We did it! Let me correct that statement…You did it! You made our 2026 Fish Bowl a smashing success! Every year, it seems to get a little bit bigger, and so far, we have had Chamber of Commerce weather every single time. This is the annual Rotary fundraiser, but I’ll tell you the event itself does not make a lot of money. It is an expensive event to put on, and when all the bills are paid, we are lucky to make $4000 USD. We talked about that in our Rotary meeting today but decided unanimously that it’s a great event for the community as well as an opportunity to spotlight many of our fabulous restaurants…so we plan to continue the event.
Along with the Fish Bowl, our Rotary sells Super Bowl squares. We sell one board of $20 USD a square, which makes the club $1000 USD, and we sell one board of $100 USD squares, which makes our club $5000 USD, so when we combine this with the Fish Bowl profit, we are closer to a $10,000 USD profit for the weekend.
Many of you also participated in the 50-50 sales at the Fish Bowl. We generated $1770 USD, and we split the pot with one lucky winner. The lucky winner was Kim Phelps…Congratulate Kim if you see her.
The Rotary focus for this fundraiser was to help to buy prosthetics for the people of Peñasco. Through a partnership with Limbs for Humanity out of Phoenix, we have been able to fit 50 people with legs since the first of the year. This is a big need in our community due to the high number of our residents who suffer from diabetes. Our club is also in the process of writing a global grant asking for $85,000 USD to help support this initiative. It is a very costly undertaking; one prosthetic leg can cost up to $10,000 USD. We will be submitting our grant shortly, and if we are successful, we’ll be able to help a lot more people.
The last global grant our club wrote, we were funded to the tune of almost $70,000 USD. We partnered with the city and built a water purification plant. We then purchased a truck, and with the help of Oomapas, we are now able to deliver drinking water to every grade school in town each day.
We finally completed the task of delivering eyeglasses to all of the 550 people who were tested and received glasses. This was a real challenge in that the company that made the glasses out of Dallas, Texas, is not accustomed to people having four names, so we had a real challenge to match up the glasses with individuals, but all is well that ends well, and there’s nothing more satisfying than watching a young person or an older person be able to see. Even though it was a daunting task, it was well worth it!
The strength of our club depends on the strength of our membership, and we’re always looking for new members who want to experience “Service Above Self. Come and check us out. We meet every Wednesday morning at 9 o’clock at the Puesta del Sol restaurant. Hope to see you there, Dr. Sally.
