Since opening Jack Willard Community Park our club members have been overjoyed about the community use of the space. Never resting on our laurels, plans are in place for improvements to the space.
On October 26th we will introduce six local artists, two of them children, who have created artwork to be displayed in the park. The celebration will begin at 11:00, with artist introductions at 11:30. A free hot dog lunch will be provided. We are very excited to add this visual artistic component to the park.
Secondly, there are very few trees in the space and none big enough to provide much shade. We are undertaking an effort to provide a shade sail similar to the one in this picture.
This will be installed over the existing picnic table to allow for some cooling off during the hottest days of summer.
Thankfully the Town of Danville Parks Department can do the installation. However, we don’t want to have any cost to the Danville Parks Department for the structure itself.
Our club has committed funds for the project, and would like to enlist the communities help in funding this project. We are hoping to raise $2,000 through individual donations and our club will match that to make this dream a reality.
Please use the Paypal link on the top right of our website to make your tax deductible donation.
On an international level, Rotary does a lot of work on
helping to provide clean water to reduce waterborne diseases, keep children
healthy, and allow mothers to spend more time with their families. In the United States, clean water is a
given. Locally, Danville Rotary wanted
to look at how we can be better stewards of our clean water.
This idea germinated with a Danville Community High School
student during our annual Speech Contest. Her topic involved a water bottle refilling
station and the impact that has on the environment in reducing waste.
One of our club fundraisers is to sell pizza each year at
the Downtown Danville Partnership Summer Sounds concert series. We also sell bottles of water. On average we go through 100 bottles of water
for a concert. There are four concerts
so we are looking at 400 disposable plastic bottles that we could try to
eliminate.
Our current President, Kevin Hill, spoke to Rex Leach. Leach & Sons Water Systems is a local
provider of water and water softening equipment. Rex agreed to help us in this effort by
providing us a water cooler and large bottles of water to dispense into
refillable containers.
The second step was
the container. After some thought and
discussion, it occurred to us that many local merchants have disposable cups
they are using that might be eliminated too.
This quickly became a “bigger than Rotary” project, and we enlisted the
help of the Greater Danville Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Danville
Partnership. Hendricks Regional Health
became aware of the effort and came alongside us with support as well.
Through those partnerships, we were able to communicate with
many local merchants about this idea. We
found a lot of support, and in fact many were exploring how they could get more
environmentally friendly disposable cups without spending an arm and a
leg.
In the end, we developed this 20 ounce aluminum tumbler that
we are making available to the community for $10. This cup can be used at Summer Sounds for
FREE water from the Danville Rotary Club.
Also, we can eliminate many of the disposable beer cups at Summer Sounds
as Two Guys Pies has agreed to fill this 20 oz cup for the same price as the 16
oz cup.
The cup can also be used at Evenings in Ellis as Indy Beer
Taps will do the same.
In addition, many local merchants will offer a discount for
using this cup instead of a disposable cup for “to go” drinks. Current merchant participants and discounts
include:
Bee Hive 50% off regular coffee, tea, and soda
Bread Basket $1 coffee, tea, and soda
Court House Grounds $1 regular coffee or tea
Red’s Donuts 10% off a large cofee
Royal Theatre Free Ice Water and $1 Fountain Drinks
Additional merchants will be added to the program. Look for the attached window cling to know if
that local merchants participate, and go inside and ask them about their
discount.
Salute to Our Veterans is a combined effort of the Hendricks County Rotary Clubs. Led by Avon Rotary and their President Charlie Dorton, we are aiming to raise $100,000 to fund another honor flight.
All funds raised will be donated to Indy Honor Flight. The goal is to add a fourth flight next year which will allow 89 more WWII, Korea, and Vietnam Veterans to visit the memorials in Washington DC.
The event is on Friday March 8, 2019. Doors open at 5:30 and there will be beer and wine before dinner at 7:00 pm. There will be a silent auction to raise additional funds. Joe Staysniak will emcee the night and Brigadier General J. Stewart Goodwin will be the guest speaker.
Please join us in celebrating these veterans before it is too late. You can buy tickets for $100 per person at any Danville Rotary Club meeting which are held at NSSB, 1500 E Main St, Danville, IN 46122. Meetings are every Thursday at Noon.
Did you know that when the Salvation Army collects donations in front of your local Kroger that those donations are returned locally? I didn’t either until Flory Phillips connected our Danville Rotary Club with the Salvation Army. They track the local donations received and work to redistribute those funds in our community. So be generous when going in to the store. I say going in because you need to grab change from your stash in the car. You know you will pay with a plastic card of some sort, so having spare change isn’t likely as you leave the store.
Our own Danville Rotary members will be helping on Dec 7th & 8th, manning the red bucket at the Danville Kroger. Here is a pictuer of Tim & Mary Rose Wright donating their time last year. They are owners of Wright Realty and very committed to giving back to their community. In fact, in 2017 they were awarded the most enthusiastic bell ringers by the employees of Kroger.
James McBryant spoke to our club in September. James is the Administrator at Cypress Manor. He informed us of their mission, recent activity, and some needs they have. The presentation spurred our Human & Community Development Committee to have a follow up meeting and find out specifically how Rotary could help.
There were a variety of ways for our club to become involved, and we will explore more of those as time goes on. During October & November our goal was to collect personal hygiene items and toiletries to help support the residents. Residents of Cypress Manor are typically homeless, and in a transition period to living independently again.
Our collection ended today. Roxanne Simmons and Jim Phillips, both of whom spear headed this effort, are shown just before taking the collection to Cypress Manor. Thank you to all our members who contributed to this effort.
Roxanne Simmons invited Danny Marquez to attend Danville Rotary’s October 18th meeting as our speaker. I have never seen our members more captivated by a presenter as I was today. Danny has a real passion for his work and on top of that is a fantastic speaker. I have no doubt his impact will be great in the community he is trying to help.
Here is a video he showed that testifies to the impact he has made on one life. I have also included a link for Near West City Life, so you can find out more about this great organization working to improve lives in our community.
Rotary Club Foundation of Danville’s Annual Raffle
Each year the Danville Rotary Club sells raffle tickets to raise funds for the Rotary Club Foundation of Danville. 400 tickets are sold at $50 each. Five prizes are awarded with grand prize of $7,500 being awarded to the first ticket pulled. Four subsequent prizes are awarded; $800, $600, $400, and $200.
There is very little expense associated with the raffle, so the majority of the remaining funds are deposited with the Rotary Club Foundation of Danville to be used for a funding a variety of grants to organizations which fit our mission.
The mission of the Rotary Club of Danville is to support local youth organizations, promote literacy, help eliminate poverty and assist all those in need within our community.
This year, our winners were drawn at our October 18, 2018 meeting. Please view the attached video to see the results.
If you purchased a ticket this year, you have the thanks of each and every Rotary member. We sincerely appreciate your participation and helping to fund our mission. If you didn’t participate, check our membership listing to find a Rotarian you know and be sure you are included in 2019.
