The Club
What We Do
Ringing bells for the Salvation Army at Christmastime.
Providing Christmas baskets for families in need.
Raising funds for the annual Tag Day for the Committee for the Handicapped.
Collecting winter wear during One Way Coat Day drives.
Or leveraging matching grants from Rotary Charities to make annual contributions to various Bay area organizations.
Since its founding in 1920, the Traverse City Rotary Club’s focus has been on giving.
With 273 members and 50 working committees, there are plenty of opportunities for service above self. Referenced below are some of the ways club members leverage philanthropy in the region.
Traverse City Rotary Club of Traverse City, Grand Traverse County
TYPE OF GRANT
Matching Grants, Challenge Grants and Individual Match Grants
AWARDED
Each year Rotary Charities offers $3,000 matching grants to Rotary Clubs in the five-county area to leverage specific club projects. Case in point is the Suttons Bay Rotary Club’s county school tuition for the Inland Seas School Ship program. In addition, annual individual match grants up to $250 are provided for every club member in the five-county Bay region to be given to the nonprofit(s) of their choice. The Traverse City Rotary Club also sponsors three income generating events yearly: the spring Rotary Show established in 1942; fall Gourmet Game Dinner; and Tag Day held every June. Funds from these events are then returned to the community in the form of grants to leverage any number of initiatives.
SUMMARY
Marking its 70th year in April of 2012, the annual Rotary Show has raised well over $1 million ($450,446, 2004-2011). This fund is turned over to the club’s Good Works Committee for some $50,000 in yearly grants to community organizations primarily in Grand Traverse County. Started in 2005, Rotary’s fall Gourmet Game Dinner has raised over $85,000 for Boardman River Watershed projects like river bank stabilization, ground cover plantings and other projects coordinated by the Grand Traverse Conservation District’s Boardman River Keeper program. Tag Day, which has become an annual rite of summer, raises over $8,000 annually to fund a host of requests for the community’s disabled and disadvantaged.
COMMUNITY NEED
Whether stabilizing a stream bank at Kids’ Creek or providing funds to build a wheelchair ramp, the three Traverse City Rotary Club fund raisers return all monies generated yearly to the community.
