Superstition Mountain Rotary is participating in this year's 'Teddy Bear' drive which focuses on collecting donations of new teddy-bears/animals for 'Trolls Teddy Bear Run'.
Donations must be new/never used and can be made between now and end of November at our weekly Wednesday Rotary meetings.
If you're not a Rotarian, but still want to help provide some new stuffed teddy bears/animals? ----- Not a problem- the club's Service Projects Chair will be happy to collect your new bears/stuffed animals and deliver your donation. You can contact Jeff at jmitchellrecr@gmail.com.
'Trolls Teddy Bear Run' organization is a 501(c)3 focused on providing stuffed animals/teddy bears for police / first-responders / family advocacy centers, to have on hand to be able to give a 'fuzzy friend' to children encountered during traumatic situations. Often times, young children involved in these situations can be quite upset and traumatized. Being able to receive a 'fluffy/fuzzy teddy bear /animal friend' from the first responder can help to ease the tension / trauma the young child is experiencing.
2022 will be the 7th year for 'Trolls Teddy Bear Run', which occurs on the 1st Saturday in December each year.
Motorcycle riders participate in the event, riding through a course with various stops throughout the East Valley, where raffles, prizes, food and more await them - making it a fun day for all the riders.
This year Superstition Mountain Rotary, along with other area service organizations and community residents, will work through the end of November collecting donations of new stuffed teddy bears/animals. Help our first responders ease the tension and trauma of young children they encounter with your donations of new stuffed teddy bears/animals.
The Club will be participating in the 'Apache Junction Homeless Coalition Cleanup with Police', along with other community groups, and volunteers.
Date - Thursday September 8, 2022 Time - 6:30 am Meeting location - 310 N Plaza Drive - (Desert lot off of Plaza across from Hackers)
The 'Apache Junction Homeless Coalition Cleanup with Police' brings together volunteers from the city, faith community, clubs and organizations, non-profits, businesses and individual volunteers who all share a common mission to help with cleanup to help benefit our homeless population, and local community. Project is being led / coordinated by Sergeant Brian Pennington of the Apache Junction Police Department.
Volunteer projects will include a variety of clean up activities.
Come out and volunteer - help our local homeless population and the community
The Power of Social Media
We encourage Club members to visit our Club FaceBook page - https://www.facebook.com/SuperRotary/. We realize not all Club members have social media accounts, and some may not be comfortable adding social media to their life. If that describes you, we respect that. However, several Club members do have social media FaceBook accounts. If you do, you can help our Club become more visible outside of our Club, and into the community. Here are a few tips to help promote the Club through FaceBook:
Social Media DOs and DON'Ts
- DO click emojis on a Club post -- (little icons under the post that when clicked reflect a person 'likes' or 'loves' a post - this also helps boost FB algorithms and helps 'push' the post to yet a broader audience)
- DO click 'Share' on a Club post -- (to the right side under the post) - (doing this 'shares' a Club post onto your own personal Facebook page - where any 'likes' or 'shares' will be added to Club page statistics count)
- DO feel free to make a comment on the Club FB post / on Club page
- DON'T create a new post on your own FB page - ('share' the original post instead) 'Sharing' posts is accepted social media protocol. Separate new posts diminishes statistical count for the Club.
** As an example of how 'sharing' and 'liking' Club posts can help boost Club visibility:
Typically, posts routinely 'reach' only about 100 /or fewer people - ('reach' = the number of FB accounts that may 'possibly' see a post on their personal FB feed.) A recent Club post significantly surpassed the norm - ----- these increased numbers help broaden the visibility of the Club.
1,324 - people reached 7 - likes'/loves 16 - shares 11.1 times higher than typical distribution
In today's era of diminished printed newspapers, social media is one of the ways the Club can broaden its visibility in the community. Let's be sure to work with accepted social media protocols by 'sharing' and 'liking' and making our efforts as effective as possible.
We were excited to have Larry Horton - District 5495 Governor (2022-2023) as our speaker. Larry presented Club president Aaron McDermid with the Rotary banner for 2022-23 and spoke about plans/goals he is hoping the District will accomplish during this year. He also shared information about other clubs in the District. He made a number of acknowledgements to our Club and members during his presentation.
Larry was also pleased to get to help us induct our newest member, Brandon Anthony!
