Susan Clark of the High Museum speaks.

Dr. Jim Speed is the big winner!

Bobby Lewis passes out the Zero Bars.

Billy Schroer gives the BIG playoff results.

President Will was honored as the Biggest Loser!

END POLIO NOW- Click here to see our own Fred Beloin working in the background

CRUTCHES 4 AFRICA PROJECT:
www.crutches4africa.org

 

Welcome to the Rotary Club of Marietta Web-site!

Our Club, founded in October of 1919, has a long history of community, state, regional and global humanitarian service.   We have a great commitment to Marietta, Cobb County, District 6900, and to the world at large.

I am honored to begin our new year as President of this longstanding club. Mark and his board have left us with a wonderful guide to follow. We have some goals of our own that I am anxious for YOUR PARTICIPATION!

Starting Wednesday July 6, we will be explaining our plans to the club and continue to do so over the next few weeks. After speaking with the new board and several individuals within our club, there is a consensus of concentrating on local projects. DG Margie Kersey has asked us to plant 25 trees per club member. We presently are at 135 members, so 4050 trees is our goal!

Projects cost money and we are planning a series of FUN fundraisers we need your involvement. Spread out over the course of the year will be Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner events that will be taking place at (and benefitting) local History Museums (an idea from Past President Gary Eubanks). Sheldon Michaels is chairing this aggressive effort and will be explaining how these are to work. What I ask is for everyone in our club to attend at least one of these events (hopefully more than one) and bring a friend. I want us and others to take note of our camaraderie and efforts to become aware that the Marietta Rotary Club is a vibrant service club in our community that they might take an interest in joining.

Sticking with our theme of History, Morgan Robertson will be educating us on what Marietta was like when Rotary came to our town and how we have influenced and grown with  Marietta and Cobb County.

Our efforts will not be limited to Marietta. We have coordinated with last year’s board to create projects that continue year after year. These projects will also continue in Mitch Rhoden’s year. Coordination with Mark Barbour’s previous board, we stressed  continuation of existing projects for sustainability. Our three international humanitarian aid projects are ;   1.Uganda – we will continue supporting the Vocational-Entrepreneurial Training Project in partnership with the Great Lakes Regional College, Luzira prison, and Great Lakes area Rotary Clubs will provide computers, text books, and vocational training equipment.  2. Crutches-4-Africa Project – continued throughout the year to collect       crutches, walkers, canes and wheelchairs here in Marietta to send there to      impoverished areas of South Africa in partnership with the Foothill Rotary     Club of Denver, Colorado;   3. Alliance for Smiles Project - our Club will help provide resource funding for surgery to correct Cleft Palates of children in the Philippines and Bangladesh; this program originated with the Rotary Club of San Francisco;

• Another sustaining project will be our 3rd yr. effort  of our signature project  within the Marietta Community with our Rotary Club 5K Partnership

      Run 2011 with our local YWCA to be held in the spring; Linda Rodriquez and Dawn McEachern are Co-chairs of this emerging event that will promote exceptional community involvement and excitement and raise funds for our Marietta Rotary Foundation (MRFF) and other local Marietta benevolent charity organizations;

• We will advocate Literacy Action by following the lead of Literacy Chairs Gayle Popham and Jim Burns with Fall and Spring reading initiatives in the Marietta City Schools system that provides two (2) approved reading list books for every second grader in the Marietta City School System; we will also sponsor the Marietta City Schools Annual Reading Bowl Competition in January, and support the Marietta Reads event on the City Square by collecting books, setting up the event and providing “celebrity readers” from our Club; our Club representatives will also attend the annual Carter Center Rotary Literacy Conference in February;
• We will commit to and commend Rotary New Generation programs under the leadership of Penny Anderson. Our Club sponsorship of the Boys Scout Memorial Day badge initiative, awarding 1800 merit badges for the decoration of 2300 soldier graves in the Marietta National Military Cemetery is a most commendable event.  The Dental Day Education Programs led by Blair Waldron in our local elementary schools will be held and a service partnership with the Girls Scouts of America has been planned along with an  exciting "Partners in Education" relationship with the Performance Learning Center for challenged youth; we also will continue to sponsor AIDS Education, Interact and Rotaract Programs at Hillgrove High School, The Walker School, and Kennesaw State University; we will sponsor again the Laws of Life Essay contest, the Rotary Youth Leadership Award, and host/sponsor our Georgia Rotary Student Program candidate from Scotland; moreover, we plan to charter and support a new EARLYACT program initiative at a local Marietta Elementary School;    provide and feed the hungry at MUST each month, make Christmas possible for the children of Lockheed Elementary by sponsoring Christmas gifts and a Christmas party for needy kids, collect much needed school supplies for the Dunleith Elementary School, organize and staff with Rotarians a mentoring after-school program in the Dunleith school cluster that will operate Mondays through Thursdays throughout the school year; support C.A.R.T. (Coins for Alzheimer's Research Trust), work with The Extension (Adult Residential Re-hab Center) mentoring and feeding residents, collect items for the Stockings for Soldiers project, support other local service organizations (such as YWCA, The Center for Family Resources and the Good Samaritan Health Center of Cobb), and sponsor the annual Easter Sunrise service at Kennesaw Mountian along with, as mentioned, the National Memorial Day of Georgia observance at the Marietta National Cemetery; Our GRSP student,  Katriana Sanberg from Sweden, is scheduled to arrive in Georgia in July and attend Southern Poly in Marietta. Her host family will be Bill and Jenny Brumby.

Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it?

Please PAY ATTENTION to our explanation of upcoming plans and GET INVOLVED. We are Marietta’s Best and Oldest Service Club that will be having a good time growing and helping others in need.

Yours in Rotary,

Will Goodman

Rotary Theme 2011-2012: Reach Within to Embrace Humanity
Kalyan Banerjee - President, Rotary International

Margie Kersey- District Governor, District 6900
Will Goodman- President, Rotary Club of Marietta

Mitch Rhoden- President-Elect, Rotary Club of Marietta