On May 7, our district grants committee held a Shark Tank Event. Clubs that have not had a grant in the past 3 years were invited to submit grant proposals to the “Sharks” in hopes of receiving funding for their proposal. Don Martin participated as a Shark for our club, which provided an amount of $200 to the event. The grant applications were circulated ahead of the event and reviewed by the Sharks. At the Zoom event, each club presented their proposal and answered questions from the Sharks. The Sharks then gathered in a ‘break-out room’ and discussed the proposals.
The big winner with $2,950 was the Greater Rochester Club who plans to work with a club in Uganda, Africa, to build 13 learning centers across 6 sites within 3 refugee camps for educating 330 primary school students. All of the funds from our club were committed to this project. All this sounds astounding, but even more astounding is the total budget for the project is just over $16,000. There is a lot of parents in a refugee camp willing to contribute their labor so that their children can have an education and a lot of dirt to be converted into mud bricks to construct the buildings!
Next was Barron County Sunrise with $2,250 to assemble and distribute “Joy Jars” for children undergoing cancer treatments. The budget for their project is $16,000.
The final entry was Waseca Rotary Club with $1,750 to develop a Rotary Wellness Walk/park on a ½ acre plot that is part of the FarmAmerica MN Agricultural Interpretive Center near Waseca. The budget for their project is $35,000.
Below is a chart that shows the Shark Clubs and the funds they provided; the participating clubs and how the money was distributed.
The district grant team did a great job of organizing and executing the event. The event even had ‘celebrity appeal’ with Ed Boeve, the current District Governor and our own Glenn Bowers, the incoming District Governor, in attendance. Frank Mabley from our club also participated as an observer. I learned that if we are going to participate in the future, we should have the ability to commit at least $1,000 to the participating clubs. As you can see from the table above, other clubs provided $750, $1,000, $2,000 and $3,000 each, compared to our $200.
I think the event was successful in reaching the goal of encouraging clubs that have not applied for a grant in the past 3 years to “jump in” and give it a try. In addition, when a bunch of Rotarians get together, there is helpful information shared, and a good time is had by all.