We hope you have had a wonderful holiday season.  As the holidays wrap up, we’d like to leave you with this video from the Bend High Desert Rotary Club, a club which also resides in District 5110: the club’s 2009 Christmas wish.  Featuring photos from various club events in 2009, it articulates some of the wishes and goals of very Rotary club, not only during the holidays but throughout the year. Happy Holidays from the Rotary Club of Eugene Airport!

The Rotary Club of Eugene Airport invites you to its annual Airport Rotary Round-Up auction, to benefit Lane County high school students’ college scholarships.  The event will be held on February 26, 2010 at 6:00 pm at the Springfield Holiday Inn. The cost is $45.00, which includes dinner, entertainment, the chance to bid on items in live and silent auctions and an opportunity to help fund the college educations of deserving local high school students. In keeping with this year’s Rotary Round-Up theme, guests are encouraged to dress in Western, Old West or casual apparel. Eugene Airport Rotarians...

Whether or not you enjoy eating yule logs like the one pictured here, you’re sure to enjoy the Eugene Register-Guard’s “Yule Log” holiday event calendar if you’re looking for fun ways to enjoy the last week of the Christmas season.  Yule Log lists ongoing events and compiles several one-day-only events happening in and around the Eugene area during the holidays.  Travel Lane County also provides an extensive event calendar. While you’re out taking part in all the holiday activities Eugene has to offer, remember that you can make an impact in the lives of Eugene’s...

Now that winter weather has arrived and temperatures frequently reach or drop below freezing, the Rotary Club of Eugene Airport wants to do its part to provide warmth for members of the community who may not have access to shelter blankets or tarps. The Rotary Club of Eugene Airport has initiated the “a THOUSAND BLANKETS” project, which seeks to provide blankets and tarps for the Egan Memorial Warming Center of Lane County.  We encourage all community members, not just Rotarians, to join us in this worthy effort.  A drop box for blanket and tarp donations is located inside the John L. Scott...

This article from the December 2009 issue of Rotarian Magazine tells the story of how Rotary clubs in Hiroshima, Japan and Pearl Harbor, Hawaii were instrumental in forging a peaceful relationship that has helped heal wounds of World War II. Akio Nishikiori clasps his prayer beads and bows his head as the Peace Bell tolls, marking the exact moment that Hiroshima, Japan, was devastated by an atomic bomb 64 years ago. Nishikiori was just eight years old when the bomb shattered the city on 6 August 1945. A week passed before his parents located his eldest sister, who had volunteered to work in a downtown...

December’s not over yet, and it’s easy to forget about Rotary Foundation Month amidst all the busyness of the holidays.  However, there is still time to make your contribution to The Rotary Foundation and help change the lives of people all across the world.  The photo at left is just one example of contributions to The Rotary Foundation making a difference: Both men are land mine victims from Phnom Penh, Cambodia re-learning how to walk after being fitted with prosthetic limbs.  Grants provided by The Rotary Foundation helped fund the rehabilitation center where they received their...

There’s always something to do in Eugene and there are even more fun activities happening around the holidays.  This week, add some holiday fun to your schedule.  Check out some of these upcoming events: Oregon Mozart Players perform a Candlelight Baroque at the First Christian Church in Eugene on Tuesday, December 8 at 7:30 p.m.  One of Eugene’s favorite music traditions, the concert includes Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 4, flute and violin soloists and a harp concerto.  More information can be found at www.oregonmozartplayers.org. From 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day until Christmas...

In this photo, Rotary Foundation Trustee Chair Glenn E. Estess Sr. (left) presents an award to violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman in appreciation of his help in fighting polio during a reception following the 2 December concert. Perlman played to a sold-out audience in New York City’s Avery Fisher Hall at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on December 2, during a benefit concert to raise money and awareness for Rotary’s efforts to eradicate polio. Perlman received several standing ovations during the fundraiser, Rotary’s first benefit concert for polio. The organization joined...

In his December message, Rotary International President John Kenny addressed Family Month, Rotary’s month-long celebration of the family of Rotary.  December is a time for Rotarians to concentrate on the balance between family and Rotary activities.  ”Every club should strive to achieve a balanced interaction between Rotarians and their families — and the family of Rotary. Only by working together, as a family, can we ensure that the Rotary of today grows into an even stronger Rotary of tomorrow,” says Kenny. You and your family can support the family of Rotary by participating...

Rotary Peace Fellow Russell Vandenbroucke, pictured at left with a Thai girl who saw him perform, uses the stage to convey his desire for peace. “The consequences of violence are always negative,” says the author of Soldier Circle, a play that humanizes the effects of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq on the individual soldier, and Atomic Bombers, which was turned into a public radio program for the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, Japan. “To say my plays send a message is too simple. I don’t write about things that are simple — or at least I make them more...