Rotaract Kick-Off Week

Come join the Las Vegas Rotaract Club as we kick off the new school year with these great events:

Friday, 9-18: NPHY Feel Good Fridays service event
Time: 5-7 p.m.
Location: Meet at Moyer courtyard behind the Student Union at UNLV.
Every Friday the Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth hosts a community outreach booth at the 7-11 on Reno and Maryland Parkway. This is a neighborhood where there are many children who are either homeless or have a severe risk of becoming homeless. Rotaracters will show their support by volunteering to help pass out special treats to the children as well as goodie bags filled with school supplies.

Saturday, 9-19: Highway cleanup with Las Vegas Rotary
Time: 8 a.m.
Location: Red Rock
Members of the Rotaract club will be doing their part to help take care of our environment by participating in a roadside cleanup with one of their sponsoring clubs, The Las Vegas Rotary Club. Come out and participate in this fun event while making new friends with Rotaracters and Rotarians alike!

Sunday, 9-20: First general meeting of the Rotaract year
Time: 7 p.m.
Location: PBS Station
Bring your friends and come enjoy some pizza with the members of the Las Vegas Rotaract club as we celebrate our first general meeting of the year.

World Rotaract Week 2009 Pt. 1

The ROtaract Club of Las Vegas had a busy and highly successful World Rotaract Week celebration. On Sunday March 8th, the club started with a swipe out at the UNLV Dining Commons to collect food for the Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth. They also had a board meeting in preparation for the end of the Rotary year.

Above: Lauren Holden working at the food donations table.

On Monday, the club donated the food items to the Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth. The club was able to donate several hundred items.

On Wednesday March 11th, some of the Rotaractors were able to have lunch with one of their co-sponsor clubs Las Vegas Central. Four Rotaractors showed up to participate in the lunch meeting.

On Thursday March 12th, President Amanda had lunch at co-sponsor club Las Vegas Rotary club on be-half of the Rotaract Club.

World Rotaract Week 2009 Pt. 2

The second half of the World Rotaract Week was filled with lots of fun. On Friday March 13th, the club took part in an etiquette presentation at Lawry's Prime Rib. The club members learned how to properly eat shrimp cocktail, which fork, knife, and spoon is used to eat certain foods.

The above picture is the Rotaractors that attended the etiquette dinner and Ed Lepere and Wendy Hart, managers at Lawry's Prime Rib.

On Saturday March 14th, the club had their first-ever social at Margaritaville. Despite having to wait for quite a long time to be seated, the club still managed to have a good time

On Sunday March 15th (the last day of World Rotaract Week), the club ended with a general meeting. The guest speaker was Kathleen Dickinson who is a certified handwriting analyst. She analyzed everyone's handwriting and shared interesting personality traits with the audience.

Above: Kathleen Dickinson and President-Elect Ed Haliwell

Additionally, President Amanda and President-Elect Ed Haliwell inducted Nolen and Janeen Nanbu into the Rotaract Club. They were also officially elected onto the 2009-2010 Board of Directors starting on July 1,2009.

Overall, the World Rotaract Week was highly successful. Thanks to everyone that helped make it a lot of fun.

January's General Meeting

( (Pictured Above L to R: Marieta Vasileva, Amanda Hurst, and Lauren Holden)

The meeting in January was a highly productive one for the Rotaract Club of Las Vegas! On Sunday January 25th, the Rotaract Club had several great moments happen. First and foremost, the Rotaract Club of Las Vegas was very happy to induct four new members. Lauren Holden, Valentina Vasileva, Marieta Vasileva, and Erica Kemper are the four newest members in the Rotaract Club! Each member received a membership certificate and a copy of the 4-way Test.

In addition to the many upcoming service events the Rotaract Club has in store, the Rotaract Club was fortunate enough to have their founding President Michael Gordon as a guest speaker. Michael shared some of his experiences as a GSE and Ambassadorial Scholar. He also talked to the club about public speaking. Those in attendance were asked to give a minute and a half impromptu speech on various topics! The club did a GREAT job without having previously practice their speeches. In honor of Michael's speaking engagment, the club presented him with a ceritifcate of appreciation. This mentions that a contribution to polio plus has been made in honor of Michael.