August 24
Our speaker was Abby Lyon - Lost Dutchman District Executive with 'Grand Canyon Council Boy Scouts of America'. Abby's presentation included updates about projects / activities the Boy Scouts are currently involved with, along with information about fundraising, and other information about their organization.
Scouting programs offer young people many wholesome opportunities. Their mission is to help prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Law.
Myra Garcia - Program Director - 'AARP Experience Corps Pinal - Casa Grande' spoke about the program, which is an inter-generational volunteer-based tutoring program that has proven to assist children who aren’t reading at grade level to improve and become great readers by the end of third grade.
The program's volunteers are adults, aged 50 and older. These adult volunteers are helping to disrupt the cycle of poverty by making a lasting difference in the lives of America’s most vulnerable children by helping to give them to the skills to be able to read with confidence.
Dan Fisher, Senior Vice President of HUB International, was inducted into the club by a group of members . Welcome to the club, Dan!
August 10
Our speaker was Brian Koehn, (Co-Founder, CEO & Co-chair of the Board) from 'Social Profit Corrections: Putting People First'- (SPC). Brian shared how his passion for corrections reform and social justice prompted him to end his 28-year career in corrections and start SPC. Through his tenure as warden at five separate facilities, Brian experienced firsthand the gaps and opportunities within the criminal justice system. His personal mission is to reform corrections.
Social Profit Corrections (SPC) is focused on methodologies to help reduce rates of prison incarceration and recidivism through drug/alcohol rehabilitation, onsite job training and education programs, accessible mental health/self-care treatment, mentorships, employee training, medical care, real world re-entry assistance with the single goal of creating a sustainable correctional model that truly reduces the rates of incarceration and recidivism.
Garett McDermid, from Fair Oaks, CA, joined, via Zoom, sharing information about 'Family FreeRide' - a 501(c)3 / non-profit he began in 2019.
From an early beginning with just friends focusing on getting their kids outside and onto bikes more often, the effort quickly evolved to weekly bike rides. It was quickly recognized a 'practice field' was needed where kids would be contained and safe. The area also needed to be fun enough to keep kids interested.
Early on it was obvious neither existing riding/dirt trails, nor sidewalks, work well. Some close calls with fast moving cyclists on paved bike trails made this quickly apparent -- plus, kids/bikes on dirt trails are difficult to to keep track of - with some kids riding faster and some slower.
'Family FreeRide' began working with their local park district to improve an existing park area, and in July 2020, the bike park reopened. Since that time the park has been an amazing success with their community, attracting people from all over the Sacramento region.
'Family FreeRide' has expanded to help more communities build fun safe places for kids to ride, teaching kids how to ride, and offering youth mountain bike sports program.
.png)
Superstition Mountain Rotary is participating in this year's 'Teddy Bear' drive which focuses on collecting donations of new teddy-bears/animals for 'Trolls Teddy Bear Run'. 
ction Homeless Coalition Cleanup with Police', along with other community groups, and volunteers.
We encourage Club members to visit our Club FaceBook page - 
e
were excited to have Larry Horton - District 5495 Governor (2022-2023) as our speaker. Larry presented Club president Aaron McDermid with the Rotary banner for 2022-23 and spoke about plans/goals he is hoping the District will accomplish during this year. He also shared information about other clubs in the District. He made a number of acknowledgements to our Club and members during his presentation.
r speaker was Abby Lyon - Lost Dutchman District Executive with 'Grand Canyon Council Boy Scouts of America'. Abby's presentation included updates about projects / activities the Boy Scouts are currently involved with, along with information about fundraising, and other information about their organization. 
Myra Garcia - Program Director - 'AARP Experience Corps Pinal - Casa Grande' spoke about the program, which is an inter-generational volunteer-based tutoring program that has proven to assist children who aren’t reading at grade level to improve and become great readers by the end of third grade. 
n Fisher, Senior Vice President of HUB International, was inducted into the club by a group of members . Welcome to the club, Dan!
ur speaker was Brian Koehn, (Co-Founder, CEO & Co-chair of the Board) from 'Social Profit Corrections: Putting People First'- (SPC). Brian shared how his passion for corrections reform and social justice prompted him to end his 28-year career in corrections and start SPC. Through his tenure as warden at five separate facilities, Brian experienced firsthand the gaps and opportunities within the criminal justice system. His personal mission is to reform corrections.
Garett McDermid, from Fair Oaks, CA, joined, via Zoom, sharing information about 'Family FreeRide' - a 501(c)3 / non-profit he began in 2019.