Service Projects
Annual Golf Tournament
The Bangor Area Breakfast Rotary sponsors an Annual Golf Tournament to raise money for a local charity. The 2009 Tournament was again held at Bangor Municipal Golf Course on Saturday, June 13. The 2009 Tournament again supported Bangor Breakfast Rotary Charities, as we did in 2008, with a focus on projects that serve at-risk youth. The 2008 and 2007 Tournaments were also played at Bangor Municipal Golf Course. The charity for 2006 and 2007 was Good Samaritan Agency. The agency operates a program that helps un-wed teen-age mothers complete their high school education while providing on-site daycare for their babies.
The Tournament provided funding in 2004 and 2005 to Bangor Area Visiting Nurse Service's Pathfinders, which provides support to grieving children. Operation Jumpstart at the Bangor YMCA was the charity for 2002 and 2003. This program identifies at-risk youth and works to prevent them from further involvement with the judicial system.
All That Jazz
The Bangor Area Breakfast Rotary Club was pleased to present All That Jazz again on March 18, 2010 at Peakes Auditorium, Bangor High School. $6,200 was raised this year for the Good Shepherd Food Bank in addition to contributing funds to the Bangor High School Concert Band, Old Town High School Concert Band, Bangor High School Vocal Jazz Ensemble, and Brewer High School Jazz Ensemble. The All Saints Catholic School Jazz Band performed prior to the program. In all, this year's event continued to build on past years in terms of musical performance and fundraising. In addition, Good Shepherd collected enough food outside the entrance to feed 165 people.
In 2009, the Disaster Services of Pine Tree Chapter of the American Red Cross was the year's beneficiary, in addition to the participating schools. Nearly $4,600 was raised for the Red Cross, in addition to $6,000 that was raised for the schools involved. This year Old Town High School, Hampden Academy, Bangor Christian, and Brewer High School sent bands that wowed the audience. (You can see some photos from the evening by clicking on "Photo Album" in the left column and choosing All That Jazz - 2009.) For additional information, please go to the All That Jazz website at: http://bangorjazz.com/.
In 2008, All That Jazz presented bands from Bangor High School, Old Town High School, and Hampden Academy. More than $16,000 was raised for the bands and and various Breakfast Rotary Charities.
In 2007, All That Jazz featured the George Stevens Academy Synergy Jazz Combo, Old Town High School Concert Band, and Bangor High School Band. A $1,000 award was made to each band, with an additional $2,000 going to the band voted best by the audience (Old Town HS). In addition, proceeds from the ticket sales were allocated to For Kids' Sake, an educational resource for divorcing families.
In 2006, the Breakfast Rotary launched All That Jazz, a program designed to give area high school music programs an opportunity to perform before a live audience before they entered the competition season. In 2006, students from Banogr High School, Hampden Academy, and Hermon High School participated in the program. Through ticket sales and program advertisements we donated $1,000 to each of the participating high school music programs. We also donated $3,500 toward summer camp for children at Camp Capella of United Cerbral Palsy.
Annual Bangor Area Breakfast Rotary Veterans Day Pancake Breakfast
Wednesday, November 11, 2009 marked our second pancake breakfast fundraiser, again held at Brewer Auditorium. $5,000 was spent on hats, coats, gloves, mittens, and other warm winter clothes as a result of this year's effort.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008 marked our first pancake breakfast. All proceeds from the event went to our Keep Kids Warm project which allotted $10,000 toward winter clothing for children in Kindergarten through 3rd Grade in Bangor and Brewer. A total of $8,000 in vouchers were redeemed at Wal-Mart in Brewer and Emerson's in Brewer. The program was done in partnership with the Cole Land Transportation Museum, which generously provided a free breakfast to all veterans with walking sticks.
Paul Bunyan Pond Hockey Tournament
Despite some extreme challenges from the weather, the First Annual Paul Bunyan Pond Hockey Tournament took place on February 6, 2010 at Phillips Lake at Camp CaPella. The event raised $3,600 for Camp CaPella's program. Further information about the event can be obtained at http://www.pbpondhockey.com/
Centennial Project
Breakfast Rotary, along with the Noontime Rotary, undertook a Centennial Project to honor Rotary Internation?al's 100th Anniversary in 2005. Rotarians were asked to consider loaning interesting family artifacts and photos that might be valuable to the Rotary Centennial Gallery at the Bangor Museum and Center for History. The exhibit focused on the last 100 years of Bangor's history.
Regular Projects
The Bangor Area Breakfast Rotary Club is involved in many actvities in the community. Some of our other projects:
Since 2002, the Club has had an Annual Christmas Auction to raise funds for local chairities. More than $13,500 was raised at the 2008 auction.
We co-sponsor (along with the Bangor Y) Interact Leaders Club, a club for high school age students from the area to learn leadership skills and provide service to the community, both local and international.
Rotary Readers is a program in which members of the Club go to a local school and read books to the students. This exposes the students to people from all walks of life and becomes more than just a reading experience.
For the past several years at Christmas time, our members have taken a turn at Ringing the Bell for the Salvation Army.
Annually we provide food baskets at the holidays for needy families in the community.
Since the Club's inception, we have provided a spaghetti supper at Camp Rainbow for the American Cancer Society.
We volunteered our services with the 64th, 65th, and 66th National Folk Festival in Bangor in August 2002, 2003, and 2004. Our members have continued our involvement with the American Folk Festival on the Bangor Waterfront in every year since 2005. In 2009 the Folk Festival took over operation of the Beer Tent in order to increase revenue to the Festival. The Festival decided to ask local service organizations to staff the tent and paid a basic wage per member per hour to the service organization. Our club operated a tent Friday evening. Fifty percent of the funds that we raised from that evening we donated back to the Festival, with the other 50% going to Rotary International's Polio Plus campaign.
Operation: Run, Run, Rudolph was a project of the Rotary Clubs in the State of Maine to collect new stuffed animals and lightweight baby blankets and quilts for distribution to children in Biloxi, Mississippi who were victims of Hurricane Katrina. Our club collected stuffed animals in early December, 2005, in time for Christmas.
In fiscal year 2007, the Bangor Area Breakfast Rotary Club raised nearly $38,000 for a variety of local charities. In fiscal year 2006, the club raised more than $39,000 for a variety of community agencies, groups, and programs. Some of those programs were the Challenger Learning Center, the Abnaki Girl Scout Council, For Kids' Sake, the Warren Center, the Maine Discovery Museum, the Penobscot Children's Garden, and Shaw House.
Bob Kreitzer
