WEEK OF APRIL 1, 2020

COVID 19 and Rotary

Greetings fellow Rotarians. Like the rest of the world, we are slowly settling into what has become, “the new normal”. As difficult and as trying as these times are, I am personally heartened by the amount of support and kindness that people are showing to one another. While we as a society might not be able to physically pull together to serve our communities, we are doing a great job of coming up with outside of the box ways of supporting others in need. In that I see hope and the spirit of Rotary.

Essex Rotary Golf Tournament

There is some bad news and good news about the annual Essex Rotary Golf Tournament. The bad news is that we will not be holding this event on June 10th as originally planned. The good news, however, is that the tournament will be taking place at a later date. The new date for this event has been tentatively set for Wednesday, September 23rd at the Links at Lang Farm in Essex Center. Stay tuned for more details about this event.

Heavenly Pantry Food Shelf

Fellow Rotarian, Reverend Mark Mendes provided us with the following update on how things are going at the Food Pantry.

“Patrons were asked to access the parking lot from the Church St. side and to remain in their cars with windows closed. A crew of volunteers in the parking lot directed traffic (much like lining up for the Ferry). Then another crew verified residency while still another group brought pre packaged bags of groceries to the car and loaded them into the trunk. A total of 76 families were served, representing 225 individuals. Volunteers were younger people who were not in the vulnerable age groups. Those who wished they could be there to help but were staying home in accordance with the vulnerability guidelines were thanked for their compliance.”

Per the request of the church, people who fall in the vulnerable category are asked to please hold off on volunteering until the health threat subsides. Please contact Associate Pastor Josh Simon at jsimon@fccej.com for more details. Thank you to Mark for the update and thank you to Sharon Dettenrieder for coordinating our Club’s involvement with this very important service.

Upcoming plans for the next few weeks – The newsletter will still be distributed each week to provide our members with any updates on our Club and Rotary in general. In the meantime, please stay safe.

For the complete list of upcoming speakers and information about the Club, please go to our website at rotaryclubofessex.org Be sure to also follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/EssexVermontRotary , on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/essexvermontrotary/ and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/essex_rotary

Yours in Rotary,

Jason Ruwet