I hope all of you enjoyed a joyous Christmas celebration and I hope that each of you are blessed with success in all your goals for 2018.
We have had a successful year so far in Rotary:
We raised over $4,000 with the Shotgun Raffle
We raised $2,000 for our Veterans program which will be given to them at our next meeting on January 8th.
We had a bag full of toys and some cash that was donated to support DSHS Interact Club’s Brown Santa program.
We adopted 19 ‘mittens’ and purchased gifts for children in need through the Helping Hands.
We had a great turn out for our Burke Center Christmas program where Santa Claus made an appearance and put smiles on the faces of all the boys at Burke.
We had a great Christmas party at the home of Joe and Karen Peterson
Those are exciting things to have happen but we can’t stop now. Ashley is well into planning our Home & Garden Show and it’s not very far away. Please help her find sponsors and also vendors to participate and help us raise more funding for Rotary. Last year, this event raised over $8,000 and it is critical to our ability to fund our Scholarship program this spring.
Also another event that isn’t very far away is the Founder’s Day Parking project. Debra Maddox is the committee chair this year. We will need everyone’s participation to make this project achieve the success it should. We need bus drivers and this year, we will be blocking the entrances to the high school parking lot so that we can capture parking fees from ALL those who park, not just the ones who ride. In addition, this year there is one more entrance that we will have to monitor. In addition to Mighty Tiger Lane and Sportsplex Drive, there is a new entrance back on the West side where the new road feeds into the parking area close to the football stadium. We will need participation from everyone in order to successfully operate this project so those of you who plan your vacation time to be gone over Founders Day, please reconsider your plans.
There is still much to do in order to achieve our goals for this year. I hope each of you will give of your time to help us finish the year strong. Welcome to 2018, may you all be blessed abundantly this year.
Individual statements were emailed to all members in December. If you did not receive your quarterly statement, please see Glenn Wash ASAP. Remember to get those statements paid as soon as possible.
Charlie was born in Houston, Texas on September 26, 1941. He attended parochial schools in Bryan, Texas and Houston, Texas. His Bachelor's Degree in Philosophy is from St. Thomas, Houston. His Double Master's Degree in Educational Psychology and Social Work is from Our Lady of the Lake University, San Antonio. Charlie co-founded The Burke Foundation on March 1, 1973. He began as Administrator/CEO and retired as Grant Writer for the Agency. Charlie is am Vice-President of The Scheib Center in San Marcos and a member of San Marcos Noon Lions and Centro Cultural Hispano de San Marcos. Charlie was the co-founder of The Hays County Crisis Hotline in 1970 which is still in operation to assist people who are contemplating suicide.
Why are you a Rotarian?
I am a Rotarian because I think that the members are extremely caring and approach all matters in a very professional manner in efforts to raise money and to give when a need is present in the community and in the world.
What is your favorite service project?
My favorite service project is the effort to raise money while driving people to Founder's Day. I always make it a point to ask if anyone is having a birthday on this day. Five times in the past two years I have sung the 'happy birthday' song and once I have sung 'Las Mananitas'. One happy recipient of my singing donated twenty dollars to Rotary.
