This Week – At Forest Grove School District Offices: The Rotary Club of Forest Grove will meet this week in the Grove Room at the Forest Grove School District offices, 1728 Main St. As this meal will be catered, RSVPs were due to secretary Janet Peters on Saturday.

This meeting will be our official visit from Rotary District 5100 Governor Renee Brouse. Plan on joining us and hear about how Renee’s governor year is going and about her continued goals for growth in our district.

Future Meetings: Our meetings on Wednesday, Mar. 13 and Wednesday, Mar. 20 will be back in the Boxer Pause Room on the campus of Pacific University. We will not meet on Wednesday, Mar. 27. Our Crab Feed is scheduled for Wednesday, Apr. 3. As this is an evening meeting, we will not have a noon meeting that day.

Congratulations Youth Citizens Of The Month: At our Feb. 28 meeting, we honored our two latest Rotary Youth Citizens of the Month from Gaston Jr./Sr. High School, Grace Lucas and Jillian Vidito! Click Here to read about their accomplishments. Thank you to the administration at Gaston and members of our Youth Service Committee, especially Doug Thompson and Andrea Stewart, for their work on this monthly recognition.

Crab Feed: Mark your calendars! Our annual Crab Feed social event will take place on Wednesday, Apr. 3 at the Forest Grove Senior & Community Center. Join us for an evening of fellowship and recognition of our Paul Harris Fellows. This will be an evening event and there will be no noon meeting that day.

Tickets for the Crab Feed can be ordered now. Prices for Crab Feed tickets, and the appropriate links for ordering, are as follows:

Regular Crab Feed Ticket – $45 per person: https://bit.ly/3IcbXOC
Vegetarian Or Children’s Meal – $25 per person: https://bit.ly/3wwZRNA
One Pound Crab Meat To Go – $35 per pound: https://bit.ly/3SWpi2s
Two Pack Of Steak – $20 per pack (to take home): https://bit.ly/3T9nncd
Red/White Wine – $10 per bottle (to take home): https://bit.ly/3TeqpuP

If you are interested in being involved in the planning and execution of this year event, please contact Julia.

Silent Auction At The Crab Feed: At this year’s Crab Feed, we will once again be conducting a silent auction with all proceeds benefitting The Rotary Foundation. The committee is looking again for items such as themed baskets, weekend getaways, gift cards or experiences. In past years, the silent auction has been very successful in helping us meet our club’s annual Rotary Foundation giving goals.

If you would like to make a donation, please contact Parri Van Dyke. Thank you to Parri and Evelyn Orr, who are coordinating the silent auction.

Scholarship Applications Open: The application period is now open for our 2024 Rotary Club of Forest Grove Scholarship Program. The program is open to graduating high schools that reside in the Forest Grove, Banks and Gaston school district attendance areas. These scholarships are made largely responsible by proceeds raised through our annual Concours d’Elegance car show. The one-time scholarships help pay for the first year of college or vocational school in the United States.

This year, applications for the program will only be accepted through the Going Merry website, which helps administer scholarship programs for a number or organizations in the U.S. Instructions on how to use the website and application instructions are available on our Rotary Scholarship Web Page.

The deadline for applications is Apr. 11, 2024. For questions, please contact Scholarship Committee chair Sharon Olmstead via email, sharon.olmstead8571@gmail.com.

Welcome Javin & Steven: At our Feb. 21 meeting, we were proud to welcome our two newest members of the Rotary Club of Forest Grove, Steven Barnard and Javin Frelin. Steven is a teacher at the Forest Grove School District’s Community Alternative Learning Center and was sponsored for membership by Tim Graham. Javin is a real estate broker with John L. Scott Market Center and was sponsored for membership by Cole Thursam. We hope to have bios on both Steven and Javin posted on the club website soon.

Forest Grove HS Interact Club: Our inbound Youth Exchange student, Fareeha Nayebare, has restarted the Interact Club at Forest Grove High School! Meetings take place on Wednesdays at 3:30 p.m. All Rotarians are welcome. The club is currently working on a service project with the high school’s Food Pantry. For questions, please talk with Fareeha at our meetings.

Past Programs: Did you miss a meeting or want to go back and check out a program again? Most of our programs since May 2020 (over 100 videos to date) are archived on our club’s YouTube page. Visit https://bit.ly/fgrotaryprograms.

Concours News
2024 Forest Grove Concours d’Elegance, presented by the Rotary Club of Forest Grove
Sunday, July 21 on Pacific University’s Forest Grove Campus

Concours Website | Enter A Car | 2024 Concours Weekend Schedule

Concours Committee Meetings: The Concours d’Elegance Committee is starting the planning for our 50th show on July 21, 2024. If interested in getting further involved with the Concours, the steering committee is always looking for volunteers to prepare for the show throughout the year. For more information, contact Tom Raabe at 503-704-1200 or rotarytomr@gmail.com or Geoff Johnston at 503-939-7868 or gamsma@comcast.net.

The next meeting of the Concours Committee will be on Tuesday, Mar. 12 via Zoom.

February Meeting: Click Here To View The Notes From February’s Concours Meeting

Portland Swap Meet – Volunteers Needed: We will once again be promoting the Concours at the Portland Swap Meet, Apr. 5-7 at the Portland Expo Center. We will be looking for Rotarians to fill two-hour shifts to promote the show, hand out flyers and man our booth. A sign-up sheet for shifts will be distributed at our weekly meetings or you can contact Jim Crisp to sign up.

Sponsorships: Sponsorships go a long way to increasing the profit of the Concours, which goes to fund our scholarship program and our club’s other outreach activities. To learn more about available sponsorships, Click Here to contact Tim Pearson at 503-998-8616 or timpearsonpc@gmail.com.

