Support Near and Far
The Lombard Rotary Club offers support in our community and the world at large.
Throughout the year, we give assistance to families in Lombard who are struggling, usually by providing a gift certificate to a local food store.
Once a year, we provide about $4,000 in direct aid to a number of community organizations. These are just some of the organizations that have benefited over the years:
- DuPage PADS (Public Action to Deliver Shelter)
- Northeast DuPage Special Recreation Association (NESDRA)
- Tri-Town YMCA
- TLC Camp – Day camp for children with cancer
- Easter Seals DuPage & Fox Valley
- Ray Graham Association for People with Disabilities
- Lombard Baseball League (Sponsorship)
- Healthy Lombard
- School District 44
We collect non-perishable food at our lunch meeting on the first Thursday of the month to donate to the Lombard/Villa Park Food Pantry. Members that don’t bring food are asked to give a $5 donation to First Things First, Infant Needs Outreach.
Each year we give approximately $10,000 in scholarships to Lombard resident students with the profits from our yearly Revers Raffle.
We raise funds, and obtain a matching grant from Rotary International, to provide warm outerwear to Lombard school children in need.
Each year our club participates in the Village of Lombard Recycling Extravaganza. We run several different collections:
- Bicycles and Assistive Medical Devices (wheelchairs, canes, walkers, etc..) – donated to Working Bikes Chicago where they are repaired and sent to 3rd World Countries
- Gently Used Shoes – donated to People’s Resource Center.
In past years, our club raised money and matched funds with a club in Minnesota, to drill fresh water wells in Haiti. As of today, these wells are still operational and were not affected by recent hurricanes.
We were also able to provide Shelter Boxes to Haiti after their devastating earthquake in 2010. Shelter Box provides the essentials people need to survive and begin to rebuild their lives in the aftermath of a disaster. Shelter Box aid is tailored to a disaster but typically includes a disaster relief tent for a family, thermal blankets and groundsheets, water storage and purification equipment, solar lamps, cooking utensils, a basic tool kit, mosquito nets and children’s activity pack.