Spotlight: Beaverton Rotary President

The Beaverton Rotary Club has evolved a great amount in the past decade, and its current president, Jim Lundblade, has seen many of those changes.

“I joined Rotary after learning about the critical role of civic associations in maintaining democracies, and from meeting Rotarians doing service.”

"My impression of Rotary had been that of old, white guys sitting around and smoking cigars; at that point I was in my mid-fifties, and didn’t realize how much the Rotary accomplished in our communities," said Lundblade.

Beaverton Rotary is a service organization. Over time, Lundblade has seen Rotary become more diverse in its membership, and has increased its focus on service. As the membership continues to diversify (27% of the Beaverton Rotary membership is women) different kinds of membership have been created to accommodate different lifestyles, like that of the working professional.

Jim's daily tasks are to run the weekly Rotary meetings and setting the agenda for those. He oversees goals and projects, both short and long term.

The Beaverton Rotary primary focus of service is on education and youth literacy.
"In October, we will give a dictionary to every fourth grader in the Beaverton school district," said Lundblade. "This month we are also executing a program that gives vouchers at the Scholastic Book Fair for children who have need. With help from the Beaverton Rotary, kids receive a 'golden ticket'; they think they've won the lottery!" said Lundblade. Last year the program expanded from 3 to 10 schools in the Beaverton school district.

"We have another program this month, Operation Warm Coats, in which we go into certain apartment complexes and donate fluffy warm coats to those in need. We also donate a large bulk of the coats to a clothes closet that is being run by the school district," said Lundblade.
"We award grants in the spring for academic scholarships and vocational grants for community college," said Lundblade.
CYEP grants are also available for young parents in Beaverton who are still in school.
A future project to support youth literacy in Beaverton is a "Mini-Library" program. Mini-libraries are boxes filled with books which are placed in neighborhoods, near playgrounds or apartment complexes and are enclosed to protect the books from weather. "If they're checked out, read and returned, that's great," said Lundblade, "If they're not returned, that just means a kid in Beaverton has one more book in their home."

The Beaverton Rotary is also involved in international youth exchanges. They select and sponsor a student each year to go abroad for the duration of their junior year. The Rotary also sponsors a student from abroad to live and study in Beaverton. This past year, Beaverton Rotary sent one student to South Korea and welcomed a student from Austria, who is currently studying at Sunset High School.

Image via Jim Lundbade, Beaverton Rotary