Actually, more than appreciated.  Honored! President Laurie opened last week’s meeting with the happy announcement that the Mildred H. McEvoy Foundation has awarded our Rotary Club $6,000 in honor of our “amazing work and continued positive impact on the Community.” Wow! And there’s more: Our club has also been recognized as a Top Three 2025 Lincoln County Award Winner in the Non-Profit Organization category by BusinessRate.  

But don’t let it go to our head. That monetary award from McEvoy Foundation will prove extremely useful because at last week’s BOD meeting the club spent/pledged over $20,000 to local programs and organizations, including the Fuel Fund, New Hope Midcoast,  the BR Health Center, Milestone Recovery, Coastal Rivers, the Railway Village, and the Maine SPCA. 

The funds we spent will also support Project Graduation, Harbor Theater for educational films for students, and include $8,000 set aside for scholarships that will be awarded the end of the school year. 

On the International front, we voted more dollars in support of Friends of Thai Daughters, the Congo Education Partners, and a water project in Uganda (in association with the Biddeford Saco Rotary Club). 

None of this would be possible without Barn sales, of course. By the time you read this, sales will be over for the season; note that as of the end of November we had cleared a cool $56,000 at the Barn, and if past is prologue, this fiscal year (through June) we are on track to raise $80,000.   

That announcement was met with both pride and exhausted relief. And comments that we make even more oodles of dollars when we sell something, then the buyer donates it back, and we sell it again. There was a Hobie Cat that falls into this description … and plenty more. 

It was great to welcome First Lady Anne to the meeting. And always a pleasure to see Vic Taylor, who immediately took his place at the Curmudgeon Table. Welcome home, Vic! 

Since I was the speaker, it would be bad form to describe the speech as both interesting and informative, wouldn’t it? Okay, so I won’t say anything as to that. What I did was come up with some lesser known facts about the Rotary Foundation.  Here goes: 

The Rotary Foundation of Rotary International is the 501(c )3 that makes possible all the humanitarian work 1.2 million Rotarians accomplish across the globe. This correspondent’s Rotary volunteer job for the past three years has been to serve on the board of the Foundation, which is fun if not complicated because we do our work in over 200 countries (and as many tax authorities), seven official languages, and over 30 currencies.   

Fun facts about the Rotary Foundation: 

• Last fiscal year TRF awarded $88 million in sustainable projects and scholarships in 109 countries. These projects support initiatives in health, education, peace, and poverty alleviation. Since its founding a century ago, TRF has awarded over $4 billion in program awards. 

• Last fiscal year was the most successful for fundraising in its history, with TRF raising over $500 million in cash and expectancies. Those gifts come almost entirely from individuals (very few Foundations or other organizations with the exception of the Gates Foundation) and gifts are all entirely voluntary.  No Rotary dues go to the Foundation; it’s all donated by charitably minded Rotarians.  Like us.

• The TRF Board on which I sit does NOT decide how the money is spent. It’s the Rotary Clubs like our own that determine where the money goes based on the grants and projects we choose to support.  The most recent Foundation project our club initiated was responsible for a new playground at BRES, proving that the Foundation supports projects at home as well as abroad.

•Since the mid-80s, Rotary has raised $2.6 billion to fight polio, and the efforts of Rotary and PolioPlus partners have spared 20 million children from paralysis.  That said, the job isn’t quite finished, and if all eradication efforts stopped today, it is estimated that in a very few years polio would paralyze as many as 200,000 children annually.

• TRF was just awarded Charity Navigator’s top (four star) rating for the 17th consecutive year. This rating ranks all US-based charities based on their financial health, accountability and transparency. 

This week was also Chef Ivan’s last week for regular duties. He has spoiled us the past few months, and we wish him well with his future endeavors … and are looking for a permanent replacement.  Anyone who wishes to step forward – or knows someone who is interested in the job, even if only for the off-season (we know that many applicants might not be able to work during the season and something could be worked out for the right person) -- please contact President Laurie or Brian McGrath.   

Next week, Dec. 18, will be our annual and much anticipated holiday party. Please bring an appetizer or dessert to share; who needs a main course anyway? Bring friends, family, kids. Wear a Christmas sweater (always remembering that ugly is in the eye of the beholder!) or holiday bling (or both).  Yes, there will be fabulous prizes for infamous outfits.  Also bring a Yankee swap item (no more than $20, please; just think how far that can go in the Barn!), and wrap the gift with anonymity as a goal.   

Join Irene at noon on Thursday before the party to decorate, decorate, decorate. We'll put up the tree and lots of the other Christmas tchotchkes we own and turn the Clubhouse into a Christmas Wonderland.   

The following two weeks the Rotary building will be dark while visions of sugarplums dance in our heads. We will reconvene with our “regular” meetings on Thursday, Jan. 6. The Barn will be dark as well – no pickups, no sales; not until spring. Or put it this way:  Thursday nights, yes; Saturday mornings, no.  

Interested in Rotary and all we do for the community? We are a non-sectarian, non-political group; all it takes to join is a willingness to work with us and give back to the community.  Ask any Rotarian or check out our website at www.boothbayharborrotary.org.  And come January, plan to join one of our Thursday evening meetings at 66 Montgomery Road, Boothbay Harbor.  The conversation is going by 6 and the meeting starts/dinner is served by 6:30. Come on by. You’ll be glad you did.