Byesville Rotary Club Helps Salvation Army feed kids

Pictured: Byesville Rotarians Chuck Fair, Rhonda Stemmer, and Phyllis Millhone.

Byesville Rotarians choose to meet at the Salvation Army to help back brown-bag lunches for Guernsey County kids between 1 and 18. The goal for the day was to pack 325 lunches: 240 destined to 6 distribution sites in Cambridge; 50 going to Byesville, and 35 for Pleasant City. Each bag contains a sandwich, fruit, a salty snack and several other items.

Byesville Rotary was assigned to the sandwich crew. Another group filled the lunch bags with the goodies of the day. In ½ hour the sandwich crew had all 325 sandwiches made and zipped into sandwich bags.

Debbie Langsdorf, the volunteer coordinating the brown-bag lunch program, pointed out that this was the 20^th year the Salvation has provided lunches to kids during the summer. Langsdorf stated that to date this year the Salvation Army has served 9923 lunches. The program continues until August 9. By that time, the Army will have provided over 10,000 lunches this summer.

Hunger is not going away in our county. The 2019 number of lunches is higher than the 2018 number. Langsdorf described how many of the kids getting lunches stay at the distribution point and eat their lunches as they get them. Others begin to eat their lunches as the start walking home.

On the wall of the prep-area hung a large white-board showing the month of July and the days volunteer groups were scheduled to come. Many of the spaces were empty—no volunteers scheduled. I asked Langsdorf what she did on the days no volunteers showed up. She explained that she had a core group of 5-7 people that showed up almost daily to help. She said, “This small group can get the job done—it just takes longer.”

Byesville Rotary has worked for years to help reduce hunger in Guernsey. The club’s projects include its annual Christmas food basket program, working with other service clubs in the spring to hold a food drive for local food pantries, and donating cash to the Army’s brown-bag lunch program as well as donating to the brown-bag lunch program in Cumberland.

The Byesville club members enjoyed making sandwiches and decided they want to come back on a Thursday to take on the challenge of making over 300 peanut butter sandwiches.

Byesville Rotary Club swears in new officers

Pictured: Officers and board members for 2019-20: Jan Wilson, Treasurer, Debbie Mead—Board member, Rhonda Stemmer, Past-president and Chaplin, Shana Fair, President, and Chuck Fair-President-elect. Not pictured: Board members Becky Bruner and Melinda Yerian.

Byesville Rotarians inducted new officers for 2019-2020 at their annual Changing of the Guard celebration. Officers for the new Rotary year are: President—Shana Fair; President-Elect-Chuck Fair; Treasurer—Jan Wilson; Secretary and Foundation Chair—Chuck Fair; PR Chair—Shana Fair; Membership Chairs—Melinda Yerian and Phyllis Millhone; Historian—Dan Navicky; and Chaplin—Rhonda Stemmer. Directors serving on the Board are: Debbie Mead, Becky Bruner, and Melinda Yerian.

Melinda Yerian was recognized as the club’s “Rotarian of the Year” for her service which included organizing Pints for Polio fundraisers and co-chairing the Breakfast with Santa and the Easter Bunny fund raisers.

Stemmer presented a “Certificate of Engagement” to club members for their participation in club meetings, fund raisers and service projects. Members receiving recognition for engagement were: 30-39 hours of service--Dennis Harding, Sharon Miller, Phyllis Millhone, Rhonda Stemmer; 40-49 hours of service—Don Valentine, Jan Wilson, Melinda Yerian; --Becky Bruner, Chuck Fair, Shana Fair, Larry Miller, and Jim Vaughan. Stemmer also recognized the 2018-19 club officers and board members for their service.

Shana Fair congratulated Rhonda Stemmer on becoming the club’s newest Paul Harris Fellow and presented her with a Paul Harris medallion. During the dinner, Stemmer recognized almost every member of this “Small but Mighty” club for their service to the club and its 3 major service projects: the annual Christmas Food Basket program, a health screening in cooperation with Southeastern Med, and a scholarship awards program which presents at least 4 scholarships to Meadowbrook graduating seniors.

Dan Navicky, club historian, presented a story board illustrating all of the club’s projects. He included pictures of the activities club members were involved in. The club’s Christmas food basket project provided food baskets to 183 families (about 450 people) and was able to donate supplies to the Stop Nine Church of Christ and the Main Avenue United Methodist food pantries.  In April, the club partnered with Southeastern Med to provide a low-cost blood screening to members of the community. In May, the club held its 33^rd Scholarship Golf Tournament which raised money for 4 scholarships presented to Meadowbrook seniors. To date, the club has awarded scholarships to over 80 students and raised over $75,000.

In total, the club donated over $10,000 to various service projects during the year. These projects included Kick Cancer, RYLA conference, Salvation Army and Cumberland summer sack lunches, sponsorship for 2 Dickens street characters, and support for Secret Santa, the Night to Shine among others.