Home Page | Rotary Club of Gainesville Sunrise

Welcome! We are glad that you have stopped by! Sunrise Rotary is an active club of about 65 members who take pride in their community. Through our service projects and fellowship, we are committed to making a difference.

While you are visiting with us, look around the rest of the website and discover how we come together to create positive, lasting change, here and around the world. If you think you would like to find out more, be sure to visit our club's very active Facebook page. Perhaps you may wish to visit with us at our weekly breakfast meetings. We look forward to meeting with you!

Progress! Construction is getting back underway

There's a lot going on in this photo that speaks to qualities like perseverance, dedication, efficiency, and civic-mindedness!

Playground foreman Cleve Cooper and Rick Medina (an all-volunteer outfit, by the way) have been plugging away with the good folks at Kanapaha Botanical Gardens to ensure that our investment in a children's playground for the gardens gets done properly and safely. There's been a lot of little breakthroughs along the way, and this week marked a few more.

While Cleve managed to wrest away the assembly instructions from the manufacturers' middleman, Rick has been working on site prep. They met up on Monday in about 90-degree weather to begin assembly, which entailed deciphering and joining components of the play structure's foundation. That's what is pictured here, and it will be leveled and set in concrete at the site this week. Additional components kind of resemble a giant pile of Legos right now, but Cleve and Rick will get it figured out.

Eventually, the rest of us can join in to spread a soft bedding of wood chips and landscape the berm around the structure. Thanks to everyone who is helping make this most worthwhile construction project possible.

16th annual Mama Mia's is in the Books!

A big thank you to all the Sunrise Rotarians who pitched in and helped pull off another successful Mama Mia's. Our Mama Mia's chair, Rick Medina, deserves a long, sustained round of applause for going above and beyond to keep us all moving in the same general direction . . . the finish line! We are there, so here are a few items to mention as we cool down from the half marathon we all just ran:

We're trying to wrap up the financials asap. If you have any uncollected sponsorships or ticket sales, try to bring those monies to our meeting this week. Bobbie Robinson and John Verkler have sent our reminder emails as well.
We've uploaded some photos of the event to our Facebook page, which you are encouraged to view and share out with your friends. We have even more at in our online photo album at this link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gainesvillesunriserotary/
Be thinking about next year's program. Would you like to step up and help get it organized for us?

We helped fill the fire truck with school supplies

Fire station No. 1 dedication August 11, 2018

Thanks to your generosity, we were able to collect $420 at our last meeting, which Richard Williams used to purchase school supplies for children in the Porters neighborhood. The drive was organized by Brothers in Action and City Commissioner Gigi Simmons. Commissioner Simmons was ecstatic at the gift of over 140 items from Walmart and 114 items from Office Depot. These included tablets, backpacks, calculators, pencils pens, staplers and notebooks – tons of stuff for the start of the academic year.

The school supplies drive was part of the dedication ceremony on Saturday morning of the new Gainesville Fire Rescue Station No. 1, the Big House! Check out a lot more photos of the event on our Facebook page. In the photo above, Deputy Fire Chief Joanne Rice and Commissioner Simmons accept the donations from President Dorothy and Richard.

New officers for 2018-19 Rotary Year take office

Posted by Mike Spranger

Thanks to all who attended last week's transition dinner at Kanapaha Gardens. We had a lively crowd of 70+ enjoying fellowship and networking as we transitioned into the new Rotary Leadership Team that will be led by President Dorothy. I attach a picture of the new board (those who were present) with District Governor Jeanette Loftus and picture of cake that commemorated our "Making a Difference" campaign this year. I appeciate all the support you provided to me over the past year. It was another banner year for Rotary Club of Gainesville Sunrise, and I know it will continue under President Dorothy's reign. Thanks!

View the pix from the transition dinner

We had a number of folks taking pictures of the transition dinner last week at Kanapaha Botanical Garden. If you'd like to see some of them, visit the online album on our Flickr site at this link: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmhrhP5d. If you took some pictures and would like to share them with us, please contact Dorothy and we'll get them uploaded somehow. Thanks!

Have you watched our new video on eradicating rabies?

If you get a chance, we recently put together a short video explaining the impactful work that we are doing to eradicate rabies. Our speaker a couple weeks back inspired the video's creation. If you like it, SHARE it with your Facebook friends and help spread the word about all the good things that Sunrise Rotary is doing. Watch the video at this link.

Congratulations to the 4 recipients of our firefighters awards

The annual Lois and Jim Hensel Firefighter Appreciation Picnic was a big success on Saturday! We recognized four first responders from area firefighting agencies, and enjoyed the arrival of the "Bull's March" walkers as they're making their way to Tallahassee. Many thanks to David's Bar BQ for providing the delicious eats; to the Oaks Mall for providing gift certificates to the winners; to Sandy Hensel Austin, who presented the awards on behalf of the family of Lois and Jim Hensel; and to Rick Medina for organizing it all!

From the Windsor Volunteer Fire Department, the Firefighter of the Year Award is given to Mark Bunoy. On hand to present Mark with the award are Sandy (Hensel) Austin, Chief Jim Arnette and Sunrise Rotary president Mike Spranger. Mark has completed Florida State Fire-1 and enrolled in the emergency medical technician program at Florida Gateway College. He also stood out during Hurricane Irma when the local community was declared a statewide disaster. Even on his days off, he volunteered time distributing food, water and assisting in tree removal, sandbagging houses, and cutting trees to assist in making the area livable.

Fire Chief W.E. Jones of the Cross Creek Volunteer Fire Department was recognized as that unit's Firefighter of the Year. For more than 20 years, "Bill" has served this small community and earned a special place in the community members hearts.

Senior Forest Ranger Michael Cruce was recognized as Firefighter of the Year from the Florida Forest Service. He has 17 years with the Service, and takes a lead role on wildfires in and around Alachua County. He has trained many new forest rangers in all aspects of wildland fire from tactics to fire behavior. When Mike is not fighting wildfires, he is working with landowners to perform wildfire hazard mitigation and prescribed fire work around Alachua County properties to make them safer from wildfires.

Lt. Chad Winningham of Station 23, A-Shift from the Alachua County Fire Rescue was awarded Firefighter of the Year for exemplifying outstanding leadership and service to our community.