but a plane ride from one of the remaining epidemic countries away from an outbreak in the US. As you should know, Polio Plus is the charity of choice of our District Governor’s spouse for the second year in a row.

Payment by Sept 1 is requested. You may go to www.HonoringAndRemembering.com and pay with credit card via paypal or mail your check (preferred) to: Plano Sunrise Rotary 9/11, PO Box 861165, Plano TX 75086-1165

Plano Balloon Festival

Posted by Glen Thornton

Please mark your calendars for Sept 19 - 21 for this years Funnel Cake extravaganza

I think this year's event will take the cake, and I'm not just powered sugar coating that statement!

What, you haven't signed up yet!! Mike Walker can fix that for you

New Rotary Video

Posted by Daniel Long

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=1410239045904673

Barron Elementary School

Plano West Rotary is PROUD to support Barron Elementary School in Plano

Plano West donated to ShelterBox

Posted by Daniel Long

Please note; below is re-posted from RI web-page

ShelterBox Response Teams delivering aid in the Philippines following major typhoon

November 14, 2013

With the help of our supporters, including Rotarians, clubs and districts, we are working to immediately assist more than 4,000 families affected by Super Typhoon Haiyan. This typhoon was the biggest storm to ever reach landfall, destroying buildings, wiping out villages, and has reportedly caused thousands of fatalities.

Our response teams were on the ground during the storm and began conducting assessments immediately following its passing. Thankfully, we had emergency supplies prepositioned in the Philippines that were utilized immediately. But now, more are needed.

Recently, warehouse volunteers rallied to our international headquarters to pack ShelterBoxes and prepare other supplies that will be sent immediately to help families displaced by the storm.

Learn more about the aid we are providing as explained on CNN.

"Every day that goes past, we realize more and more the real significance of this disaster and the areas of devastation are becoming more and more apparent," said ShelterBox Response Team volunteer, Mark Curnow.

Rotarians ... are serving on our ShelterBox Response Team on the ground. ShelterBox could not carry out this important work around the globe without the support of its donors. Watch this video to learn more about our response.

Election 2013

Posted by Daniel Long

Plano West Rotary Club meeting of 26Nov2013,

With a quorum of 10 members needed and a member count of 16, we had our officers election for the Rotary year 2014-2015. With so many qualified members in our club we are pleased to announce the officers for the next Rotary year as; President, Glen Thornton – President-Elect, Daniel Long – Secretary, Don Mellor & Treasurer, Ryan Yowell. We are also happy to have as the chairperson for the Benevolence community, Helen Macey and first member Lisa Leach. We did also have some write-ins and a member of the Executive Board will be talking to you about one of the many positions within the club, as we need for everyone to work to keep the Plano West Rotary Club the great club that it is and has been for many years.

Please remember the Holidays, be safe and have a great time with your love ones.

Please sale PECANS and let Vincent or me know if you need more.

Please check your emails this week, as I will be sending out a copy of what the Board of Directors has approved as a new Plano West Rotary Club, By-laws. Please remember that our by-laws are a work in progress and as time and the club makes any changes so will our by-laws. We will vote on the new by-laws at the next club meeting on 3Dec2013. Vote per By-laws on file as of July 1995.

https://www.facebook.com/PlanoWestRotaryClub PLEASE like us on our Face Book page.

What time is it?

It's PECAN time !!!

the pecans are HERE, the pecans are HERE, the pecans are HERE...

See Vince for details!!

Gayle Anderson and Small Miracle Foundation

Today, Plano West Rotary Club, presented a check to Gayle Anderson on behalf of Small Miracle Foundation, which helps provide child care for parents going through cancer treatment. This is a great organization and we are proud to support them!

RYLA club

Posted by Daniel Long

Plano West meeting of 16Jul2013, was honored to have our young RYLA campers, Spencer, Ben, Weston & Kayla and two of the past RYLA campers that are now counselors at RYLA Camp, Mr./Mrs. Egger (Jeff & Becca). We were given some great reports as to how RYLA has made a big impression on all of their lives for now and for their future. We were also lucky to have three visiting Plano Rotary Club members, Andy Sayers, Hubert Aaron, and Brad Keith. Thanks to all for a great meeting and please come back soon.

Our Presidents!

2012/2013 President Lisa Leach pinning 2013/2014 President John Kostas!!!

Plano Solar Advocates

See the following from Matt Lagos, of Plano Sunrise, and a member of Plano Solar Advocates

I am part of grassroots group called Plano Solar Advocates (PSA) and we just launched a new initiative called Solarize Plano. This pilot program provides group purchase discounts for Plano residents interested in adding solar for their energy needs. We are getting into the hot summer months so I know many residents will be looking for ways to save money off their high electricity bills.

Any questions can be directed to Larry Howe, PSA President, at planosolar@gmail.com or by calling 972-468-1485.

Please see more at: http://www.planosolar.org/

Help Plano West support tPwo additional RYLA students this year!

Posted by Glen Thornton

Plano West Rotary's award to Kayla Stovall,

Award given to Kayla Stovall from Plano West Rotary Club's President, Lisa Leach, for starting Plano West High School's first Interact Club. Great job!

Did You Know?

Have a question about some of the rotary terminology? check out this list... (click below)

All (221) Clean-Up (9) Meal Distribution (9) Plano ISD (9) COVID-19 (7) Avenue K (6) Homeless (5) Fundraiser (4) Meetings (4) Bed Start (3) Furniture Delivery (3) POWS (3) Douglass (2) Four-Way Test (2) Funnel Cakes (2) Scholarship (2) Adoption (1) Asiafest (1) Backpacks (1) Farmstead (1) Flags of Honor (1) Juneteenth (1) LGBT (1) Parades (1) Pecans (1) Plano Police (1) RCC (1) Rotary Youth Exchange (1) Seniors (1) Shoe Drive (1) Streetside Showers (1) Students (1) Trailer (1)