The Rotary Club of East Manatee

As the Rotary 2012-13 year nears the end District 6960 held their annual conference to celebrate the accomplishments over the past 10 months and enjoy fellowship.The ECO Rotary Club of East Manatee was acknowledged for several awards including the Governor's award with distinction.

The Rotary Club of East Manatee welcomed their first Rotary Youth Exchange Student on August 2, 2012. Marisa Ling Brannlund comes to us from Solna, Sweden to spend a year in the United States and is attending Lakewood Ranch High School as a junior. She is an avid photographer and hopes to pursue it as a career one day.

waiting for photos to magicaly appear

Pictures are needed here too

The Rotary team actually cooked two different batches calling one “Spicy Heat” and the other “Nicely Sweet”. Since only one entry per team was allowed to be submitted, the “Nicely Sweet” was dubbed the winner out of the field of 22 entries. Out of the two batches, the larger batch of “Spicy Heat was the more popular recipe and ran out earlier than the winning chili. Making one wonder which chili was the better recipe.

Every three months we clean-up a 1 ½ mile section of 60th Avenue East, between US 301 and Mendoza Road We coordinate our clean up dates to coincide with the Great American Cleanup and Florida Coastal Cleanup events; thus maximizing local awareness while participating in a larger cause.

This is our third time partnering with Harvest Methodist Church to help provide a Christmas celebration to the migrant workers at Falkner Farms. They organize the event and we cook all of the food.

Every year we make holiday cookies for Tidewell Hospice and Palliative Care homes; enlisting help from at-risk students from PACE Center for Girls while Rotarians act as mentors.

This marks our second annual Holiday Social Get Together. Thanks to Rich and Annette for opening their home and getting the Christmas decorations up early.

The pumpkin festival is a Manatee County tradition. We have been operating their Pepsi booth in the main food court area for the past six years and enjoy the fun and festivities every year.It was especially nice to have our first ever RYE Student Marisa lending a Rotary helping hand.

Each year we rededicate our donated Peace Pole at Gullett Elementary and Williams Elementary Schools.

On June 8, we held our Installation Dinner at the home of Annette and Rich Zang. It was a fantastic night of good food, fellowship, laugher and fun!

On April 19th 2012, we turned our meeting into a celebration which was attended by several District Governors, along with numerous Assistant Governors, and area club Presidents. We acknowledged our 10th anniversary as a club and recognized some of the district leadership which made our club possible. We installed our 8th new member thus doubling our club size and then installed our five SNOWtarians as official honorary members of our club. We then introduced the original membership and enjoyed fellowship with the leadership of district 6960. Thanks to so many in district leadership that woke extra early and drove from long distances to support this breakfast celebration.

This year four Rotary Clubs totaling 86 people joined together for a cowboy fellowship...yeehaw

This year's theme is "Star Spangled Year"...So we make a giant firecracker. Many Thanks to our project sponsor Whole Foods Market for providing all of the cans used for this project. Each year we participate in the can sculpture contest at the Manatee County Fair. This competition is sponsored by the Palmetto Rotary club with proceeds going to Meals on Wheels PLUS of Manatee County.

Every three months we clean-up a 1 ½ mile section of 60th Avenue East, between US 301 and Mendoza Road We coordinate our clean up dates to coincide with the Great American Cleanup and Florida Coastal Cleanup events; thus maximizing local awareness while participating in a larger cause.

Every year we make holiday cookies for Tidewell Hospice and Palliative Care homes; enlisting help from at-risk students from PACE Center for Girls while Rotarians act as mentors.

This is our second time partnering with Harvest Methodist Church to help provide a Christmas celebration to the migrant workers at Falkner Farms. They organize the event and we cook all of the food.

On December 8, 2011, Rich Zang was officially inducted as the newest member of the Rotary Club of East Manatee.

Last year the Palmetto, Lakewood Ranch, and East Manatee Rotary Clubs gave approximately 1600 dictionaries to 3rd grade students in 14 different schools. This is a world wide project that Rotary partners with in which 2,461,342 dictionaries were given to students in the 50 United States last year.

On November 12th, The Rotary Clubs from Manatee County joined together for a day of fun as we traveled an o’l Florida slice of history to experience a portion of the Orange Blossom Special. Offered by the Parrish Heritage Museum, Participating Rotary Clubs included: East Manatee, Lakewood Ranch, Manatee Riverside and Anna Maria.

