As we enter the dog days of summer, it feels like our club is humming with energy. This is normally a slower time for Rotary — with many people traveling or spending time with family and friends — but this year, our club is alive with momentum and a renewed sense of excitement.
We haven’t received a lot of responses to the club survey yet (which you can still take at bit.ly/4kllu6t), but the early results paint a clear picture: we’re a happy club — and we want more. More socializing. More service projects. More fellowship. More ways to engage current members — and more new members to help propel us forward.
So that’s my focus for the year: More!
And we’re already getting started. Our new Vocational–Membership–Fellowship Dinner is off and running. I’ll admit I’m not quite sure what to call it — a vocational event? A membership mixer? A fellowship gathering? — but that’s a reflection of just how many people were excited to be involved in creating it. Even better: it’s being driven by some of our newer members, which is exactly the kind of energy we want to nurture.
Our next dinner will be on Tuesday, August 13, from 6–8 PM at Hong’s Gourmet. I hope you’ll join us!
August is also Bocce Ball month, scheduled for August 21 from 6-8PM! Be sure to sign up for what’s sure to be a fun and lively evening with your fellow Rotarians.
On a different note, we just found out that our meeting room will be subject to loud noise and bad smells on August 22, so we have decided to be DARK that day and meet on October 10 instead. This means 2 weeks in a row with no meeting, but we do have bocce and this will give you an opportunity for an extended Labor Day trip.
Remember, this is your club. Jump in, get involved, and help shape what we do. Whether you prefer community service projects, fellowship events, international service, supporting career building, or just hanging out, there’s a place for you here. And if you’ve got an idea for something we’re not doing yet, talk to the relevant committee chair — or reach out to me directly at dguidry@yahoo.com — and let’s make it happen together.
Again this year, a free, old-fashioned celebration for the Fourth of July was held in Kevin Moran Park. The event, organized by Rotarian Anjali Kausar and with Rotarian Chuck Page as emcee, started at 9:30 a.m. with patriotic music played by the McCartysville Band, which is an all-volunteer group organized by Tadashi Okuno. The band of over 70 members sounded terrific!
Rotary’s annual convention is always a special time – a time when members from every corner of the globe gather under one roof, united by their desire to create a better world. This year was no different. Thousands convened, eager to learn from one another, to make new friends, and to understand the challenges faced by communities far and near.
It was deeply inspiring to see the sheer diversity of projects and passions – from addressing women empowerment in Africa, to building literacy programs in rural Asia, combating human trafficking, to tackling malnutrition in Pakistan. As I manned the Rotaplast booth, I had the privilege of meeting Pakistani Rotarians whose booth was right next to ours. They shared their work on eliminating malnutrition in underserved communities and even warmly invited me to visit Pakistan. Moments like these remind us that when we come together with open hearts, politics and borders blur, leaving only our shared humanity.
Number of Rotarian from our club attended the RI Convention at Calgary. At the convention there were almost 15,000 people from 192 countries in attendance. Calgary is a beautiful modern city. The trip was especially memorable because we traveled with good friends, and we had so much fun!! Before going to Calgary, we spent a day in Vancouver and then took a scenic train ride on the Rocky Mountaineer from Vancouver to Banff. At the convention, many people wore cowboy hats. It was such a fun trip!!
The Thompson Scholarship Fund has been the primary source of scholarship funds for Saratoga Rotary for the last 13 years. Fund oversight is provided by the Saratoga RotaryCharitable Foundation (SRCF). We are very fortunate to have this Fund to provide scholarships to local deserving students! Thank you all for your support!
This year, the Thompson Fund Scholarship Committee accepted applications and conducted interviews with students for both types of Thompson Scholarships. Our Thompson Recognition Scholarships are one-time awards, granted upon proof of enrollment in college. There are seven recipients this year. We also granted three additional Thompson Legacy Scholarships in 2025. (Bringing the total to ten current Legacy Scholars!) Legacy Scholarships provide up to four years of scholarship money and adult mentors for a student who is selected based on merit, financial need and other circumstances that warrant a long-term, personal involvement in a student’s college career. The $27,000 promised to 2025 scholars is the largest allocation of funds to high school students to date!
A Legacy of Learning: Sesh Ramaswami Memorial Scholarship Reaches First Milestone
A young student at Prospect High School is now dreaming bigger, thanks to the first-ever Sesh Ramaswami Memorial Scholarship awarded this year. Tylen Brown, the inaugural recipient, will attend West Valley College for his first two years before transferring to a University. He was awarded $4,000, which will be given over four years to support his educational journey.
Last year, under the leadership of Past President Renee Paquier, the Rotary Club of Saratoga established this scholarship to honor the life and legacy of Sesh Ramaswami – a Rotarian who dedicated his life to empowering others. Sesh was known for his quiet strength, compassion, and lifelong commitment to education and service.
With some donations from the Rotary Club of Los Altos, we have collected more than 200 lbs of plastics so far. Keep them coming!
Thanks to fellow Rotarian Kim Miller, we now have a collection bin set up at the lobby of Southwest YMCA on 13500 Quito Road.
Now you have two locations to drop off the plastics for our club's plastics recycling drive:
1. At the Friday Club meeting
2. At the Y
BOOK CLUB
The next book club meeting will be held on Wednesday, August 6, at 7:00pm, at Mary Ellen Comport’s house. All club members are welcome to RSVP to Mary Ellen by Monday, August 4, to let her know that you will be coming. Each attendee is being asked to give a report on a book you have read that you would like to recommend to the book club as a future read. Recommending the book means that you will be facilitating the discussion of the book.
Bella Mahoney led our discussion of The Island of Sea Women, by Lisa See. Bella prefaced the discussion by commenting that she had been to Jeju the year the Rotary International Convention took place in South Korea and that she saw the female divers featured in The Island of Sea Women.
None of the readers was familiar with the tortured history of Jeju and its significance during World War II. The Island of Sea Women dove into this history in graphic detail and pulled the reader into the lasting effects one's affiliation with the invading Japanese or loyalty to the homeland had on individuals' lives from one generation to the next. These deep-seated divisions are still reinforced today.
Again this year, a free, old-fashioned celebration for the Fourth of July was held in Kevin Moran Park. The event, organized by Rotarian Anjali Kausar and with Rotarian Chuck Page as emcee, started at 9:30 a.m. with patriotic music played by the McCartysville Band, which is an all-volunteer group organized by Tadashi Okuno. The band of over 70 members sounded terrific!
Rotary’s annual convention is always a special time – a time when members from every corner of the globe gather under one roof, united by their desire to create a better world. This year was no different. Thousands convened, eager to learn from one another, to make new friends, and to understand the challenges faced by communities far and near.
The Thompson Scholarship Fund has been the primary source of scholarship funds for Saratoga Rotary for the last 13 years. Fund oversight is provided by the Saratoga RotaryCharitable Foundation (SRCF). We are very fortunate to have this Fund to provide scholarships to local deserving students! Thank you all for your support!
A young student at Prospect High School is now dreaming bigger, thanks to the first-ever Sesh Ramaswami Memorial Scholarship awarded this year. Tylen Brown, the inaugural recipient, will attend West Valley College for his first two years before transferring to a University. He was awarded $4,000, which will be given over four years to support his educational journey.