Our Club sponsors our local police and fire departments in various ways. Besides offering an open-ended weekly invitation for either police or firefighter to attend weekly Rotary meetings, the club’s main annual project is the sponsorship of the annual holiday awards banquet.
Our Rotary Club liaison works the command staff to coordinate the banquet events for the Police and Fire departments. Both also have volunteer and auxiliary organizations that also support and help coordinate additional fund-raising and logistical support for these annual events.
More specifically, our club liaison works with the respective department liaisons to assist with funding requests, check approval and delivery, event coordination, guest list coordination and any other assistance needed. The Rotary Club normally sends 6-8 total Rotarians (3-4 Rotarians and respective spouses) including the club president and director of community service. The liaison ensures the appropriate logistical coordination is setup and any awards are properly coordinated. Both the fire and police departments use these events to award various achievements including the Rotary Fire or Police Officer of the Year. The Rotary president delivers a speech and presents the award and is photographed with the awards recipient. Several months after the awarding of the officers of the year, the club invites the fire department and police department recipients and their chiefs in to be recognized by the club at large.
This event is always well-attended by city staff and dignitaries and is normally very well received by all the officers.