Community Service
Columbia Heights Police Department/Fridley and Columbia Heights Rotary Bike Giveaway Donation: Fridley and Columbia Heights Rotary donated bike helmets as part of the Police Department's annual Bike Giveaway. Twelve bikes were given away to Columbia Academy Middle School students and Valley View Elementary School students.
Allina Health and Free Bikes 4 Kidz: Fridley-Columbia Heights Rotarians volunteered at the Allina Health and Free Bikes 4 Kidz at Hayes Elementary School in Fridley on Saturday, April 22, 2017. Additional information is available here.
Community Service at the Second Annual Chili Cook-Off to benefit the Lee Carlson Center for Mental Health and Well-Being (Feb 2017)
The City of Fridley and the Fridley-Columbia Heights Rotary have officially signed on as the first official team. Our team includes Rotarians, the Fridley Cops & Clergy and The Fridley Fire Department. Our team served a top-secret recipe developed by one of our Rotary members
Rotarians provided service to the Fridley-Columbia Heights community by volunteering at SACA to organize canned goods and other donations.
Rotarians volunteered with STRIVE students to bell ring and raise money for the Salvation Army.
In support of the City of Fridley's annual community festival, the Rotary hosts a 2 mile Fun Run to kick off the weekend festival. The run leads the 49ers Days Parade on the Thursday evening of the weekend and is a fun way for community members to celebrate health and competition together. During the Friday and Saturday evenings of the festival at Commons Park the Rotary hosts a wine booth serving delicious red and white wines for your enjoyment and as a fundraiser for our community projects.
Dictionary Project
Basic education and literacy is one of Rotary’s six areas of focus. We know that basic education and literacy are essential for reducing poverty, improving health, encouraging community and economic development, and promoting peace. For many years now, the Fridley-Columbia Heights Rotary Club has provided all third grade students in the Fridley and Columbia Heights school districts with their very own dictionaries. The excitement and enthusiasm in the students is apparent from the looks on their faces and their immediate action to begin using the dictionaries. The Rotary Club expects to expand the dictionary project in the 2016-2017 school year to third grade students in private and charter schools located in Fridley and Columbia Heights. This will bring the total annual distribution to approximately 550 students. The dictionary project is a favorite yearly activity for Rotary members and the students.
STRIVE (Students Taking a Renewed Interest in the Value of Education)
The Fridley-Columbia Heights Rotary STRIVE program motivates eligible high school seniors at Fridley and Columbia Heights high schools to discover their own strengths and talents to increase their personal and academic achievement. This program challenges the students in the lower range of class standings who show the greatest improvement in grades in their senior year to improve their work, gain self-confidence and discover the satisfaction of achievement. Scholarships for post secondary education scholarships are awarded to the students who show the greatest improvement in GPAs and a renewed focus on academic achievement.
Volunteering
Each quarter members of the Fridley-Columbia Heights Rotary Club plans a volunteer activity where the group can come together to help our community. We may pack food, do a clean-up project, take on a physical improvement need, as long as we can make a difference and get to know each other better in the process, it is a win for all involved.