I can hardly believe that this is my second to last Pinion article!

Hats off, congratulations and thank you to PE Angus for a great event! The highlight of last month was our 21st Annual Elimination Raffle and Dinner, which is our only club fundraiser for the year. This was a year of change, a new venue, the Doubletree Hilton Hotel in Newark hosted our event. 402 individuals entered into a beautiful room decorated in an African animal motif that played on our Fund a Need project presented by our own Dr. Richard Godfrey making a request for help to send a container of medical supplies from MedShare to Kenya to be used in the Matibabu Hospital. The hope of raising $10,000 was quickly realized as paddle after paddle was raised by the many caring individuals in the room. Within a matter of minutes over $25,000 was raised! It was a heartwarming moment seeing the love and support in the room. We are waiting to hear the final numbers for the raffle baskets, silent auction and live auction.

We inducted 3 new members, Jeff Schinkel and Sam Forbes sponsored by Sherry Higgs, and Maria Mendoza sponsored by me! Maria was quick to follow the tradition started by Geeta Kadambi and Kimberly MacFarlane. Maria gave her Ice Breaker minutes after being inducted into the club.

Congratulations to new blue badge members Aggie Freeman, Geeta Kadambi, Wendy Mills and Josh Carlson! All of these new members are already contributing much to our club in many ways – we are so fortunate to recruit and retain such excellent members, thanks to the efforts of all of you.

A big thank you to Community Service director Terri Landon for the wonderful Astronomy Night at Blacow Elementary school. Several Niles Rotarians assisted the Robertson High School Interactors and Greater Fremont Rotaract club to teach close to 80 elementary students how to build marshmallow constellations, make astronaut pudding, along with several other fun projects. It was such a great event, Principal Jose Hernandez asked if we would come back and do it again in the fall!

An additional community service project on April 30 was the planting of trees in Niles Community Park in honor of Arbor Day; Community Service director Terri Landon had a team of several Niles Rotarians working with the Boy Scouts to get the trees planted.

Our Area 3 Day in the Park was busy, with booths and volunteers from the Area 3 Rotary clubs, Areas 4 and 5 Interact clubs, and the Rotaract Club of Greater Fremont to help children with fishing in Lake Elizabeth and to promote Rotary in the Tri-City area. Thank you to all who helped with the event.

I am pleased to announce that the Niles Rotary website won the District competition as the best website in the District for medium sized clubs! The District competition for best newsletters, Facebook pages, and websites was chaired by Sandi Pantages – thank you Sandi for taking on that task for the District.

I have just returned from the annual District Conference at the San Ramon Marriott. Past President Kimberly Hartz Foster and Area Governor Daren Young have been working hard to put together a great conference for our District 5170. I told Governor Susan Valenta that Niles club would have 50 individuals registered for the conference, and I am proud to say that we have 51 people registered! As always, Niles Rotary has kicked it up a notch!!! The conference was awesome, and I came away touched and inspired by the many ways Rotary serves humanity. There were many Niles Rotarians helping make the District Conference the best I have ever attended – their names are included in the article on the conference included in this Pinion.

Until next month …

President Lisa