Lisa Hopper, Executive Director of Arizona Heroes Memorial, spoke to the club on 18 April 2024 about her organization's efforts and progress in completing a memorial to active military, veterans, first responders, and healthcare workers at the Naranja Park in Oro Valley. 
Besides being a memorial, the site and the organization strives to, in the words of their Mission, "Inspire others to embrace a life of service while paying tribute to our heroes who showed us just how to live such a life". According to their Vision, "The Arizona Heroes Memorial is designed to be a hallowed place honoring those outstanding individuals, past and present, who dedicated their lives to ensure our American values. The Memorial will be open to the public, allowing for a dedicated space in which to remember and learn about our heroes. Such a physical space is unique to Arizona.". The memorial site will also include a 3,000-seat amphitheater to provide educational opportunities, on-site tours and presentations given by community leaders, grade-specific learning opportunities, as well as community activities showcasing the rich history of our past and present heroes. With Lisa was Dick Eggerdings, Founder, President & Chair of Arizona Heroes Memorial, and longtime resident and founder and strong advocate of several community art and historical organizations, who spoke to our club several years ago about the Memorial project.
-Story by Leo Lawrenson, Photos by Jane Shurtleff
To view the Arizona Heroes Memorial's presentation. click HERE, and to visit their website, click HERE.Photo: President-Elect Leo asks Lisa to endorse a book for Impact of So AZ and presents the speaking honorarium check to her
Westward Look will provide a larger, much more pleasant and attractive venue for our meetings and likely other events in hopefully a better location for attracting new members and will feature a buffet style breakfast with eggs, sausage or bacon, fresh fruit, coffee and water for our weekly meetings at $10/person. The new meal charges, like the old meeting room charges, will be billed to each club member's semiannual dues for the period, whether attending meetings or not. The club will pay for guest speakers, but members will be responsible for paying for their own guests. Visiting Rotarians (including our Honorary '"snowbird" members) will also be asked to pay when attending club meetings. 
We travelled on Friday via a very comfortable Tufesa bus service motorcoach arriving about 4 hours from Tucson, checked into our clean but small hotel and then had a wonderful dinner at the home of Terri Ruiz Mendoza, Past President of the 
We learned that the Microcredit Project, although initially funded by three Rotary Global Grants in 2014, 2015, and 2016 totaling about $277,000 as an international project between the (then) three Arizona Rotary Districts and the 
While we are all disappointed that the event had to be postponed, it was the correct decision- just look at the photo of another less fortunate local inflatable blowing away in the wind on Saturday! 
They sort the donations, refurbish what they can, and recycle what they can't use - helping to keep all of these devices out of our local landfills. Several members brought their surplus tech (after erasing any sensitive data!) to the meeting to donate. 
After the presentation President Linda presented MeMe with a check for $4,100 for We Care Tucson- $2,000 from the BNI Fashion Show fundraiser, $2,000 from the club’s foundation match and $100 honorarium for the presentation. -Story by Amos Meyers
Margie Adler (left), Economic Development Specialist and Andrew Fairbanks (right), Tourism Strategies Coordinator, both with the Town of Oro Valley, spoke to the club on Thursday, 14 March 2024 about the economic vitality of Oro Valley including its support of businesses, new businesses in our town for 2023-24, the 50th anniversary of Oro Valley, tourism in our community including the tax revenue benefits, and "voluntourism"- a combination of volunteering and tourism.
Our own member Barbara McClure, Executive Director of IMPACT of Southern Arizona (center left), spoke to our club on 7 Mar 2024 about the work of IMPACT, and along with Tina Bommarito (left) of IMPACT, received a check for $4,000 from the Oro Valley Rotary Foundation and the BNI 6FigureSuccess Fashion Fundraiser from Rotarians Emily Erickson (center right) and Club President Linda Stratton (right). IMPACT's mission is "To empower Southern Arizonans with the resources required to pursue a stabilized and enhanced quality of life." 
Our Canyon del Oro Interact Club collected toys and games for IMPACT, which were given to Barbara after the meeting. 
DNA is a designated organ procurement organization and a tissue and eye recovery organization that serves the entire state of Arizona. They focus on the procurement of organs as part of the transplant process. They help train the driver’s license registration offices about registering those who want to become an organ donor. This is the major point of donor registration. Their major function is to contact families of patients whose medical conditions make them candidates for organ and tissue donation. They help families through the decision making and grieving process. Helping families with ways to honor and remember their lives and donations is another area of focus.
Julia was followed by Christine Eisenfeld of Oro Valley, whose husband had a heart attack while riding his bicycle. He became an organ donor for a young man (at that time) in California. Chrstine, for a number of years, has supported the donor network by volunteering. - Story by Amos Meyers
PDG Michael Drake, the District 5500 Polio Plus Chair, brought us up to date on the history of polio and of Rotary's involvement in efforts to eradicate this terrible disease worldwide.
Chief Executive Officer of Interfaith Community Services ("ICS") Tom McKinney (center in photo) spoke to the club on 8 February about the organization, accompanied by two other ICS staff, Jorge Ruiz (rightmost in photo) and Renee Lewis (not pictured). 
At our 11 Jan 2024 Club Meeting, Grace Stocksdale, Executive Director and Founder, and Lara Iacobucci Paris, Director of Development, of More Than A Bed spoke to us about her organization, whose mission is to provide essential items to foster, kinship and adoptive families for the children in their homes including those in a congregate care setting. They also asked to thank all the members and them to join them for one of their events:.png){kind=logo}
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