By Roger Tausig
Rotary Club of Orange
Roger Tausig
As I have written many times in this space, Rotary Club of Orange is committed to service to others, which can take several forms. We regularly perform hands-on service projects, such as collecting and distributing food to the needy, supplying underserved children with warm coats in the wintertime, participating in our town’s two shredding days every year and assisting organizations like Marrakech at their holiday party for their physically and intellectually challenged clients.
But our service also takes the form of providing funding through grant requests to not-for-profit organizations who do extraordinary work in their communities.
The funds that we use to fulfill these grant requests come from two sources. The first is via fundraising events that our club organizes and executes, such our annual Thanksgiving Day 5K Road Race and our Mother’s Day Rose Sale. The second source of funds is a bequest from a beloved Rotarian named Lynda Hammond, who tragically passed away in October 2021. Hammond dedicated a major part of her life to doing the work of Rotary on a scale that made her a true legend in Rotary throughout the world. To our surprise, she left a large bequest from her estate to our Rotary Club, undoubtedly expecting us to carry on her work, which was heavily geared toward service to children. Since Hammond’s passing, we have received several grant requests and joyfully fulfilled them.
One such request came from New Haven Reads, a children’s literacy organization that collects used books and supplies them to children and adults at no cost. More importantly, it operates an organization of nearly 400 volunteer reading tutors who work one-on-one with children in the greater New Haven area to supplement their public school reading education. Many children’s life circumstances preclude them from obtaining adequate reading materials and developing adequate skills, and these children are thus underprepared to advance their education. We were happy to award this very worthy organization the amount they requested.
We also received and approved a grant request from ‘r kids Family Center. This New Haven-based organization provides services to children and families in transition. The funds they requested are specifically to support the establishment of a full arts program for children that includes a wide spectrum of the arts including dance, sculpting and culinary arts.
Perhaps the most meaningful request came from a Rotary-based organization called The Gift of Life, in which Hammond was deeply involved. The project will save the lives of Dominican children with heart disease by providing them with critical surgeries. The grant will fund two visits to train local health care professionals at a hospital where 20 children with heart diseases are treated per visit. This funding will provide for surgeries and catheterizations of about 40 children to correct their heart defects.
This will be my final article as president of Rotary Club of Orange. For the reasons evidenced in my articles over the past year, I am incredibly proud and humbled to have had the opportunity to lead a group of truly outstanding people who have demonstrated time and again that service to others continues to be a core value of Rotary.
Roger Tausig is a member of the Rotary Club of Orange.