If you did not make it to our last Rotary Club of Forest Grove meeting, here is what you missed…

This Week’s Meeting: We hope that you will be able to join us on Wednesday at noon in the Boxer Pause Room in the University Center at Pacific University. This month, we will be honoring our first Rotary Youth Citizens of the Month for the 2025-26 academic year. Please join us and help us celebrate these special youth.

Upcoming Meetings: The rest of our Wednesday meetings in October and December will be held at Pacific University. Our meetings on Dec. 3 and Dec. 10 will be held at the Forest Grove United Church of Christ. There will not be Wednesday meetings on Nov. 26, Dec. 24 and Dec. 31.

Lunch Procedures Our For Meetings At Pacific: Pacific University’s food service provider, Bon Appetit, has updated the way lunches are purchased for our meetings this Rotary year. All members and guests will need to present a voucher, purchased from our treasurer, to enter the dining commons.

• If you are billed for lunch, you will still need to check in to receive your voucher.
• All guests will also need a voucher to enter the commons.
• The cost for lunch remains at $10.

Additionally, we are encouraging members to purchase a month’s worth of lunch vouchers at a time for our weekly meetings. This small change will make check-in smoother and help lighten the load on our treasurer. If you would like to prepay for your lunches, please see treasurer Sharon Olmstead.

Wreath Sales – Benefitting Family Resource Center: It’s wreath sale time again! Our club is again selling wreaths, made locally by fellow Rotarian Melinda Fischer.

This year’s wreath sales will benefit the Forest Grove School District’s Family Resource Center at Cornelius Elementary School. Members of our club were made aware of the center and the support that the center provides and the board made the decision this year to put financial support towards the center instead of our annual Hope For The Holidays food distribution project.

The Family Resource Center supports the growing number of homeless youth and families in our community. The center provides necessities like underwear, socks, hats and gloves, hygiene products, shoes and more. The center also has an ADA-accessible shower and washer and dryer that youth and families can utilize.

A 20-inch wreath is available for $35 and a 28-inch wreath is available for $45. All wreaths come with a decorative bow. Orders are due by Wednesday, Nov. 5, with local deliveries made by Rotarians on Saturday, Nov. 29.

Our goal is to sell 200 wreaths, which would provide $3,000 to donate to the Family Resource Center. The club is also in the process of applying for a $2,500 District 5100 matching grant to support the cause.

To order wreaths, please contact Janet Peters at 503-679-6479 (phone or text) or by email, rjlc4peters@msn.com.

Pints For Polio: Thank you to our Rotarians and friends who came out to The Growler Garage on Thursday, Oct. 23, to support our Pints For Polio event. We had a steady stream of people connected to our club and the Forest Grove Daybreak Rotary Club, along with Growler Garage regulars, who contributed to the event and learned more about Rotary’s fight to end polio. We are especially grateful to Rotarian Jill Verboort and her husband, Jerod, owners of The Growler Garage, who donated 15% of proceeds from the evening to Rotary International’s PolioPlus fund.

Road Cleanup Service Project – Nov. 8: Our next semi-annual road cleanup service project is scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 8. We will begin at 8:30 a.m. and will meet at the Oregon Department of Forestry offices at 801 Gales Creek Road. The project will last between 1 to 2 hours, depending on the number of volunteers.

We are grateful to Melinda Fischer and Rus Peters for stepping up to take over leadership on this project from Paul Waterstreet. Thank you to Melinda and Rus for taking this project on and thank you again to Paul for his longtime leadership.

A standing project for nearly 30 years through the Washington County Adopt-A-Road program, our club cleans up along Gales Creek Road between Thatcher Road and Forest Gale Drive, and Thatcher Road between Gales Creek Road and David Hill Road. This is one of the ways that we contribute to the beauty of our community through service.

McDougall Garden Cleanup: The McDougall Garden is cleaned up and put to bed for the fall. Thank you to those Rotarians who came out for the work party on Saturday, Oct. 18, and helped clean up our garden spot between Pacific Avenue and 19th Avenue, adjacent to the big flagpole on the east end of Forest Grove.

Youth Exchange Drivers For Weekly Meetings Needed: One of the requirements of the Youth Exchange program is that both inbound and outbound students attend our Rotary meetings. The Youth Exchange Committee is still in need of someone who can pick up Lara and our outbound student, Sophie, from Forest Grove High School weekly at 11:30 a.m., and return them to the school after. While a consistent driver for the semester would be ideal, the committee is open to having people sign up for one-month shifts at a time.

If you are interested in helping out, please contact our Youth Exchange Officer, Sarah Barbour. NOTE: To assist with the transport of Youth Exchange students, you must complete the District 5100 Youth Protection Training and undergone a background check with the district.

Steaks Available For Purchase: Our club still has packages of steak left over from the Steak Feed available for purchase. Packs of two choice New York steaks are available for $20 each. If you are interested, please contact Janet Peters.

Membership Committee: The club’s Membership Committee is looking for additional club members who want to make the experience in our club the best for current members and to find new members. The committee will be talking about what we can do to retain members, the recently completed club member survey, and what we can our members can provide to make this club that we can continue to be proud of. For more information, or to get involved, please contact Evelyn Orr or Bruce Cummings.

