Help Rotary make a difference around the World and at Home!
The current need for donations is greater than ever. In light of the pandemic, the AVRSF is organizing a different event to replace the car raffle in 2020/2021.
Donation & Fine Links
Here is the link to donate to The Rotary Foundation. Please remember to log in so you, our club, and our district are given appropriate credit for the donation.
Here is the link to pay happy fines. Please note that this is not how you would get money to either The Rotary Foundation or to Apple Valley Rotary Scholarship Foundation.
We are working to find a way to process donations by credit card to the Apple Valley Rotary Scholarship Foundation. When we have a way to do that, we'll post that link here, too.
Apple Valley Rotary is a group of engaged community members. We have fun while serving our youth and our local and international communities.
PROJECTS WE'RE PASSIONATE ABOUT: FOOD
Our club cares about food security. We have ongoing projects, as well as annual projects to help feed people that need it in our neighborhood and our world. We raise money, collect, pack, and serve.
Feed My Starving Children
Each year, we participate in Feed My Starving Children. Back in February, we participated in the South Metro Mega-Pack at the old Rainbow Foods. During our two-hour shift, we helped pack 978 boxes containing 211,248 meals - enough to feed 579 kids feed for a whole year.
Loaves & Fishes
Every month, a few of us meet at Easter Lutheran Church in Eagan for Loaves & Fishes. With this program, we serve well-balanced meals to hungry members of our community.
The Food Group
A few times every summer, we head up to the Minneapolis Farmers’ Market to help out with Produce Rescue, organized by The Food Group. Through this program, we visit with the farmers at different stalls to learn whether they have any produce they’d like to donate. Many oblige, providing delicious, fresh produce that they don’t expect to sell before it goes bad. We collect it, sort it, box it, and have it delivered to food shelves in the metro area. Boxing quite literally TONS of food every week, we get a pretty good workout in, too.
360 Communities
We support 360 Communities’ area food shelves in a variety of ways. Last year, we partnered with Rosemount Rotary to purchase a giant refrigerator for the Rosemount Family Resource Center. This enables them to provide local families with fresh fruits and vegetables (see Produce Rescue!).
On the first Wednesday of every month, members bring food donations from their cupboards and we “pass the apple” to collect money for food purchases.
Have ideas for more ways for us to get involved in food security in our community and the world? Let us know!
PROJECTS WE'RE PASSIONATE ABOUT: YOUTH
We believe that children are our future. A number of our service projects and many of our donation dollars focus on youth - particularly kids right here in Apple Valley.
Interact Club
In 2015-2016, Apple Valley High School students launched their own Interact Club (think of it as Rotary for high schoolers). Despite being such a new group, they’ve already begun to change the world. Last year they raised money to assemble Wapis. In places without access to clean water, these are used to purify water, without needing to bring it to a boil. They’ve just wrapped up a blanket drive for those in need in our community, and are gearing up with a fundraiser and food drive that will culminate in some of their favorite teachers and Rotarians being attacked by pies. If that wasn’t enough, they’ve grown their group through marketing, designing their own shirts! Below they're being recognized at the State of the City for their dedication to making this world better.
STRIVE Program
We work with the AVID class at Apple Valley High School through Rotary’s STRIVE program. Rotarians and other community members visit as guest speakers, talking with kids about topics ranging from time management to personal finance. At the end of the year, we award a scholarship to help students continue their education.
Student of the Month
Every month students from the three Apple Valley Middle Schools - Valley, Falcon Ridge, and Scott Highlands - are picked by their teachers and recognized by Apple Valley Rotary. Hearing about their intelligence, kindness, and generosity give us hope.
Dictionary Project
Literacy is another passion of ours. With a few other groups, we ensure that all third graders in District 196 get their own Dictionary. Each fall, we visit third grade classrooms, teach excited kids about Rotary, and uncover fun facts. Did you know the longest word in the English language has 189,819 letters?
Book Drive
In 2015-2016, one of our members spearheaded a book donation drive. We collected 4,000 books. In 2016-2017, we got tired of counting after 6,000. These books are distributed throughout our community – to Head Start classrooms, ELL (English Language Learner) classrooms and more. We are proud to live in a place where literacy is so highly valued and are happy to further the cause!
Cub Scouts
We are the charter organization for Apple Valley’s Cub Scout Pack 227 and love the continued involvement with this great group of future leaders. Together we clean up Redwood Park (and enjoy hot dogs and hamburgers!) and we were honored to be asked to be part of their fundraising efforts for a new trailer. Watch for it soon!
Have ideas for more ways for us to get involved with youth in Apple Valley? We’d love to hear them!
Support Apple Valley Rotary through Amazon Smile!
Looking for another way to give to the organization you love so much? When you shop on Amazon, use Amazon smile!
First, visit https://smile.amazon.com/ch/
Then, whenever you're going to buy something on amazon, visit smile.amazon.com (rather than simply amazon.com) to search for and purchase all the things you want and need. A portion of each sale will benefit our club.
We appreciate your support!
We're on facebook!
Visit us at https://www.facebook.com/AVMNRotary/ to see more of what we're up to!
