81 of us are back on land after our amazing Annual Conference International Service Cruise to Roatan, Honduras and Cozumel, Mexico on the Regal Princess. We had so much fun together while enjoying presentations and 2 days of service projects and deliveries, including 272 pounds/5 suitcases in Roatan and 25 filled backpacks and 37 wheelchairs in Cozumel.
Unfortunately our 6 pallets/6,363 pounds/287 boxes are held up in Houston waiting on a letter from Honduran Customs, but we hope to have that resolved soon. Many thought our wheelchair delivery in Cozumel was the most impactful event of the week. To watch someone be lifted up and placed in a new wheelchair that will grant them mobility and freedom was beyond words and caused many happy tears in the room. I would like to thank the Conference Chairs Vickie and Glen Campbell, cruise specialists PDG Bill and Lisa Dendy, the crew on Regal Princess, and our sister Rotary clubs in Roatan and Cozumel from the bottom of my heart for all of their efforts to make the cruise so fabulous.
So what will we do as an encore? After a few weeks off, we are already packing for our next delivery of 3,000+ Days for Girls washable feminine hygiene kits, books, shoes and school supplies for Roatan. A big thanks to those who attended the February Roundtable and stayed to pack 47 boxes with 5,411 books and 709 markers in record time! That is a whole pallet! We also packed 397 goody bags of Valentine’s candy for local charities, including the food pantry at Dallas College-Brookhaven Campus, which hosts our monthly Roundtable meetings for no fee. When you add in 203 bags packed by Newman Smith Interact that is 600 happy recipients thanks to District 5810.
Membership UPDATE!! We were so close to 2,500, but then December and January hit and many clubs dropped members right as dues were due. As of February 16, 2025 we are at +31 for the year with 2,436 members. The big Membership Drive winner for January was the E-Club of North Texas which grew 4 members from 16 to 20 for a 25% increase in membership. They won the # and the % for the month! Those are fantastic numbers; let’s keep moving up and end the year over 2,500. Keep inviting…. Club presidents and membership chairs don’t forget to turn in your visitor and new member excel form each month to Reyna Castillo by the 7th for your raffle tickets for our Membership Drive and Raffle. https://rotary5810.org/sitepage/membership-drive If you miss a month, you can still catch up. We are gathering hotel and restaurant gift certificates as prizes besides the Alaskan cruise on Princess for 2 oceanview in Summer, 2026. Please let me know if you can donate a prize. We would love to highlight your business on our social media.
I am excited to introduce a new District-wide Shoe Collection Service Project. As you may have heard before, some of the Interact clubs collected new and gently used shoes for previous cruises. Well now we are taking that District-wide to all levels: Rotary, Rotaract and Interact. We will make it a friendly competition. You can bring your shoes to District Assembly on April 5th, Interact Spring Fling on April 12th or Roundtable on May 10th. Our service project at Spring Fling with the students will be sorting and boxing the collected shoes and then at May 10th Roundtable from 11 am to Noon we will finish up the remainder of the shoes. I want to give credit to Assistant Governor Mark Smith who is McKinney Campus Provost of Collin College, Denzel Oliver who teaches on that campus, and Collin College Rotaract for their plans to host a huge shoe drive in April. My involvement with them the past few weeks made me think “we can all do this too”! PDG Max Duplant is putting together a list of local charities who would love our donated shoes, and we will take some on a future cruise delivery too. I really think we can bring in 2,000 pairs if everyone just donates 1 pair. Please encourage your Interact clubs to participate too. This is a free and easy service project for them. Just decorate a box, leave it out in the school hallway, and bring in the collected shoes. Contact me for a flyer or make your own to promote this at your club please.
Exciting Events coming up:
Happy 120th Birthday to Rotary. Please celebrate all month with your club. Send in your stories to pr@rotary5810.org so we can feature them on the District’s social media.
PETS- If you are a Club President-Elect or a President-Nominee please register as soon as possible at https://lonestarpets.org/events/lone-star-pets2025/ at the DFW Hyatt for Feb 27-March 2. DGE Mary Bedosky and her team have so many wonderful surprises in store for you at PETS this year. (Note there are no classes on Sunday this year.)
There will be no March Roundtable since Brookhaven College and many are on Spring Break.
Saturday April 5th-Plan to attend Club Leadership Training Assembly, which will be an excellent morning from 8:30 am to 12:30 pm at Red River Hall, Dallas College- Richland Campus at 12800 Abrams Road in Dallas (northeast of the intersection of 75 and 635). Please register all of your club leaders to attend so they may receive training for their year of service 2025-2026. Foundation grant training will be offered so your club can qualify for your District Designated Funds (DDF) funds.
Saturday April 12th--We will replace April Roundtable with the 2025 Interact Spring Fling from 9 am to 1 pm. Please let your Interact sponsor know and help them pay the small registration fee that will help cover the lunch. We are working on the schedule but there will be fun and educational opportunities for both the students and the advisors.
Saturday April 19th—District 4-Way Speech Contest 9 am to 12:30 pm with refreshment served at North Texas Performing Arts Center (top floor next to Dillard’s) in the Shops at Willow Bend Mall in west Plano. Please register for $50 at https://www.rotary5810.org/page/four-way-test Last year only 13 clubs participated. Let’s double that this year! 1st prize is $500.
Tuesday April 22nd—Rotary Showcase at EarthX conference featuring 10 Interact projects, 10 Rotaract projects, and 10 Rotary projects –Contact me if you would like to be featured on stage for a 5 minute presentation regarding your earth-friendly project.
Thanks for all you do to make an impact in the world. Each of you are so special and true People of Action.
Yours in service,
DG Regina