Chariho Rotary Club Foundation Inc

Programs: Community giving - part of the mission of the chariho rotary club is to support the good work and projects that are occurring throughout our community. This year we received applications from many community groups, and through board vote and approval we were able to financially support a number of activities. These included a gift of 1,650 to the clark memorial library to procure updated technology to create a traveling 'makers space' to be shared by several local libraries, a gift of 3,000 to the arcadia ymca to support their annual reach out to youth campaign which provides camper-ships to low income and at risk youths, and 2,000 to wood river health services which furnished medical equipment for our local federally qualified health center. Smaller gifts were also made to non- profits including warm center and rainbow fund, etc.

educational support - this year we continued our support of our local high schools, working to ensure the success of future generations. This support was three-fold. First, we continued the tradition of providing scholarships to graduating seniors who excel academically, but most importantly have a strong background of community service that mirrors rotary international's ideal of 'service above self'. This year we awarded 10 1,000 scholarships to the charhio high school and exeter west greenwich class of 2017 and 2016 seniors which will be renewable for up to four years of their college experience. Additionally, we granted 19,000 in scholarships to previous recpients continuing to pursue their education. The club also extended a gift of 5,000 to kick off a new business incubator program within the school to develop students considering a career as business entrepreneurs. Finally, our club engaged our chariho high school interact club with a number of community service projects. 510 in support provided busing to send the students to clean up local beaches, package christmas gifts for low income families, and rebuild relationships with seniors in our community. We also provided support to send students to ryla, a leadership training camp.

strawberry shortcake booth - our club owns and operates a building at the washington county fairgrounds. Nested among dozens of similar buildings belonging to local community groups, we have an opportunity to use this building twice a year to generate club revenue. The building, which was constructed more than two decades ago, has served the club well, generating hundreds of thousands of dollars that have gone back out into the community, and requiring very little from the club in terms of repairs and mainteanance costs. However, afer years of use, we had a decision to make - invest resources to make short-term repairs to a building that ultimately did not fit our needs and was out of local compliance, or make a bigger investment in the right building for both today and the future of the club. We chose the latter, investing 10,035 to build a brand new booth with the hopes of having the building for decades to come, generating even more revenue to put back into our community.