Rotarians plan book drive for Literacy Month

    PRESQUE ISLE — This week’s Presque Isle Rotary Club meeting program was extremely full with two new members inducted, one member gave a classification speech and a report was given by the public relations committee. The session was held Jan. 29 at the Northeastland Hotel.
     Jay Trainer from Advantage Payroll and Dan Bagley from County Federal Credit Union, both proposed by Sherry Miller Thibodeau, were inducted into the 100-member service club.
    Rotarians also heard Jason Parent’s classification speech. He grew up in the St. John Valley and is an UMPI graduate. He worked throughout college at WAGM as a reporter and then on to the Madawaska Chamber where he was passionate about the cultural heritage of the Valley, serving on many cultural committees/festival planning and tourism. He also is a former Group Study Exchange team member that went to Norway sponsored by Rotary and he recounted it as an experience that truly changed his life!
    Parent worked at UMFK for many years and is pleased to now be a part of NMCC and the central Aroostook area. He resides in Caribou with his wife and two children.
    The Public Relations Committee program was led by Susan Grove Markwood who outlined the possibilites of Rotary advertising stemming from a PR grant that the PI Rotary club was successful in obtaining. The committee worked diligently to complete the application in a timely manner with details that proved to rise to the top of over 3,200 applications from 90 countries The $2,300 grant will be put toward TV and radio spots and additional funding will be sought to do newspaper advertising especially throughout Literacy Month.
    The mystery Rotarian this week was Jane Towle and her favorite charity was the Battered Women’s Project who will have $50 sent in her name from the PI Rotary.
    President Sharon Campbell announced that the club is partnering with WAGM to sponsor the “Feed the Need to Read” program at the Mark and Emily Turner Library. Children will be interviewed about their interests in reading and books and it will be televised throughout February.
    Local Rotarians will also be holding a childrens book drive for the library in February to be presented on March 5th for our first Literacy-related event for Rotary Literacy Month. The goal is 100 new books for the local library.
    The Auction Wrap Up Dinner will be Thursday, Feb. 15 at 5:30 p.m. at the PI Snowmobile Club.