Smyrna Rotary Club Projects

October 2015 and on… dates scheduled for Smyrna Rotarians to teach at the Cobb County Adult Education Center. We are also planning our Dictionary Project, Laws of Life, Golden Quill, Fall Prevention and other projects. Our objectives: be caring, be hands on, serve our community, and help this planet be a better place.

September 16, 2015: Smyrna Rotary continues to make contributions to Rotary International’s efforts to defeat polio once and for all.

September 15, 2015: We are currently working on a $3,500 STEM grant for Smyrna Georgia’s Teasley Elementary School. This follows the $4,500 STEM grant the club did last year for Smyrna’s Griffin Middle School.

September 8, 2015: Smyrna Rotary has grown by three new members since July 1, 2015. Join us!

August 22, 2015: Smyrna Rotary continues to make contributions to combat Alzheimer’s through the CART Fund.

August 15, 2015: We are working on a book drive for the Cobb Jail. This echoes a book and magazine drive we did about a year ago for the Smyrna Georgia city jail. For that project, we collected and/or bought several hundred books.

August 2015: Smyrna Rotary participates in Center for Children and Young Adults (CCYA) project with six other Rotary Clubs. This project totals $32,000 in new furniture, etc., for the CCYA, located in Cobb County adjacent to Smyrna.

April 2015: Smyrna Rotary Club’s annual Golf for Kids’ Literacy raises several thousand dollars.

February 24, 2015: “An incredibly successful event last night took place throughout our District. We lit up Rotary in our communities and shared the spirit with our friends and neighbors. The Rotary Wheel was displayed on Stone Mountain, the Big Chicken, local courthouses, historical buildings, high-profile billboards and many other iconic structures throughout the District! Light Up Rotary Night was created to celebrate Rotary’s 110th birthday and to recognize the 30 year anniversary of our End Polio Now campaign.” – Rotary 6900 District Governor Alicia Michaels

April 2014: Smyrna Rotary Club’s annual Golf for Kids’ Literacy raises several thousand dollars.

March 19, 2014: More literacy news: (1) Dictionaries are being delivered to Smyrna Elementary School this Friday courtesy of Smyrna Rotary. (2) The club will be participating on April 29 in Career Days at the Cobb County Adult Education Center. (3) Bill Keappler reports that more than 45 applications are already in hand for Smyrna Rotary Scholarships that will be awarded. (4) David Wine is projecting great turnout for the Golf Tournament benefiting the club’s literacy efforts.

March 18, 2014: Smyrna Rotary received a plaque from the Peace Corps (a partner in our literacy efforts) recognizing the training of 34 Peace Corps volunteers for elementary education. In the fall, similar training will take place for health focused volunteers.

November 19, 2013: Today is ShelterBox Day at Smyrna Rotary. We are funding ShelterBox kits for the Philippines.

October 24, 2013: A child may be immunized against polio with vaccine that costs only 60 cents. How can we allow any child to be at risk for polio? Smyrna Rotary cares and we show our resolve by funding PolioPlus and providing thousands of doses of life-saving vaccine.

May 15, 2013: The first packages of SOUNS materials are now on-the-way to South Africa! These will be hand delivered by Peachtree City Rotarian Brenda Erickson. Rotary Club of Smyrna has joined with Rotary Club Pretoria East for a Global Grant to provide educational tools for early childhood educational centers in disadvantaged communities. Our club is committed to literacy here and around the world.

April 14, 2013: Rotary Club of Smyrna has joined with Rotary Club Pretoria East for a Global Grant to provide educational tools for early childhood educational centers in disadvantaged communities, to train teachers to use these literacy tools, and to empower women to become teachers and trainers in Gauteng province, South Africa. The Goodness of Rotary at work!

Feb. 20, 2013: Smyrna Rotary provided 22 – TI84 Calculators for the Math Department at CHS. These calculators will help the students at Campbell be more competitive when taking standardized tests like the SAT & ACT.

December 2012: Led by Rotarian Steve Kimble, Smyrna Rotary donated dozens of new bikes and helmets to Cobb Christmas.

September 18, 2012: Smyrna Rotary is a strong supporter of Coins for Alzheimer’s Research Trust (CART) a Rotary program that supports research for the treatment and cure of Alzheimer’s disease. Our gifts to the CART fund enable cutting edge, high impact research in hopes of finding a cure/prevention for Alzheimer’s disease.

Smyrna Rotarian Johnny Wilson headed the club’s CART program for years and now Bill Keappler is in charge. The Keappler family is matching all CART gifts this year in memory of the late Ernie Keappler, a long-time member of this club.

September 16, 2012: There are all kinds of scholarships it seems. For a number of years, Smyrna Rotary has awarded a “circus scholarship” to the kindergarten classes at LaBelle Elementary School. A “circus scholarship” is a paid admission to the Big Top – and it is one of the best investments we make annually because it brings so much joy to our youngest citizens. These are children that would not likely have the opportunity to attend the circus without help from our Rotary club.

September 13, 2012: Smyrna Rotary recently participated with other Rotary clubs and The Rotary Foundation in a grant to help 4000 disadvantaged children between 3 to 5 years of age build fundamental literacy skills in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

August 25, 2012: More on the good works of The Rotary Club of Smyrna: Smyrna Rotary, in cooperation with Marietta Metro Rotary and Dunwoody Rotary, and the Rotary Club of Nairobi North, sponsored a World Community Service Matching Grants project – a Pediatric Medical Mission to Kenya.

Volunteers from 11 countries provided preventive health care to more than 10,000 children in the poorest communities of Nairobi. The medical team, including health care professionals and non-medical volunteers, screened patients to determine their most urgent needs before sending them to specialty stations set up to provide dental care, eye care, nutrition counseling, and treatment of infections.

The medical mission, the 10th of its kind and the first in Kenya, focused on the health needs of children living in the slums of Mukuru, Mathare, and Korogocho outside Nairobi, where the poverty rate is high and preventive medical care is lacking.

As many as 3,000 children were treated in a day. While Smyrna Rotarians did not deliver the actual medical services, our club was proud to actively participate in the grant process that enabled these good works.

August 24, 2012: The “Rotary Clubs of the Bahamas Blood Mobile” came to fruition through a joint fund-raising effort by Rotary Clubs – including Smyrna Rotary – and a matching grant from Rotary International. The project enabled the Rotary clubs to present a fully equipped vehicle for use by the Princess Margaret Hospital and Doctors Hospital in the Bahamas- where there is a national blood shortage

August 12, 2012: Smyrna Rotary in 2011 participated- in partnership with other Rotary clubs- in a project to combat buruli ulcer in Côte d’Ivoire. Buruli ulcer is one of the most neglected but treatable tropical diseases. The causative organism, Mycobacterium ulcerans, is from the family of bacteria that causes tuberculosis and leprosy. This severe skin disease leads to long-term functional disability if not treated. BU has been reported in over 30 countries mainly with tropical and subtropical climates, but Côte d’Ivoire is one of the most affected countries. Smyrna Rotarian Raymond Coffman coordinated our effort.