Over the last year Mendocino Rotary has continued its effort to make our community a
better place to live while staying safe during the pandemic. We have met weekly by
zoom and heard talks by community leaders on a variety of subjects. We have worked
with a number of organizations, including Sherwood Oaks Health Center, Mendocino
Coast Children’s Fund, Food Bank, Gallery Book Shop, Coastal Street Medicine program,
Adventist Health Mendocino Coast Hospital, Mendocino Coast Clinic and Coast
Mask Makers.
Working with our partners we helped mitigate the health, social and economic impacts
of the Covid-19 pandemic through grants for mask making, personal protective equipment,
meals for persons in quarantine, and food for persons in need. At the beginning
of the pandemic, we placed a sign in Rotary Park that says “Mendocino Rotary Welcomes
You. Please be safe. Wear a Mask”.
We have continued the improvement of Rotary Park, which now has all-year walkways,
improved drainage, a fence, a Christmas tree and picnic tables. We have helped with
trash pickup in the town of Mendocino and along Highway 1. We provided college
scholarships for outstanding high school graduates, books and dictionaries for third
graders. We have helped meet the needs of street people in Fort Bragg and Mendocino
by providing winter clothing. And we have helped construct a toilet block and protective
fence for a school in a poor community of Port Vila, the capital of Vanuatu, in the
South Pacific.
Our sources of revenue in normal times include raffle prizes donated by members and
friends, a casino night usually held in the winter and a golf tournament held during the
summer. We could not do any of these due to the prohibitions on gatherings. To help
close the gap we collected donations for Covid 19 from members and friends, and sold
100 tickets, each for $100, for a dine out/take out raffle of gift certificates at our local
restaurants. Since we knew that the restaurant business had been set back by the prohibitions
against indoor dining during the pandemic, we purchased the gift certificates
from them and in that way helped them sustain their businesses. The participating
restaurants were Noyo Harbor Inn, Cafe Beaujolais, MacCallum House, Albion River
Inn, North Coast Brewing Company, Silver’s at the Wharf, Mendocino Cafe, Trillium,
Ledford House, Wild Fish, Casa Del Sol, Cucina Verona and Little River Inn. With the
help of many generous supporters in Mendocino and Fort Bragg, we sold all 100 tickets
and held the drawing for the winner on December 23, in Rotary Park. The winner
was an area resident. With the income from the raffle, we have been able to meet our
community activities expenses during the first half of the Rotary year. Our thanks go
out to all those who supported the raffle.
During the Covid-19 pandemic our district, which serves 31 clubs in Northern California,
has been enormously supportive by providing exchanges amongst clubs about
how to accomplish our various avenues of service, socialize by zoom and raise money
during the pandemic. Rotary International has continued its efforts to reach out to
communities in need, continued its efforts to eliminate polio and worked with likeminded
organizations to understand to help mitigate the impacts of the COVID19 pandemic
and other natural disasters.
We continue to improve and maintain Rotary Park which with the recent rains is now
green. We have worked with the Botany Club of Mendocino High School to prepare
proposals for landscaping the Park that we will plant in a few months. We will soon be
constructing the shed where we will keep our gardening supplies and equipment. The
Park is now being used by many families and individuals, and we look forward to continuing
to improve it as the weather improves. Our plans for improving the Park include
building a sidewalk on Main Street, providing handicapped transitions at each major
entrance and developing a playground for children. If you would like donate to the
Park, please consider purchasing a Paving or Founder’s stone, or for information,
please e-mail Jerry at jkk@mcn.org.
Every year we help develop the leadership capabilities of our young people (sophomores,
juniors and seniors at the Mendocino high schools) through a Rotary Youth
Leadership Conference. This year Rotary will do it by zoom with target dates of April
30-May 2, 2021. If you have a student who might be interested, please have them contact
Donna at hello@mendocinorotary.org.
We are now meeting on the second and fourth Thursdays of each month, at 12:00, in Preston Hall, Mendocino.
If you would like to learn more about Rotary and possibly join us for a zoom meeting
please let me know by e-mail at joinrotary@mcn.org or message or call me at 707-536-
6190.
Jeff Stubbs, President
Mendocino Rotary
P.O. Box 102, Mendocino, CA 95460