Happy New Year!

Welcome to the new Rotary year! Garth Friesen and his team did an amazing job! Here’s a look back at 2019-2020:

The club’s Service Co-Chairs, Elizabeth Edwards and Ally Halperin, helped our club complete some of our favorite service projects including LifeNet4Familes, Sallah Foundation Children’s Hospital, Pack a Sack, Rise Against Hunger, The Giving Tree, and The Dictionary Project. We had a record year with Bikes for Humanity and worked with even more clubs thanks to the strategy implemented by Jeff Kostick. And our newest project, Pitch Night, allowed us to learn about and partner with new organizations. The winner was Liberty Elementary School Literacy Night, and although we weren’t able to complete the project due to COVID-19, we look forward to completing it soon.

When Hurricane Dorian ravaged Grand Bahama Island devastating the island and 5 of our Rotary clubs in District 6990, the Rotary Club of Fort Lauderdale Cypress Creek stepped up and helped collect essential supplies and contributed to the district’s efforts as well to send items to the hardest-hit areas.

As we were all quarantined with COVID-19 our meetings moved online and continued to be held via Zoom. We had record attendance, many guests, and even inducted a new member all online. Our club also went into action to deliver pizzas to healthcare workers at Broward Health and PPE to LifeNet4Families.

We had some unforgettable guest speakers. One of the club favorites was Pam Wall who told the story of how she and her family sailed around the world, and plenty of soccer presentations, thanks to the enthusiasm of our speaker chair, Randy Friedlander.

The online raffle fundraiser was also a huge success raising over $20,000, led by Fundraising Chair, Steve Breitbart and his team. This money will help our club to continue to do service projects and help make a difference in our community and throughout the world.

2019-2020 was certainly an unprecedented year for our planet, but we are looking forward to a successful year led by Club President, Mike Ritter. The Rotary International theme is “Rotary Opens Opportunities” and I think that as Rotarians we see the opportunity in every challenge.