Rotary Club Benefit Fund award of grants to community
Santa Paula News
Published: April 17, 2009
The Rotary Club Benefit Fund, Inc. is pleased to announce the first annual award of grants to community organizations, totaling $67,475.00 to 14 organizations.
The Rotary Club Benefit Fund, Inc. is pleased to announce the first annual award of grants to community organizations, totaling $67,475.00 to 14 organizations.
“We raised this money from the community, and we are delighted to have this
opportunity to return it to support some of the many worthy projects in the
community,” said 2008-09 Rotary Club of Santa Paula President, Mike Mobley.
The Santa Paula Rotary Club Benefit Fund, Inc. reviewed grant applications adding up to over $194,000.00 in requests. A total of 34 applications were received by the charitable corporation by the deadline, which came at the end of January.
“We knew the need in the community was great, but even so we were overwhelmed by
the response to our first request for applications. As much as we’d love to have been able to fund every request, we knew we would not be able to this year. The review committee had some tough decisions to make,” Mobley said.
In the evaluating the grant applications, the Benefit Fund looked most favorably on requests which laid the foundation for the long-term fulfillment of the applying organization’s mission, and furthered the Rotary Club’s goals of supporting worthy projects in youth, education, health, social services and the arts, as well as Rotary’s international efforts.
The majority of the funds awarded to community organizations and projects were raised by the Rotary Club of Santa Paula’s Pumpkin Patch event, held each October at Faulkner Farm on Briggs and Telegraph roads in Santa Paula. Over 20,000 people from all over Southern California attended the Pumpkin Patch last year, the second consecutive year the event has been organized by the Rotary Club. Additional funds are contributed to the fund by the members of the Rotary Club of Santa Paula.
Coming years will bring more funding opportunities, said Mobley. “The Rotary Club Benefit Fund has developed a tremendous, sustained annual fund raising mechanism in the Faulkner Farm Pumpkin Patch, which we expect to grow each year, bringing more needed funds to the community. So even projects that we aren’t able to support this year will have another opportunity to apply for funding in coming years.”
The grants awarded by the Benefit Fund in 2009 were:
$10,000.00 Santa Paula Rotary Club Scholarship Fund College scholarships for High School seniors.
$10,000.00 Boys & Girls Club of the Santa Clara Valley Upgrading computer technology.
$ 3,500.00 St. Sebastian School Support for the student music program.
$ 2,833.00 Briggs 4H Repairs to pens for the goat raising project.
$ 2,275.00 Isbell School Band Support for the student music program.
$ 2,035.00 Santa Paula Fire Department For purchase of a “Sparky” costume to be used in schools for fire protection education.
$10,000.00 Hospice of Santa Clara Valley Assistance towards the purchase of a new handicapped accessible van.
$ 6,832.34 Santa Paula CERT Purchase of fire suppression training equipment
$ 2,000.00 Ventura County Search & Rescue Towards the purchase of a new 4x4 vehicle.
$ 5,000.00 Santa Paula Art Museum Towards conversion of the Limoneira Building to a art museum.
$ 3,000.00 Aviation Museum of Santa Paula Educational tools and equipment.
$ 5,000.00 Santa Paula Rotary Club International Projects Towards supporting Rotary’s projects abroad.
$ 5,000.00 Santa Paula Oil Museum Exhibit repairs and new carpeting.
For additional information, please contact Mitch Stone, chair of the Rotary Club BenefitFund committee at 805-525-2906 or by e-mail at mitchrstone@gmail.com.
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