Local Rotarians join international service day

For the 11th consecutive year, local Rotarians participated in their international organization’s Rotarians at Work Day.

Their community service projects on Saturday morning spruced up several locations used to help others.

Rotarians at Work Day is a world-wide service opportunity for Rotary International, with numerous clubs doing projects on the same day. The service project began in San Diego and has since spread throughout the United States and overseas.

Once again, Rancho Bernardo Sunrise Rotary Club focused its efforts on two places it has helped several times before — the Ronald McDonald House at Rady Children’s Hospital and PoVa Therapeutic Riding Center in Poway.

Rotarian Nasrin Barbee said her fellow Sunrise Rotarians completed some painting projects and other needed cleanup in a storage area at the Ronald McDonald House. At the same time, another group of Sunrise Rotarians constructed a 12-foot-by-12-foot shade structure that will benefit the volunteers at PoVa Therapeutic Riding Center.

“In addition to the shade structure, a group of us helped with major weeding and clean up in the ranch, as well as paining four storage sheds,” Barbee said. “We call it Rotarians At Work Day, but for us it is really ‘Rotarians Having Fun Day,’ because we enjoy so much giving back to our community.”

The Rotary Club of Rancho Bernardo decided to focus its members efforts on the Boys & Girls Club in 4S Ranch. The Rotarians, joined by Miss Rancho Bernardo 2016 Anita Clifford and Miss Rancho Bernardo Teen 2016 Taylor Mitchell, cleaned up a storage room at the club. Rotarian Mira Bozanich said the storage room is going to be transformed into a playroom for the children at the 4S Ranch facility.

As for the Rotary Club of Poway-Scripps, its members decided to again focus on the Kumeyaay-Ipai Interpretive Center in Poway. Rotarian Dan Brenner said their plan was to focus on several hours of yard work. This included cleaning up the trails and taking out “aggressive” bushes growing on the site.