South Cobb Rotary Christmas

Atlanta Southern Crescent Rotary Christmas

Happy New Year! We are now at the halfway point in the Rotary Year. I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday season and had a chance to spend quality time with friends and family. I know some of you saw the holiday video message on our district web site. I think the holiday season is a great time to recharge and reflect on what you plan to accomplish in the upcoming year. Along those lines, I hope you all are as excited about the second half of the year as you are the first and that we all plan to complete 25-26 strong.

As a district, we are well along the path to achieving some of our 25-26 goals. We are currently at 3818 members in our 67 Rotary clubs, have achieved $287,325 of annual fund giving, $175,047 towards Polio eradication and with endowment and other giving, we have achieved over $706K in charitable giving! I could not be more proud of you all! We still have 6 months left to give, do many more service projects and take action on the club’s strategic plan. Please use your time wisely. At the same time, we are only a few months away from district conference so please be aware of this and register for the April 16-19, 2026 District Conference at Lake Lanier! We have an amazing event planned.

I enjoyed doing several impactful service projects for children in December. I want to tell you two very quick stories. I had 2 incredible “Rotary moments” a few weeks ago as I was doing holiday season service projects with two Rotary clubs.

The first moment came when I was able to go to the South Cobb Rotary Club’s annual holiday luncheon. The club, led by President Pam Kramer, invites in 20 local school children from low income families from a local school. Santa Claus was present so the event was full of holiday cheer, and it was lots of fun to see the children are so excited and happy. The club fed the students, then gave very generous presents and watched the children open up the presents. I sat with an eight-year old and his six-year old sister. The siblings provided me a “Rotary moment” when they said they didn’t think they would get presents this year because their mom just spent their remaining $200 on a table the family needed. I saw how excited the children were when they realized they got all kinds of great gifts due to the club’s generosity!! What an impact the South Cobb club makes every year in the lives of these children. (Well done and thank you for having me be part of it).

I was also a Santa’s helper with the Rotary Club of Atlanta Southern Crescent that does an annual event allowing children to shop with simulated money for the members in their family. It was so heartwarming to see the smiling faces and excitement of 65 low income children who are able to shop, learn some economic basics, have their gifts wrapped by smiling Rotarians and nursing home staff and then enjoy some pizza. The Atlanta Southern Crescent club provided me with a second Rotary moment as I saw the absolute joy on “Junior’s” face as the club president, Mahli Lowder, his big sister, he and I “shopped” for gifts for his family. Thank you so much as well for doing such a great event that truly changes lives.

I spent some time in the last few days doing a personal service project and delivered food to our local fire and police departments and then Anna and I took treats to Piedmont Atlanta Hospital to our (nurse) daughter Claire who was working on Christmas Day.