No Borders Rotaract

I wanted to update everyone on the success of No Borders Rotaract in recent months! We are now in excess of 30 members and have PDG Bill coming to speak at our next meeting in ten days. Because we have so many new members who have never been a part of Rotary and are spread out all over the globe, I thought we could foster a sense of team spirit, fulfilment, and familiarity with State of Jeff and WASH members by hosting a pumpkin carving competition, to fund raise for each member to have a No Borders Rotaract t-shirt wherever they are in the world (which is actually surprisingly inexpensive - but some of our members are in countries where their dollar does not go as far as ours, so it is more difficult for them). We did this pumpkin carving idea a few years ago with a New Zealand Rotaract club, and it was very fun for all involved. 

Essentially, our Treasurer Karl and I will be teaching the Rotaractors how to hollow out and carve a jack-o’-lantern after our meeting with PDG Bill. (Our members in Nigeria, South Africa, Brazil, India and Singapore will be carving watermelons or other kinds of gourds). Then, on October 25th at 3pm EST, we could all have a big zoom session and our members will go around and introduce themselves, their country, and what they chose for their design and why! Voting would happen via PayPal donation (recommended $5 - 10, ish, but less is OK too!) while we share some spooky stories, and then the winner will be announced. The idea now is to put the candidate you're voting for in the subject line or the PayPal transaction but this will be finalized before the meeting. 

This isn't so much about the money, it's more about the engagement (if needed I can boost the proceeds myself to have enough to order the shirts, which we'll do in November - our VP Daniel's little sister Elena is working on the design). I would simply absolutely love to have as many State of Jefferson members there as possible because this is a great way to allow our new members to actively socialize with established Rotarians and meet you all! I also hope that there will be a few members of the WASH e-club there too (fingers crossed). 

We'll send out a zoom link closer to the date along with a proper 'order of operations' but for now it looks like everything is good to go! I've included a few images from when we did this a few years ago, though it was on a smaller scale then, but so much fun.

And of course, I would like to thank you all for your continued support and interest in No Borders. I'm absolutely thrilled with the growth of the club. We already have a president elect, secretary elect and treasurer elect, so the continued success of the club looks assured for next year, too! We helped run a soup kitchen in Vienna back in August that fed 150 people, with plans to do so again on the 6th December, and that has everyone quite energized. So, all is going great. Can't wait to have everyone in the same Zoom room! 

All my best, and yours in service,
Sarah Atkins (President '25-'26, No Borders)