ROTARY ROUND-UP
News of the Ashburnham/Westminster Rotary Club

During the month of August, the Club presented checks for $500 to each of the following organizations, to assist them in their public service work in the community:
 The Westminster Community Food Bank;
 The Ashburnham Community Food Bank;
 The Montachusett Veterans Outreach Center in Gardner;
 Massachusetts Veterans Inc., of Worcester;
 The Battered Women's Center in Leominster.
 The club has also donated $1,000 to the local Habitat for Humanity Project.

We wish to thank once again all those who have contributed to or attended the Club's fund raising activities, such as the annual Benefit Dinner. It is because of your support that we are able to help those in need in our area.

- On Aug. 23, our speaker was Heather Connell, who has just returned from Cambodia where she is working on a documentary film. The film will explore the plight of an estimated 10,000 Cambodian orphans on the streets of Pnom Penh, and hundreds of children living and scavenging at a garbage dump, and in relocation camps in the countryside. Heather is working closely with the Cambodian Children's Fund (CCF), founded by Scott Neeson, to bring safe housing, healthcare and education to these children. She thanked us for our donation of vitamins (provided at cost by Vincent's Country Market) that she provided to the CCF. Heather hopes to complete the documentary by this time next year.

- On Aug. 30, our speaker was fellow Rotarian Barbara Friedman who had just returned from a librarians' conference in New Orleans. She described in heart-rending detail the devastation of that city and the efforts being made to recover and rebuild.

If you are interested in learning more about Rotary, please call Roland Morin at (978) 537-1010