This marks our first annual Holiday Social Get Together. We had to hold it before Thanksgiving in order to maximize attendance, but at least we made it happen. Thanks to Joe and Kay for opening their home and getting the Christmas decorations up early. We also took the opportunity to honor our past president, Bob Rodd for 25 years of perfect attendance. Congratulations Bob.

The Taste of Manatee is spearheaded by the Rotary Club of West Bradenton. This year was our first time participating. We served up some unique chow, including: “Cuban Style Wild Hog” served over black beans and rice and “Jungle Gumbo” with tastes of alligator, duck, elk, hog and venison. We completely sold out of everything.

The pumpkin festival is a Manatee County tradition. We have been operating their Pepsi booth in the main food court area for the past five years and enjoy the fun and festivities every year.

After planning all summer and scheduling programs to introduce people to the many faces of Rotary, it is finally time to begin.

We joined forces with the Rotary Club of Palmetto and the VFW to in a fundraising effort to raise money for the local community

The 2011 Gullett Elementary School fifth grade Service Above Self Award recipients are Claudia Sbaschnik and Josh Ghansiam. Alanna Duch and Chandler Reed were the recipients for Williams Elementary. Congratulations to all of these students, who we will hope will become future Rotarians!

Secretary/Treasurer, Joe Coley was Captain the crew as we competed in the last tailgate contest of the season…The Gilligan’s Island Tailgate Party.

Rotarians in District 6960 got together for “Rotary Day at the Rodeo” at the Arcadia All-Florida Championship Rodeo.

On February 10,2011 We inducted Dr. Mark Fritz as an official member of The Rotary Club of East Manatee.

Our project is an eight foot tall giant snowman this year. Consisting of over 750 canned goods, with an estimated value of over $950.00, the following is a list of what it took to make Frosty the magic snowman from Florida. • 300 cans of 365 Organic Garbanzo Beans • 210 cans of Ranch Style Black Beans • 105 cans of Great Value Potatoes • 105 cans of Great Value Corn • 35 cans of Hunts Tomatoes • 5 cans of Farmers Market Organic Pumpkin will make Frosty’s nose • and his corn cob pipe is a giant sized can of Folgers Coffee and 5 cans of Roland Escargots. We are especially grateful to our generous sponsors that helped make this all happen. We couldn’t have done it without them.

This is a first time project which was initiated by our secretary/treasurer, Joe Coley. Joe recently suffered a heart attack while traveling. We have coordinated directly with Joe’s church to assist in this dinner for over 700 migrant workers. Everyone is looking forward to doing this again next year.

Each year we rededicate our donated Peace Pole at Gullett Elementary and Williams Elementary Schools.

Each year we reward some of the exceptional fifth-graders at Williams Elementary and Gullett Elementary with the Service Above Self awards to recognize outstanding civil performance.

Every year we make holiday cookies for Tidewell Hospice and Palliative Care homes; enlisting help from at-risk students from PACE Center for Girls while Rotarians act as mentors.

Offering a way for local residents to safely dispose of their sensitive documents in a convenient process that ensures protection from identity theft while helping the environment. Of course all proceeds are used to fund the many local and international projects that we support…how’s that for a win-win.

Every three months we clean-up a 1 ½ mile section of 60th Avenue East, between US 301 and Mendoza Road We coordinate our clean up dates to coincide with the Great American Cleanup and Florida Coastal Cleanup events; thus maximizing local awareness while participating in a larger cause.

Our 2010-2011 Rotary International Theme "Building Communities Bridging Continents".

Each year we participate in the can sculpture project at the Manatee County Fair This competition is sponsored by the Palmetto Rotary club with proceeds going to Meals on Wheels PLUS of Manatee County. This year's entry was an earthbox consiting of 326 cans which was awarded "The Judges Favorite"

Introducing our firt ever Shred-o-thon. We initially intended this to combine a community service project concept with fundraising. The public participation was so outstanding that we have committed to providing this event twice a year.

This annual event, which has wound its way through the village of Parrish every spring for more than 15 years, continues to grow each year. Ending at the Railroad Muesum, the parade tries to tie -into the Parrish community and celebrate the rich history of this small community.