The Pawtuxet Valley Rotary Club Celebrates Service for 2024-25

The Pawtuxet Valley Rotary Club held its annual Celebration of Service at Club Jogues in Coventry on June 26th. The following community leaders were honored at the event:

• Mark Tourgee – Partner at Inman and Tourgee and former West Greenwich Town Council member and President
• Lori Ferguson – retiring Director of the Regional Career and

Technical School at Coventry.

• Ryan Simko – Lieutenant in the West Warwick Fire
• John H. Ball – recently deceased member of our Club
• Thanksgiving donations that included $1000 in cash and $600 in food donated to the Emanuel Lutheran Food Bank in West Warwick. Members also helped pack 150 baskets for families for Thanksgiving. Myron Gadoury is the director of the food bank and is a Rotary member.
• At Christmas, our Club donated $500 to a Coventry family, $500 to a West Warwick family, $500 to the West Greenwich family who experienced a fire. In addition, blankets, socks and cookies were purchased for the residents at Pine Acres Assisted Living in Coventry.
• Through our annual Calendar Raffle, our Club raised $1700 along with $1000 from the Arctic Playhouse fundraiser for scholarships - $750 to Coventry with a $750 match from the Coventry Teachers’ Alliance ($1500), and $750 to a West Warwick and West Greenwich recipient.

Department

In attendance was Marcel D’Auteuil – Assistance District Governor for Rotary District 7950 and Mark Knott, West

Warwick Town Manger.

The Pawtuxet Valley Rotary Club was chartered on March 30, 1959 and is involved with many community service initiatives in Coventry, West Warwick, and West Greenwich that include for 2025:

· Two clothing drives which raised approximately $1400 for Rotary projects this year.

The Arctic Playhouse also earned $1200 from the event.

The recipients of the scholarships for 2025 were:

• For Coventry: Jade Humphries - $1000*
• For West Warwick- Vanessa Garrido - $750
• For Exeter-West Greenwich – Katherine Larned - $750

Preston Palumbo - $500*

*Funds matched by the Coventry Teachers’ Alliance

The club also wrote several grants and donated funds to local organizations:

• The West Warwick Assistance Agency, which operates a food bank in Arctic, and the St. Vincent De Paul Society of Coventry each received a $750 grant while the our club provided workers to help for 2 days at each organization.
• The Coventry Public Library received $500 for book prizes for reading 1000 books by kindergarten. Rotary funds were matched by a grant from Thrivent for Lutherans.
• The 41th Annual Ben Boyle and Ron Kostyla Annual Golf Tournament raised $12,000 for the SHARE Foundation which provides specialized technology to severely handicapped individuals.
• Club members of the club also donated over $800 to Rotary International this year which helped to fund projects involving the improvement of sanitation and water resource upgrade projects for developing countries and work to eliminate polio around the globe.

Finally, the club works to maintain a site on Weaver Hill Road

in West Greenwich by adding a beautiful tree, shrubs and flowers at the site.

The PV Rotary is a small but dedicated group of Rotarians who have accomplished much this year through their hard work, dedication, and caring for the needy in our communities.

Our club is always looking for new members to join our group. We meet twice a month, once in the morning and once in the evening. Dues are $200 per year so we can pay District and International dues.

The club holds have a few fundraising each year to support its activities and occasionally has Saturday events.

If you are looking for a way to give back to your community, contact us at pvrotaryevents@gmail.com.