(Pictured Above L to R: Hope presenting the banner to Amanda Hurst)

The Club was also very fortunate to receive a banner from our inbound Cultural Exchange Scholar Hope. She comes from Taiwan and is in America to better her English skills until March. The meeting also brought in a flag presentation from the United States troops! Karen Whisenhunt presented an America flag that was flown in Iraq in honor of the Rotaract Club of Las Vegas during the summer.

Winter Works

Over the course of the winter months, the Rotaract Club has been busy! In November, they donated a check to the Rotary International for Polio research. On November 12, 2008, the club presented a $300 check to the District Governor Gene Hernandez. The money goes towards the funding and research of polio in an effort to completely eradicate the world of polio.
Additionally, the club had their first holiday party, hosted by Maureen Mckinley. Some of the members got together to have some dinner and enjoy one another's company before the winter holidays.


On December 4th, 2008 the group took place in the annual Santa Clothes sponsored by local Rotary clubs. This is a special event that lets kids from at-risk schools go 1-on-1 shopping with volunteers. The kids get a budget of $133. The kids are all so grateful and have a blast getting to shop on Rotary's dime. It is a truly humbling experience for everyone who participates.

The last set of wheelchairs was donated to the Salvation Army and Disabled American Vets on the first Friday of December. This was the second time that the club was able to donate wheelchairs to a local Las Vegas organization.

Tons of Tabs

The Las Vegas Rotaract was at it yet again. Continuing in their ongoing program to collect pop tabs for the Ronald McDonald House, they donated another VERY LARGE batch on Friday October 3rd.
The project originally started in November of 2007 with the hopes of donating once or twice a year. By letting family members know about the program and encouraging them to save as well, the project grew fast. Eventually, after President-Elect Nikki went home to ask her town for pop tabs, she collected over 5,000 pop tabs for the Ronald McDonald House. In their first donation in January 2008, the club donated 5,000 plus tabs to the Ronald McDonald House of Greater Las Vegas.

Since the beginning of school, the Rotaract Club has promoted the pop tab program with family members, friends, on campus, and through their sponsoring Rotary Clubs that they were collecting again. Thanks to a Rotarian who had been collecting for years with her co-workers, the Rotaract Club received over 9,000 pop tabs. The club was able to outdue their first donation by almost double.
The project will continue to go on and will still be considered a traditional program for the Rotaract Club. They will most likely start to make it an annual donation instead of every couple of months.

Sweet Success

The Las Vegas Rotaract has been very busy spreading the word about their club. On Tuesday August 26th and Wednesday August 27th, the Las Vegas Rotaract hosted two informational sessions for students on the UNLV campus. The purpose of the informational sessions was to share some of the many service projects the club has been involved with in the past year and a half and how prospective members can get drawn in. The future plan for Rotaract is to visit the Community College of Southern Nevada as well as Nevada State College with information on the Las Vegas Rotaract in order to get more community members.

In an effort to get more members and people interested in community service, the Rotaract club took place in an involvement fair. This is a two day event where any on-campus and off-campus organization sets up a booth for general information. The Las Vegas Rotaract had many people stop by and ask what they are all about. The Rotaractors were proud to share some of the projects they have been involved with as well as encourage people to receive e-mails for dates and descriptions of upcoming events and meetings.

Not only has the Las Vegas Rotaract been busy with informational sessions and blood drives, but they also hosted a dessert social on Wednesday September 17th titled ‘How Sweet it is to be in Rotaract’. In place of having a general meeting, the members opted to have desserts such as ice cream, brownies, cookies, and cakes and make it an informal meeting/informational session for anybody and everybody. Similarly to the informational sessions, the club had brochures, membership applications, and upcoming community service dates readily available for all who attended. Everybody left with fuller bellies and information on how they can get involved with the club.

Besides being busy with recruitment, the Las Vegas Rotaract has been planning a possible fundraising competition and the logistics of how they are going to give to Polio plus. The hard work that the club has been putting in is paying off rather nicely as they have been receiving worthy recognition in the community and on the UNLV campus. The next few months may be busy for the club but will turn into great payoffs in the end.