Night of elegance to benefit needy children
McMinnville?s Breakfast Rotary Club will be holding its annual Charity Gala on April 21 from 7 to 10 p.m. at McMinnville Country Club. Tickets are $100 per couple, and single tickets are available for $50.
Tickets are available at three locations: McMinnville Electric System, McMinnville Drug Center, and the main branch of Security Federal.
Heavy hors d?oeuvres will be served, and the evening will feature music from the Joe Harvey Band, along with a silent auction featuring a number of great items, including vacation packages and other unique and valuable products donated by local businesses and individuals.
All proceeds will benefit the Romanian Orphanage Project, the REACH Project, and other Breakfast Rotary community projects.
?The McMinnville Breakfast Rotary Club does several fundraisers every year,? said member Rachel Killebrew. ?But this is our major fundraiser. The proceeds from the gala will go to help provide funding for our Romanian Orphanage Project, and that?s the staff, the building, food, everything that makes up our portion of that project is funded from this.?
Breakfast Rotary provides about half the support for an orphanage that cares for 12 children, ages 2-15. The other half comes from a charitable group in Germany. The local Breakfast Rotary learned of this need through an association with a Rotary Club in Sopron, Hungary.
McMinnville?s Breakfast Rotary Club has been supporting the home for about six years. Various McMinnville Rotarians have visited the home in the past few years.
These children literally have no place else to go, as the Romanian government is still recovering from past dictatorships and does not have the means to provide assistance for their needs.
In addition to the orphanage, the club will use these proceeds to fund a relatively new project.
?This will also help fund our REACH project this year,? Killebrew said, ?which stands for Rotarians Engaged in Alleviating Child Hunger.?
The objective is to help alleviate the hunger faced by certain children in Warren County. These are children who come to school on Monday mornings ravenously hungry because, for various reasons, they have limited access to food during weekends. These children are not necessarily malnourished, as they receive free breakfast and lunch at school, but they often go hungry when at home.
The program provides these children, each Friday, with a bag of nutritionally appropriate food items that do not need refrigeration and that the children can open and serve themselves. Two food items from each of the following categories are provided: protein, dairy, cheese, fruit, a treat and a beverage.
Children are identified for program participation through various methods, such as teachers noticing drowsiness, cafeteria workers observing hoarding of food, comments by the children, along with other indicators. Once identified, the children?s home situation is confirmed by the school guidance counselor. The program currently addresses the needs of children at West Elementary.
?We pack bags of food for 50 children who teachers recognize are obviously hungry and can?t concentrate,? Killebrew said. ?We pack those 50 bags after every meeting of Breakfast Rotary, which meets Tuesday mornings.
?So the proceeds from this particular function will all go to the aid of children, here and overseas,? Killebrew said. ?So come out and join us, dance the night away, and have a great time. We just want everyone to have fun, and at the same time provide funding for some very worthy projects. And the cost of your tickets are tax deductible.?
For more information, contact Charles Marsh at 473-8944 at night, or 473-4471 during the day, or Rachel Killebrew at 473-8616.