Welcome to the Fanwood-Scotch Plains Rotary
Rotary International

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.


Shelterbox at Memorial Day Parade
Memorial Day Parade

May 31st, 2010

At Scotch Plains / Fanwood’s Memorial Day parade, the club accompanied a float bearing a Shelterbox tent and display of rescue equipment provided by the club to Haitians displaced by the earthquake of January. By raising more than $15,000 the club was able to underwrite fifteen Shelterbox shipments, capable of providing shelter for weeks to as many as 150 dispossessed people.




Carol Wood Volunteer of the Year Award Dinner


June 2nd, 2010

The club invited the community to join for a celebration of the illustrious voluntarism of Don Wussler. At a dinner at the Westwood in Garwood, the club presented Don with the Carol Wood Volunteer of the Year Award. In 2008 Don Wussler spearheaded the drive to build a clock on the Scotch Plains green, adjacent to township hall. Wussler’s clock drive, which honored Korean War veterans, was a capstone on a long career of service to the area’s young baseballers and footballers, the Newark diocese, the parish of St. Bartholomew in Scotch Plains, the Lions Club of Scotch Plains, and young musicians in the Scotch Plains Fanwood High School. District 21 New Jersey Assembly representative Linda Stender came to the dais to cite the honoree’s achievements, as did Fanwood mayor Colleen Mahr, Scotch Plains councilman Jeffrey Strauss and many others.

A slide show of the festivities is available here.


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 Shelter boxes being delivered to Haiti. For more information about shelter boxes, please visit www.shelterboxusa.org

 

 

 

 

 

photo by: Mark Pearson

 


Tom Russo, Volunteer of The Year

Frazee House Picnic
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.


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