Concours d’Elegance News
Concours Committee Meetings: Club members are invited to take part in the monthly online meeting of the Concours meeting, which takes place on the second Thursday of each month at 7 p.m. The next scheduled meeting will take place on Tuesday, Nov. 11. The link to the online meeting is available in the Rototeller newsletter sent to club members.

Concours Committee Update: At last week’s meeting, it was announced that Bruce Cummings has stepped forward to chair the Concours Meeting leading up to the 2026 show. Thank you, Bruce, for your energy and your passion to see the Concours move even further forward this year!

Bruce and the committee have a goal to have the planning and execution of the car show better connected to our club, which has hosted and been the beneficiary of the Concours since 1975. Additionally, the Concours Committee and the club’s board have agreed to bring David Tauber back on board to help produce the 2026 edition of the show.

If you have questions about the Concours or want more information on how you can be better involved, please attend the next Concours Committee meeting or contact any of the Rotarians on the committee, including Bruce Cummings, Janet Peters, Geoff Johnston, Jordan Miller, Amy Tracewell, Mackenzie Carey and Tom Raabe.

Around District 5100
District Governor Town Hall – Oct. 28: District Governor Susanne invites you to her October Town Hall, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 5:15 p.m., via Zoom.

This month’s theme is “Small Talk, Big Trust” and Susanne’s special guest is District Learning & Development Committee Co-Chair (and Forest Grove Rotarian) Amy Tracewell.This chat will show how small talk starts real connection in Rotary. You will learn how to turn casual moments into trust, ask better opening questions, keep conversations flowing, join groups smoothly and remember names in a meaningful way. Small talk is where membership, partnerships and friendships begin.

The Zoom meeting will be open beginning at 5:15 p.m., with the program beginning around 5:30. A Zoom link was provided to members in the weekly newsletter, the Rototeller.

Susanne’s Storybook: Click Here to read the latest edition of Susanne’s Storybook, the Rotary District 5100 newsletter.

Last Week’s Program: Beth Huggins, Regenerative Field Institute
Last week, we were joined by Beth Huggins, program director for the Regenerative Field Institute, an organization dedicated to helping people in Ecuador through sustainable building and farming.

Huggins is originally from Portland and is visiting a number of Rotary clubs in hopes of putting together a global grant to help further a project designed to help Ecuadorian farmers through agroforestry.

The technique that the Regenerative Field Institute uses in Syntropic farming, which draws from Indigenous practices of regenerative agroforestry along side the contemporary need to cultivate the same land year in and year out.

The institute’s current project involved starting a farmer field school, with the idea that the best teachers in agriculture are the farmers themselves. There is great demand for cacao farmers in Ecuador, but the way that farmers have been planting cacao has been unsustainable. There is less than 1% left of virgin forest remaining in the Manabi region of Ecuador, where the institute is doing its work. That causes topsoil to run off into streams and oceans, causing an entire range of problems.

Farmers also need more intensive agrochemicals that affect soil, water and health. These chemicals can work for a short time, but they eventually lose their effectiveness.

Regenerative agroforestry helps to restore soil and water, recovers the biodiversity that creates habitats and strengthens ecosystems, improves livelihoods by diversifying income and creating jobs, empowering communities, and engaging youth, women and farmers as leaders of change.

Phase one of the Regenerative Field Institute’s project was from 2017 to 2024. The institute bought a cattle farm and mandarin orange farm that had not been well-maintained. The project rehabilitated both farms and helped the land to become productive once again. On the farm, 97% of cacao trees and 86% of banana trees have survived. They had 22 completed community work days with a 75% attendance rate.

In 2025, the institute used a Rotary global grant to launch phase two of the project, a pilot farmer-training program (farmer field school) with 25 farmers across five communities. Classes were spread over four weekends teaching hands-on Syntropic agroforestry practices.

Phase three of the project will go to scale the school upward to educate 150 farmers, which will be lead by 10 farmers who graduated from the program last year and excelled. Will be applying for another RI global grant to help sustain the program. Need to raise $70,000 to realize matches from Rotary sponsor clubs in Ecuador and Santa Rosa, California.

To learn more about the Regenerative Field Institute and their projects, visit their website.

Club Calendar
Wed., Oct 29: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Boxer Pause Room, University Center, Pacific University
Program: Youth Citizen of the Month Presentation

Wed., Nov. 5: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Boxer Pause Room, University Center, Pacific University
Program: David Noyes, Shelterbox

Wed., Nov. 5: Wreath Orders Due To Janet Peters

Sat., Nov. 8: Road Cleanup Service Project, 8:30 a.m.
Oregon Department of Forestry, 801 Gales Creek Road, Forest Grove

Tues., Nov. 10: Concours Committee Meeting, 7 p.m.
via Zoom

Wed., Nov. 12: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Boxer Pause Room, University Center, Pacific University
Program: PDG Larry Hatch, PolioPlus

Thurs., Nov. 13: Executive Board Meeting, 7 a.m.
via Zoom

Thurs., Nov. 20: Board Meeting, 5:30 p.m.
Zesti Food Carts, 2131 Yew St., Forest Grove

Third Thursday Social Meeting/Satellite Club Meeting, 6:30 p.m.
Zesti Food Carts, 2131 Yew St., Forest Grove
There will be no Wednesday meeting on Nov. 19