The day was cold, but my heart was warm at seeing all the folks that turned out on January 1 to take Steps to Peace! Nine clubs were represented: Carlisle, Carlisle-Sunrise, Mechanicsburg-North, Uptown York, Palmyra, Hershey, Lititz, West Shore and District 7390 Passport! We had donuts, coffee, hot chocolate, granola bars and bananas and headed out to walk around the State Capitol Building. Assistant Governor David Corman brought along a gift (see picture) so I can recall this day warmly on a regular basis!
Dogs were there to help us keep a good pace (also generated talk of doing a Pups for Peace Walk during warmer weather!) All in all, it was a great walk with friends from across the District showcasing our commitment to creating a more peaceful community. ABC27 and Fox43 sent representatives and the segments were shown both on Jan. 1 and Jan 2! Thank you so much to Rotarian Bob Saline for his persistent contact with area media to get coverage.
We raised just over half of our $15,000 goal. At this point, we will end up pulling some of the funds that were to be rolled over to next year to completely fund this year's scholarship. If we had raised less, I would have informed the Scholarship Chair that we wouldn't be able to fund this year. The goal was ambitious and would have given us more to pass along to 2027-2028 grant funding. At this point, that year receives even less than we did this year. Because our clubs are great at seeking grants (it is there to help communities after all!), if we funded the scholarship without raising additional funds, it would leave less than $2000 to roll over to 2026-2027. Typically we have rolled over $10,000 to $15,000 each year. Since we don't know what the grant applications will be in that year, the 2026-2027 funds could easily be completely claimed as well and then during 2027-2028, there would likely be a grant application that would have to be turned down, or all grants would be given less than their ask for lack of funds. This is one of the reasons we ask so often for donations to the Foundation. That is what funds our District Designated Funds to give out as grants. If you want to know more about that process, there is a grant training session via zoom on Jan 29, 6:30 pm: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/iJgzsexYT4K8RIj7gmsgYg#/registration
