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Rotary News and Views Hugo's 'Northshore Citizen' Column |
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Rotary News and Views Hugo's 'Northshore Citizen' Column |
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Developments of interest to Woodinville Rotarians and friends |
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Northshore
Rotary Club’s frisky offspring is no longer a teenager.
Woodinville Rotary Club turned 20 earlier this year, and this week is
celebrating its 20th charter night with a gala dinner event at
Chateau Ste. Michelle winery in Woodinville.
It was October of 1986 when Northshore Rotary turned 14 of its
members loose to organize a Rotary club in a community fast developing an
identity of its own. In neighboring Woodinville there was a definite need
for a group of leaders to provide works of community service so necessary
in nurturing civic pride and recognizing human needs. Thirty-three men
signed the charter and officially became a Rotary club on January 30,
1987.
Then Northshore president the Rev. Floyd Cronkite of Bothell and
Rotarian Bill Renn hatched the plan and Bill led the campaign to recruit
other business and professional leaders in Woodinville to join up. An
accountant, Marv Workman, became its first full-year president and is
active today along with five other charter members.
(Rotary welcomed women members that year. Woodinville was the
second club in this district to invite women. Good thing, too, because
three of the five celebration planners are women members today).
Participation in service clubs such as Rotary has been noticeably
declining in recent years, but fortunately not in Woodinville nor in the
other Northshore communities of Bothell and Kenmore. Many seeds of
opportunity and needed services are often planted by service clubs.
Rotary, for instance, is an international organization with more than
30,000 clubs doing similar work.
In celebrating its 20th anniversary, the Woodinville
Rotarians established a new award to recognize firms and organizations
that share Rotary’s motto and mission of “service above self”. The
special Woodinville citation is called the “Seed the Vine Award”.
Among the first five – and perhaps the basis for the naming of
this civic prize – were Molbak’s and Chateau Ste. Michelle, two
well-known attractions that epitomize vibrant commerce anchors in the
community. Last
December, Egon and Laina Molbak and their family celebrated the 50th
anniversary of their opening of a small, wholesale greenhouse on a
gravel-shouldered, narrow two-lane main street in Woodinville, circa 1956.
Molbak’s certainly represents the “seed” in the award, what with the
growth and popularity of this well-known garden center as well as the
international high regard for which its founder and his family are held. Ten
years ago, the club named Egon and Laina the “Citizens of the Year”
for their personal support of so many organizations in Woodinville and the
Puget Sound area. Egon, a charter member and past president of the
Northshore club, continues as a member to this day and is looking forward
to the 50th anniversary of Woodinville’s “mother club” in
2008.
Last fall, the winery celebrated the 30th anniversary of
locating the chateau on the former McBride estate south of downtown
Woodinville. Ste. Michelle (the vine) was the first, premium winery to
locate in Woodinville, leading the way for more than 30 wineries in
Woodinville and nearly 400 in the state. It is the state’s most highly
acclaimed vintner.
The other awards are going to Little Bit Therapeutic Riding Center
and Banner Bank. The non-profit Little Bit receives a $40,000 check from
Woodinville Rotary during the celebration, not only to mark the center’s
30th anniversary, but also to help with a future capital
campaign. Little Bit will undertake a major project to provide facilities
to accommodate a waiting list of 200 disabled children and adults, twice
as many as presently served.
The club raised the $40,000 during its Wine’n Shine annual
charity fund raising event held last October where Little Bit and the
agricultural heritage organization 21 Acres were the primary
beneficiaries. Ongoing support of 21 Acres in the Sammamish Valley will
provide even more vines for the club to entwine in years ahead.
Banner Bank was cited for 18 years of financial support of the
club’s fund-raising efforts. The bank also supports the Northshore
club’s community service projects. With its commitments through 2008,
Banner Bank will have donated $200,000 to Woodinville Rotary’s work to
give back to the community.
To top off the night, the club awarded itself a “Seed the Vine
Award.”
“We may be the only Rotary club in the world to give itself such
an award,” noted club president Gary Whitsell. “But then Woodinville
Rotary is a little bit different in that regard. Our members and the
community recognize and appreciate the fact we have planted plenty of
seeds of good work in the greater Woodinville area.”
The club has raised and distributed nearly $1.5 million for a wide
assortment of projects and programs – from financial contributions and
stewardship for Wilmot Gateway Park and Rotary Community Park, to Little
Bit, Northshore Senior Center, Hopelink and, most of all, to strong
support for youth scholarships.
The two clubs continue to forge strong ties after these 20 years.
Along with the Kiwanis Club of Northshore, the two Rotary clubs “own”
and operate the Northshore Scholarship Foundation – an organization that
has awarded more than a million dollars in scholarships to more than 1,000
local graduates since 1984. Northshore
provides pancakes and Woodinville new warm coats at the annual Santa
breakfast for Northshore school youngsters. Recently, the clubs purchased
brand new dictionaries to put in the hands of nearly 1,500 third graders
in the Northshore district.
What’s ahead for Woodinville Rotary? For starters, the club lists
increased emphasis on literacy programs, work to promote sustainable
agricultural opportunity in the Sammamish Valley, and encouraging global
matching grants with neighboring Rotary clubs to attack water quality and
availability issues along with disease eradication in under-developed
regions of the world.
History most certainly is on the side of the club succeeding.
Back row, from left: Don Fitzpatrick Jr., Jack Grady, Bill Grift, Terry Jarvis, Jim Pedersen, Jerry Wilmot, Bill Renn, Jim Cavanaugh, Sam Furgason, Daryl Eckland, Gene Graff, Dave Hizer, Marv Workman, Jim Harrell, Rick Swanson, Joe Voutour. Front row, from left: John Hughes, John Ive, Don Miller, Joe Rees, Dan Martin, Tom Natale, Arne Omli, Gareth Grube. Charter members not in photo: Don Webber Jr., Steve Case, Merle Hill, Dennis DeYoung, Bob Soley, Reid Nelson, Bob Knuckey, Max Pope, Frank Peep and Thorn Percival.
Back row, from left: Don Fitzpatrick Jr., Bill Grift, Terry Jarvis, Max Pope, Jim Pedersen, Bill Renn, Jim Cavanaugh, Sam Furgason, Daryl Eckland, Marv Workman. Front, from left: John Hughes, John Ive, Dan Martin, Arne Omli, Joe Rees and Gareth Grube.
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