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 you will join us this week for our meeting on Wednesday in the Boxer Pause room in the University Center at Pacific University. Join us as we hear from David Tauber, who will have all of the latest updates on our annual Concours d’Elegance car show in July.

This meeting will be catered. RSVPs for lunch are due 10 days in advance of the meeting to meet the deadlines for our caterers. If you did not RSVP, you are still welcome to attend the meeting, but please bring your own lunch.

Upcoming Meetings: All of our meetings in June and July will take place in the Boxer Pause Room in the University Center at Pacific University.

Steak Feed: We are less than two weeks away from our 67th Annual Steak Feed, which takes place on Friday, June 6, 5-8 p.m., at the University Center on Pacific University’s Forest Grove Campus.

Each club member is being asked to support the cause by selling 10 tickets to the event. Each ticket is $25 and includes a barbequed New York Steak, salad, baked potato, roll, beverage and dessert. Beer and wine will also be available for an added charge. To-go options will be available. Please sell tickets to your family, friends, enemies, acquaintances, anyone who would enjoy a good meal.

This fundraiser specifically benefits our involvement in the Rotary Youth Exchange program. This upcoming Rotary Year, we will be sending two students outbound to Mexico and Denmark. We will also have an inbound student this year from Turkey.

This is an all-hands-on-deck event for the club, with every member’s participation important to its success. If you will not be able to attend, or have questions about your assignment, please contact the designated committee chair you are assigned to. For more information, contact Steak Feed chair Geoff Faris.

Hillsboro Rotary Fourth of July Parade: Mark your calendars for Friday, July 4 as our club will once again be marching in the Hillsboro Rotary Fourth of July Parade to promote the annual Concours d’Elegance. A sign-up sheet for parade volunteers is being circulated at weekly meetings. The parade is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. More details will be coming closer to the event.

Save The Date – End Of Year Celebration: Be sure to save the evening of Wednesday, July 2 for our annual End of the Year Celebration at the home of Sharon Olmstead. Details to come soon. Join us as we celebrate our accomplishments in Lucas Welliver’s year as president and welcome Andrea Stewart for her presidential year. There will be no noon meeting on Wednesday, July 2.

McDougall Garden Work Party – Part 2: A rescheduled work party at our McDougall Garden is scheduled for this Saturday, May 31, 8:30 a.m., at the garden located between Pacific and 19th Avenues near the big flagpole. Members of the Satellite Club are spearheading the work in the garden this year and will be plating gromwells, spreading bark dust and giving the garden a fresh, clean look for the year. Please bring gloves and garden tools.

Satellite Club Director Hector Mendez-Colberg wishes to thank Janet Peters, Melinda Fischer and others who have already stepped up to do some weeding and prep work leading up to this week’s work party. We hope to see many of you there.

Congratulations Youth Citizens of the Month!: At our May 14 meeting, we honored our final Youth Citizens of the Month for the 2024-25 academic year. Congratulations to Reid Van of Gaston Jr./Sr. High School, Molly Schoolmeester of Banks Middle School and Mackenzie Donnelly of Banks High School! All three students received a certificate and a $50 gift card to Frye’s Action Athletics.

Thank you to Steven Barnard and Andrew Stewart for their leadership of this program throughout the year!

In Memoriam – Herb Drew: Our thoughts and sympathies are with the family and friends of Herb Drew, who passed away on April 25. Herb was a member of our club from 1978 to 2016 and served as club president during the 1983-84 Rotary year. A 1960 graduate of Pacific University, Herb was a longtime insurance and owned Herb Drew & Associates Insurance in Forest Grove. In addition to Rotary, Herb was involved with Kiwanis and the Forest Grove Chamber of Commerce, and was a past member of the Forest Grove City Council and the Pacific University Alumni Association Board of Directors. Click Here To Read The Full Obituary.

A celebration of life service for Herb will be on Saturday, June 14, 11 a.m., at the Forest Grove United Methodist Church.

Greeters Are Back: President Lucas is bringing back the role of having greeters at our weekly meetings. This role will not be pre-assigned. Instead, the ninth and 10th Rotarians showing up a meeting each week will serve as greeters. Please be prepared to take on that responsibility and let President Lucas know if you have any questions.

Concours d’Elegance News
Concours Sponsorships: The Concours Committee is actively procuring sponsors for the 2025 show, which takes place on Sunday, July 20. If you know of a business or individual that might be interested in sponsoring our signature event, please contact Janet Peters at 503-679-6479 or rjlc4peters@msn.com, or Amy Tracewell at 541-844-9467 or amy.tracewell@pacificu.edu.

Concours Entries Now Open: If you or someone you know is interested in entering their classic car into the Concours d’Elegance, entries are now open. Visit The Concours Website for entry details and a list of this year’s judged and exhibition classes. There is a suggested donation of $100 per entry with proceeds benefitting the Foundation of the Rotary Club of Forest Grove.

