Vocational Service

Literacy

Rotary Readers is our Literacy program for children from Kindergarten through the 3rd Grade. With a roster of 40- 50 volunteers, we work in concert with the Bainbridge Island School District, deploying 24 volunteers each week to four schools, providing over 44 hours in one day of mentorship, impacting somewhere between 88 to 105 students. Over the course of the 13 week program we will provide 572 hours of volunteer mentor service to students.

Volunteers in the program include Rotarians, city personnel from both the Police and Fire Departments, and some of their staff, the City Manager and other city staff members, retired educators as well as many other retirees and at-home parents. Following School District guidelines and goals, classroom teachers work with the mentor, identifying those students who need the most help.

With the 40+ community reading volunteers running smoothly in the schools, this year, the Literacy Committee has expanded its reach beyond the elementary classroom.

Helpline House: Beginning in the fall of 2024, we began stocking Helpline House with early elementary age-appropriate new books for clients to take home. These are intended to help the Helpline House community build their own family libraries with picture books, early readers, and bilingual books in Spanish and English. Two committee volunteers regularly monitor and restock these baskets noting the bilingual books are especially popular.

Additionally, we are working in conjunction with an Eagle Scout to build a kid-friendly Little Free Library on or near the Helpline House grounds. We anticipate this will be a self-sustaining fixture for donated children’s books for the Bainbridge Island community.

Dictionary Project: One member of our committee had a successful experience with the Dictionary Project in Hawaii. This non-profit is dedicated to getting third grade students their own dictionaries to help enhance their literacy skills, thus becoming good writers, active readers, creative thinkers and resourceful learners. The District director of Teaching and Learning found third grade teachers thrilled to participate and dictionaries were purchased and distributed in December and January.

Career Exploration

Since 2015, the Career Exploration Committee (CEC) has been dedicated to providing career exploration opportunities to middle and high school students.

Some of our programs include:

• Careers and Conversations: an opportunity for students to gain information from various professionals. The program consists of two parts: small group discussions between Rotarians and students interested in their fields, and a series of panels with Rotarians in related professions, such as medicine and technology.
• CTE Winter Student Internships: under the program, one or more Bainbridge and Eagle Harbor High School students will spend 2.5 hours per week for 6 weeks at a participating Island employer to learn about what they do, how, and for whom. The students will meet with different employees who represent the separate, distinct careers embedded in the enterprise. The final week includes a debrief that focuses on lessons learned from the students participating in the program.
• One of the best, most popular BISD CTE programs are field trips during which students visit a company, agency, or organization for several hours to learn what they do and how, and the careers embedded in their operations. The CTE staff handles this program, but has asked the Career Exploration Committee to provide financial assistance in covering the transportation costs associated with each trip. For the coming school year, the CEC also has agreed to support Job Shadow Days and the Beyond BHS and Explore Days.

Murdock Scholarship: In 2024 the CEC established the Murdock Construction & Engineering Scholarship, named after visionary club member Roy Murdock, who was instrumental in propelling the Career Exploration Committee’s work forward. Murdock’s dream was to interlock the high school program with trade school, two-year college, and four-year college/university level programs as well as apprentice or internship opportunities. In May 2024 and with the help of the club’s Scholarship Foundation, the CEC awarded its first two scholarships, and looks forward to doing so again in May 2025.

Partners For Work

Description coming soon.

Environmental Committee

Description coming soon.