Founding members - Mike Bruno, Syndi Nugent, Joel Brumlik,

current club President Bob DiVirglio and Bob Grulke

Rotary Club of Illinois Beach Sunrise
Marks 10th Anniversary

The Club was chartered on March 31, 1999 and in the past 10 years we have been involved in many different activities. Through out the past one of our primary focus points has been youth exchange. We have had inbound students from Japan, Mexico, Sweden, Venezuela, South Africa, Taiwan, Germany and Columbia. We will again host a student this August. We have also sent students from Zion Benton to other countries to experience another culture. Students have gone to Denmark, France, Germany, Brazil, and Taiwan. We have had students participate in the Rotary Youth Leadership Academy - each year our club sponsors 1or 2 students to the weekend retreat to learn leadership techniques. We offer scholarship opportunities to graduating seniors - two 4-year sustaining scholarships' of $1,000 per year. Additional scholarship offerings include 1 $2,000 vocational scholarship and two $1000 academic scholarships. Each year the club awards a $100 savings bond to middle school students who show leadership and volunteerism.

To promote reading in our community the club placed a book rack at the Zion train station where paperback books are available to commuters. We also have provided funding to assist with many local projects including: Boys & Girls Club, Children's Dental Clinic, A Safe Place, African American Achievement, Coalition for Healthy Communities, OLH Youth Ministries, Methodist Church Appalachian Project, Rebuilding Together, Partners in Reading, Wounded Heroes, just to name a few.

International projects have included a project with a partner club in Baroda, India where we sent 10,000 dollars to make limb replacements available to children who otherwise could not afford them. The clinic in Baroda also helped a school for severely handicapped children with limb replacements. Some of the money was used to purchase sewing machines to teach the local women a skill they could use to feed their families.

Another project with Zion Benton Township High School and Partners Across the Ocean helped to furnish a computer lab in a township school in Khayelitsha, South Africa. Along with the Sommerset West Rotary Club, we hosted 3 direct exchange students from this township school and have assisted with their continuing education needs.

We are currently working with the Rotary Club of Helderberg to assist the Eagles Rising Bridging School project in establishing a computer lab. The project takes youngsters (between the ages of 18-20) from disadvantaged backgrounds (who have completed high school, but are not ready to face their futures) and provides them with a full bridging year. The bridging year takes place on a nearby farm and the youngsters are taken out of their destructive environments, where they had been exposed to a life of crime, drugs, abuse and so on. The youngsters are trained, mentored and supported in a loving, Christian environment for a whole year. The results so far have been quite impressive, most of the children are doing fine and have found jobs already.

This is only quick abbreviated recap of the past 10 years - what can we accomplish in the next 10 years?

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