Rotary Club of Carleton forms partnership with local schools

 The Carleton Rotary Club used to be affiliated with the Monroe Rotary Club and the Bedford Rotary Club in southeastern Michigan to provide dictionaries to all 3rd grade students in Monroe County. We did this for four years, with a member of the Monroe Rotary Club purchasing all of the dictionaries and putting the Rotary Wheel sticker on the front of each dictionary, and personally delivered them to each third grade class in each school in the county. Our Rotary Club specifically had the Airport and Jefferson Public School Districts, one charter school, and three parochial schools. This led to a closer working relationship of our Rotary  Club and the local elementary schools. Because of the desires of the teachers to receive the dictionaries in September, our club went out on our own and began servicing our area of Monroe County independently of the other two Rotary Clubs in the county, but they still also do the project.

Because of this closer relationship with our particular schools, we were able to further facilitate the programs of these schools. We held a little raffle which netted us $305,000, and we bought light boards for St. Patrick’s School. We agreed to fund $25,000 toward the repair of the high school athletic field lights; we provided $5,000 to repair the tennis courts and funded many other improvements and organizations of the Airport school system. Mary Kehoe put on a Junior Achievement program at one of the schools to provide basic education to their third grade class in personal finance.

When we distribute the books, we personally go into the classrooms as a team of two persons. One of us tells about the work of Rotary in Monroe County, and the other one tells the story of Rotary’s work throughout the world. It is one of the most gratifying projects that Mary and I do all year. We will undoubtedly run the project again in September 2011.