Your source for upcoming speakers, special events, and timely announcements from the Rotary Club of Fort Collins.
Programs:
Finally Home – Serving Foster, Adoptive, and Kinship Families in Northern Colorado and beyond
At the RCFC luncheon meeting at the Lincoln Center this coming Wednesday, we hear from Niki McIntosh, the Development Director for Finally Home, a non-profit which received a Rotary grant last July. Our speaker reports that….“There is an orphan crisis happening in America and around the world. There are over 407,000 children and teens in the U.S. foster care system due to neglect, abuse, or inability to provide care. An overwhelming majority of kids in foster care or who have been adopted have been diagnosed with mental, physical, or emotional disability from the trauma they have experienced. Foster and adoptive parents often lack the tools, training, and support that’s needed to help these kids heal and thrive, and as a result 30-50% of foster parents quite each year due to lack or training and support. “ READ MORE...
For a low-carbon start to our Rotary new year, for our first in-person meeting of 2024, John Bidwell, a local electric vehicle enthusiast, designer, and builder, shared a wide-ranging overview of the status of electric vehicles from his EV Buyer’s Guide. He started by pointing out that he planned to talk about only truly electric vehicles, not hybrids or plug-in hybrids. READ MORE...
Nathan Shaw, Founder and Executive Director of Vindeket Foods was our speaker for last week's evening meeting. Vindeket works to “rescue” food that would otherwise go to waste. They work alongside the Food Bank and other organizations to fill a gap in the system. Once the food is “rescued”, it is available for free at their retail location. Here is a link to their website to learn more about who/what/purpose for Vindeket Foods.
The History and Currents Events Fellowship will be held this Wednesday following our lunch meeting. The topic for this week is "Immigration philosophy, policy, and procedures."
Announcements
Charitable Contribution Acknowledgement Letters
Our Finance Team is happy to provide Charitable Contribution Acknowledgement Letters for 2023 donations if requested. If you would like one, please send your request to treasurer@fortcollinsrotary.org. Only a small percentage of members have needed formal letters in the past, so we do not send them out automatically.
Please consider volunteering to be a greeter for our in-person lunch meetings during the first quarter of 2024 (January 3 through March 27). You could either select a specific Wednesday or identify a range of weeks when you could be available. Greeters rarely serve more than one time per quarter. For new members, this is a fun and efficient way to meet all of the other members of the club. There will be no meeting on January 31.
This week, we welcomed Judy Sayre Grim as a new member in our club. Pictured are Jamie Grim, Judy Sayre Grim, Susan Brand, and Past President Marty Bachman immediately after Judy's induction into our club.
Jaime is Judy's daughter; she was a member of our club for four years before she moved to Denver. Judy's father was an active Rotarian and "many times-over" Paul Harris Fellow for 70 years at his Rotary club back in New Jersey. Judy is a retired CSU educator, active in Fort Collins Reads (non-profit community reading program) and serves on the Advisory Board of the Osher Institute of Lifelong Learning (OLLI) / CSU classes for adult learners in Fort Collins. She'll present her classification talk at a later date.
A grant was recently presented to Janet Hatfield, business development manager for Healing Warriors. Rotarian Susan Brand presented a Community Grants check of $2,500 to be applied towards its mission of providing non-narcotic therapy for veterans, service members, and their families to treat pain, PTSD, and sleep disorders.
At the RCFC luncheon meeting at the Lincoln Center this coming Wednesday, we hear from Niki McIntosh, the Development Director for 
Please consider volunteering to be a greeter for our in-person lunch meetings during the first quarter of 2024 (January 3 through March 27). You could either select a specific Wednesday or identify a range of weeks when you could be available. Greeters rarely serve more than one time per quarter. For new members, this is a fun and efficient way to meet all of the other members of the club. There will be no meeting on January 31. 
