Rotary is a worldwide organization of business and professional leaders that provides humanitarian service, encourages high ethical standards in all vocations, and helps build goodwill and peace in the world. Approximately 1.2 million Rotarians belong to more than 32,000 clubs in more than 200 countries and geographical areas.
Members of a Rotary Club are part of a diverse group of professional leaders working to address various community and international service needs and to promote peace and understanding throughout the world.
Fanwood Scotch Plains Rotary has spearheaded a community fund-raising drive that has generated donations for ten ShelterBoxes for delivery to Haiti. ShelterBox holds a tent that can sleep ten along with cooking gear, water purification, stove, blankets and other subsistence supplies adequate to meet a family or group's minimal needs for a period of weeks. The club has received $10,000, generated in less than two weeks following the disaster.
Rotary International stages ShelterBoxes around the world for rapid delivery, and 3,300 have already been delivered to Haiti, with another 1,000 in the air en route thanks in part to donations from friends of Rotary in Fanwood and Scotch Plains. "This is the largest, quickest, and most complex deployment in our history," said John Leach, head of operations for ShelterBox in a special message at Rotary International's web site. "We organized across four countries to get ShelterBoxes to the people of Haiti quickly.
Member and former FSP Rotary president, Pat Plante merits special mention for her effort both to raise funds and to raise awareness of ShelterBox by displays in the area at the Jewish Community Center and the Brunner School in the Scotch Plains-Fanwood school district.
Shelter boxes being delivered to Haiti. For more information about shelter boxes, please visit www.shelterboxusa.org
photo by: Mark Pearson
FSP Rotary is regularly in the local news
FSP Rotary was featured in New Jersey’s statewide newspaper, the Star Ledger, in a report about Martin Luther King Jr. Day events locally.
N.J.'s Martin Luther King Jr. Day events
focus on Haiti earthquake disaster
By Rohan Mascarenhas/The Star-Ledger
January 18, 2010, 6:48PM
The disaster in Haiti inspired impassioned pleas for action and renewed donation drives across the state today, transforming the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday into a much-needed chance to spotlight relief efforts in the devastated Caribbean nation.
At the inaugural day of service in Scotch Plains today, volunteers for the Rotary Club found wallets opening freely as they collected money for relief efforts in Haiti. “This was a huge and terrific response today,” said Janet Strunk, president of the Rotary Club of Fanwood-Scotch Plains. “We’ve received a lot of donations...the response to Haiti has been huge from our community and business leaders.” …
Fanwood-Scotch Plains Rotary’s most recent public event
October 21, 2009
In a now annual event, FSP Rotary invited members from neighboring Rotary clubs to a luncheon
adjacent to the Frazee House in southwest Union County on Raritan Road. The restoration of the Revolutionary-era Frazee House, www.frazeehouse.org, is a commitment of FSP Rotary intended to add historic luster to the
town, county and state. Those attending numbered 47, including Rotarians from Plainfield, North Plainfield, Mountainside, Berkeley Heights and Westfield, as well as civic leaders: Scotch Plains mayor Nancy Malool, Scotch Plains councilwoman Mary DePaola (who acts as town council liaison to the Frazee Project), Fanwood mayor Colleen Maher, and Fanwood council members, Donna Dolce and Russell Huegel. The speaker is Rotary District Governor Alexander Cauwels.
