Sharing Our Foundation Good News
 District 7780 Making an Impact
 

 

You have probably heard it said many times that a unique advantage of contributing to The Rotary Foundation is that part of the money we donate comes back to our district and we get to decide how it’s used! Well for the current Rotary year, just under half of the clubs in our district took up that offer and applied for a district grant. A full third of the applications were from clubs who had never applied for a district grant before, or it had been many years since they had submitted an application. District Grant Coordinator Michele Varuolo-Cole is pleased to announce that all 18 grants were deemed to fulfill all of the grant criteria and were worthy of grant awards. A total of $66,514 was awarded to clubs, a record for our district! And that’s not all!

Half of the grants aim to benefit young people, through schools, after-school programs and summer camp. Five of the grants address the area of food insecurity.  A myth about district grants is that they are only for local projects. In fact three of the grants will take place overseas – in Cambodia, Puerto Rico and Poland. The Polish project (requested by the UNE Rotaract Club) stemmed from the Poland Outreach trip in 2023-24; it will support a program that provides critical mental health services to adolescents, including Polish youth, Ukrainian refugees, and other displaced populations affected by trauma and displacement.

 

This was the second year that the district has used an online grant application process, which went much more smoothly this year than in the inaugural year. We appreciate clubs’ patience as we perfect this process. The Foundation Committee expresses its profound appreciation to Michele, who has led the grant screening process for many years but needs to step aside as she assumes her new position as District Governor Nominee. She leaves the screening process in the capable hands of Carol Marcotte who has been shadowing her for the past year.

 

Congratulations to the following clubs:

 

Bath Sunrise

Bridgton-Lake Region

Brunswick

Brunswick Coastal

Damariscotta-Newcastle

Dover

Fryeburg Area

Hampton

Kittery

Portland

Rochester

South Berwick-Eliot

Scarborough

South Portland-Cape Elizabeth

UNE Rotaract

Wells

Westbrook-Gorham

Yarmouth