Rotary Club of Wheaton grants $15,000 to local charities
Rotary Club of Wheaton grants $15,000 to local charities
On June 7, the Rotary Club of Wheaton granted $15,000 to 11 local charities at the 3rd Annual Grant Recipient Lunch.
The Club also recognized the Wheaton Park District’s Sensory Garden & Play for All Playground after recently completing a $25,000 commitment to the district’s Sensory Garden & Play for All Park. Additionally, the Club granted Mercy Ships the $33,000 raised at the 2016 Annual Christmas Inn Fundraiser’s Fund A Need. Mercy Ships is an international organization dedicated to helping individuals living in poverty who need medical attention.
The Rotary Club of Wheaton has a long history of giving back to the community both locally and internationally. In addition to the above mentioned grants, the Club has supported students in their junior and senior years of college who are residents in District 200 with over $200,000 in scholarships in the last 20 years. The Club’s annual Fund A Need has raised and distributed nearly $125,000 for five projects that touched our hearts.
Club members work very hard to raise these fund but do not just stop at writing checks. Many of the club members have been on international trips, providing supplies, mixing cement and helping to build buildings - in other words, getting down and dirty.
One of the most recent trips was with several members who went to Mexico and Belize to distribute 280 wheelchairs, often lifting the broken and twisted bodies from the dusty plastic chairs that have no support into a wheelchair that gives them instant mobility. Long-time club member and past district governor Gordon Schrubbe has been a part of a Peru project for young at risk girls for many years that the club also supports annually.
The distribution of grant funds on June 7 represents a portion of what all of the club members have contributed to over the years. The $25,000 distributed to 11 local organizations was raised at the Club’s Annual Christmas Inn fundraiser and was given to the following organizations: CASA of DuPage County, Operation Safe Celebration, Friends of Therapeutic Equine Activities, Three Fires Council Boy Scouts, Synapse House, B.R. Ryall YMCA, DuPage Senior Citizens Council, DuPage Habitat for Humanity, NAMI DuPage, Friends of the DuPage County Fair, and Claire Woods Academy.