Polo Shirts: We still have a number of our club Concours polo shirts available for new members or club members who did not get one last year. The blue shirts have the Concours logo on the front and the club logo on the sleeve and are the work shirts we wear during the event. Shirts are $30 each. If you would like a shirt, please contact Tim Pearson.

Service Opportunities For Club Members
Do You Know Of Service Opportunities?: Are you aware of service opportunities in our area that our members might be interested in? We can advertise those here! This space is not limited to club-sponsored activities but to any service opportunity in the community. To promote the service activity, please send a detailed description of the project, the date and time, contact information and a link to register to Rototeller editor Blake Timm, blakertimm@gmail.com.

Upcoming Habitat For Humanity Service Project: The club is working with West Tuality Habitat for Humanity for a joint service project in May. We will have more details on this service opportunity soon.

FGHS Community Food Pantry: Our club’s support for the Forest Grove High School Food Pantry continues.  Thanks to its partnership with the Oregon Food Bank, food donations are still welcome but are of less need at this time. Of need, however, are toiletries and hygiene products as well as household cleaning materials.

The Food Pantry is open Mondays from 4-5:30 p.m. The pantry is located along Nichols Lane between the football field and the Basinski Center. Click Here for more information on the FGHS Food Pantry and on other resources for those experiencing food insecurity.

For information on the Food Pantry, please contact Brian Burke, bburke@fgsd.k12.or.us. If you wish to make a cash donation to the pantry, Click Here.

Around District 5100
Registration Now Open For Rotary One Conference: Make your plans now to attend the One Rotary Conference, District 5100’s combined training assembly and annual conference. This year’s conference runs from Friday, April 26 to Sunday, April 28 at the Best Western Hood River Inn in Hood River. This is a wonderful opportunity to not only learn more about Rotary, but to connect with Rotarians from all across the District.

The annual conference includes district training sessions on both Friday and Saturday. Friday evening features a barbeque dinner buffet and the annual Youth Exchange Talent Show (which will feature our Youth Exchange inbound student, Fareeha Nayeabre), a dinner event on Saturday and the annual awards ceremony and passing of the district governor banner on Sunday.

As our own Jeannine Murrell will be receiving the banner in advance of her district governor year, we would like to see as many members of our club as possible attend the conference to support her!

A link to register for the conference, along with the schedule of events and a link for hotel reservations at the Rotary rate, can be found at This DacDB Link (you must log in to DacDB to access). Registration closes on Apr. 9.

District 5100 Newsletter: Click Here To View The Monthly District 5100 Newsletter

Last Week’s Program: Fareeha Nayebare, An Introduction To Uganda

Click Here To Watch The Complete Program

Last week, we welcomed back our inbound Rotary Youth Exchange student, Fareeha Nayebare, as she presented about her home country of Uganda and about her home life and family.

Fareeha is from Uganda, which is a landlocked country in eastern Africa. It is bordered by South Sudan, Congo, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda. It has a population of over 49 million people. The official language is Ludanga but there is lot of English spoken thanks to British colonization. Uganda really only has two seasons: the wet season and dry season. Temps in dry season range from 77-84 degrees. During the wet season, averaging 64 degrees.

The population of Uganda is divided into three major groups: the Bantu (from the West), the Nilotes (originaly from South Sudan) and the Sudanic (from the Nuba Mountains in Sudan). Those three groups are further divided into 56 tribes and over 70 languages. One of the staple foods in Uganda is Matooke, or plantain bananas. Other major crops are cassava, sweet potatoes, beans, cabbage, peas, onions, tomatoes and all kinds of fruits.

Uganda has been recognized as among the top 10 counties in the world in biodiversity and ranked third among the fastest-growing countries for leisure travel. Uganda has the big seven of African animals: lions, leopards, elephants, hippos, cape buffalo, chimpanzees and gorillas. Uganda is also known for having 15 different species of primates and for having over 1,000 species of birds, including 50% of Africa’s species and 10% of the world’s species.

Uganda has diversity in faith with 39.5% of the population Catholic, 32% Anglican/Protestant and 13.7% Muslim. It has the third-largest mosque in Africa. In terms of geography, Uganda is one of the rare places to have permanent snow on the equator, for having the second largest freshwater body in the world (Lake Victoria) and it is where the headwaters of the Nile River. The highest point is Margherita Peak, 16,763 feet above sea level.

Her dad, Ahmed Bogere, is a teacher by profession, a father of nine and a religious leader. Her mother, Hadijah Nabakooza, is a teacher, a single mom of five children and creates learning aids and materials for schools and teachers. Fareeha’s parents separated when she was young and she did not get to know them until she was nine years old.

In Uganda, she goes to Kololo High School. She served as the school’s finance secretary, is involved with the school’s Muslim Student Association. She loves modeling, painting and making people smile.

We are so glad that Fareeha is with us in Forest Grove this year!

Club Calendar
Wed., Mar. 6: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Grove Room, Forest Grove School District Office, 1728 Main St.
Program: District Governor Renee Brouse

Tues., Mar. 12: Concours Committee Meeting, 7 p.m.
via Zoom

Wed., Mar. 13: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Boxer Pause, University Center, Pacific University
Program: Club Assembly

Thurs., Mar. 14: Executive Board Meeting, 7 p.m.
via Zoom

Wed., Mar, 20: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Boxer Pause, University Center, Pacific University
Program: To Be Announced

Thurs., Mar. 21: Board Meeting, 7 a.m.
via Zoom

Wed., Mar. 27: No Meeting.

Wed., Apr. 3: Crab Feed
Forest Grove Senior & Community Center
Evening Meeting. There will be no noon meeting on Apr. 3