Club Foundation Provides Over $37,000 For Community, Youth

Over $37,000 from the Lakewood-Rocky River Rotary Foundation will be used to provide scholarships, recognize student achievement, purchase dictionaries, and fund grant requests made by Lakewood and Rocky River community organizations.

The Rotary Club of Lakewood and Rocky River began presenting the awards on March 27, when student winners in the club’s annual speech, music and art competition were recognized at an awards ceremony and reception at the Beck Center.

The Beck Center’s visual arts program also received $2,500 for club-sponsored scholarships, and $1,322 was used to continue the club’s commitment to provide a dictionary to every third grader in Lakewood and Rocky River.

Other grants for youth-related programs were awarded to: Mathew’s Lending Library, Lakewood Community Recreation, H2O (Help to Others), and the American Youth Foundation programs at Lakewood and Rocky River high schools.

This year’s largest grant of $5,000 was awarded to Trinity Lutheran Community Outreach for its weekly hot meal program, gardens and fresh produce distribution.

Additional community service grants were awarded to: Lakewood Community Services Center, Lakewood Charitable Assistance Corp., North Coast Health Ministry, Lakewood Meals on Wheels, Rocky River Meals on Wheels, Barton Senior Center, Rocky River Senior Center, and Lakewood Hospital Foundation’s diabetes assistance initiative.

The club Foundation’s assets grow each year as the result of gifts, donations and bequests by members and friends of the club.

The local club was chartered in 1926. Rotary International is the world’s first service club organization, with more than 1.2 million members in 33,000 clubs in more than 160 countries worldwide. RI’s polio eradication project, begun in 1985, has eliminated polio in all but four countries, the lowest in history.

Information about the club is available at www.lakewoodrockyriverrotary.org.