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.

CALC Mock Interview: Forest Grove School District’s Community Alternative Learning Center (CALC) is looking for volunteers to assist with interviewing students for mock job interviews. There will be another opportunity forthcoming on a victory garden that is being planted at school. Both opportunities will take place at a date to be determined.

If you are interested in either opportunity or if you have questions, please contact principal Tim Graham at 503-730-4490 or tgraham@fgsd.k12.or.us, or Steven Barnard at 443-454-5177 or sbarnard@fgsd.k12.or.us.

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
Rotary Night At The Portland Timbers: Join District 5100 for a night of fun with the Portland Timbers on Sunday, June 8, against St. Louis City SC at 3 p.m. Inspired by the global spirit of our Rotary Youth Exchange Students, Rotary District 5100 and the Portland Timbers are teaming up to support international fellowship. For every Rotarian ticket sold, $5 will be donated to PolioPlus.

The Timbers are off to one of their best starts in club history. Our Rotary group will have seating near the famous Timbers Army, where the “wall of sound” energy is nonstop. Rotary will be featured on the jumbo screen, we’ll have a table in the entry area, and you’ll meet Youth Exchange students who helped inspire this international celebration. Bring your family, wear your Rotary blue, and show your spirit.

The first club to buy 10 tickets gets $110 in meal vouchers. Why $110? You’ll find out if you win. Let’s fill the stadium with Rotary pride!

Link to purchase tickets: https://bit.ly/4mxtLH6

Last Week’s Program: Dr. Scott Pike, Enfoque Ixcan
At last week’s meeting, we heard from Dr. Scott Pike about his Enfoque Ixcan eyecare nonprofit organization. Pike is a professor emeritus of optometry at Pacific University and has earned multiple awards from the university for his international service, including the 2024 Kamelia Massih Prize for a Distinguished Optometrist.

The vision of Enfoque Ixcan is to provide the opportunity to receive quality eyecare for people of the Ixcan region of Guatemala. The Ixcan region of Guatemala is the north-central part of the country bordering Mexico. There are 200 small villages and 100,000 people living in the area. Land in this area became available for private ownership in later 1960s. Because of this, many native people entered into cooperatives to buy the land and develop a better life.

Guatemala had a 30-year civil war, which reached a boiling point in the 1980s. Ixcan was one of the hot spots of the conflict. There were 300 massacres in Ixcan alone. In the early 1990s, peace accords were assigned and many refugees return to start their lives over. Today, there is still rough living conditions but Pike says it is a beautiful place.

In 1996, Pike was introduced to a man named Pedro, who was a subsistence farmer in Ixcan and volunteered some hours as a healthcare worker in his cooperative village, but was going to quite because he was having a hard time reading prescription labels. Pike returned in 1997 with reading glasses for Pedro and an offer to start providing eye care in the village. Pedro learned all about eyecare and held eye clinics each Sunday after church.

In 2002, Enfoque Ixcan began sending patients to Guatemala City for treatment and surgeries. In 2004, they added a second person, Felipe, to join the team. In 2012, they moved their work to Playa Grande, which is essentially the county seat of Ixcan, and rented a 10×10 space at the Catholic church. To date, the organization has funded over 1,000 cataract surgeries and over 1,400 medical eye procedures.

Since 2003, Enfoque Ixcan has teamed up with Amigos Eye Care, the volunteer student eye care team from Pacific University, to provide eye care missions. This year will be the organization’s 20th trip to Guatemala.

In 2021, a District 5100 Grant supported by Forest Grove, Forest Grove Daybreak and Beaverton clubs helped provide $37,000 towards the opening of an eye clinic. This month, Enfoque Ixcan signed a contract with Visualiza to take over management of the growing clinic. While they will no longer be involved with the day-to-day operations of the clinic, Enfoque will continue to fundraise to keep the costs low for patients.

To learn more about Enfoque Ixcan, visit their website.

Club Calendar
Wed., May 28: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Boxer Pause Room, University Center, Pacific University
Program: David Tauber, Concours d’Elegance

Sat., May 31: Garden Work Party, 8:30 a.m.
McDougall Garden, Near The Big Flagpole Between Pacific & 19th Avenues

Wed., June 4: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Boxer Pause Room, University Center, Pacific University
Program: Lora Dexheimer, North Plains Food Bank

Fri., June 6: Steak Feed, 5 p.m.
University Center, Pacific University

Wed., June 11: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Boxer Pause Room, University Center, Pacific University
Program: Scholarship Presentations

Thurs., June 12: Executive Board Meeting, 7 a.m.
via Zoom

Fri., Jan. 18-Sun., July 20
Concours d’Elegance Weekend