Making a difference, Rotary style The Forest Acres Festival, a free family event held each May, is hosted by the Rotary club to raise money for nonprofit organisations. Helping school children is one of their priority areas.
As thousands of families walked through the gates of A C Flora High School’s athletic field on Saturday, May 19, to attend the Forest Acres Festival, Sandy Olson, President of the Rotary Club of Forest Acres (Columbia, US – D 7770) had a huge smile on her face.
“Making a Difference is the Rotary International theme this year. You can see the difference the festival makes in the joy and delight on the faces of both children and parents who attend every year.”
Mostly every activity at the festival is free from admission to amusement rides to face painting. It’s just one of the many ways Rotarians give back to the community in which they live, work, and volunteer.
The Forest Acres Festival, a free family event held each May, is sponsored by the City of Forest Acres. As the event host, the Rotary Club of Forest Acres raises corporate sponsorship dollars that are distributed to a number of non- profit community organisations in the Midlands.
They include Harvest Hope Food Bank, Oliver Gospel Mission, Salvation Army, Senior Resources, and Women’s Shelter to name just a few.
Helping school-aged children around Columbia is just one of the primary goals of the Forest Acres Rotary Club.
With only 47 members, the club raises approximately $ 30,000 each year to support Midland’s area service organisations.
In addition to raising funds through sponsorships of the Forest Acres Festival, club members also raise money by parking cars at USC home football games each year.
All funds raised through these projects go to support club sponsored programmes such as “Happy Feet” which provides shoes for disadvantaged children, “Back Pack” which provides healthy meals for school children and their families, and “A Mother’s Voice” which supplies recordable books to female prisoners to record their voice reading a story to their child.
The Rotary Club of Forest Acres is celebrating its 50th year of community service this year having been chartered by Rotary International on December 4, 1967.
These fun-loving, hard-working volunteers meet every Wednesday at 1 pm at St Michaels And All Angels Episcopal Church located at 6408 Bridgewood Road.
Weekly club meetings feature a different speaker each week on a variety of topics and include a lunch buffet.
Joining a Rotary club is a great way to make a difference by getting involved and giving back to community.
For those interested in learning more about Rotary club, please visit the Forest Acres Club website at www.ForestAcresRotary.org or visit them on Facebook.
Source: Columbia Star
