Human Services

Throughout the years, the Rotary Club of Dubuque has exhibited a deep interest in assisting the Human Services needs of the Dubuque and Tri-State Community. By means of projects, which involve volunteer time being given by Rotarians or by the granting of financial assistance to various Community Human Service organizations, the Rotary Club of Dubuque has never hesitated to provide help when help is needed. Using the Rotary motto as a guide, "Service above self", Rotarians are quick to help others in need.

Volunteer time and energy - a good example of a Rotary project where man - and woman power is utilized to help community residents would be the "Super Shot Child Immunization" project, conducted in cooperation with the Dubuque Visiting Nurses Association. In August of 2000, approximately 30 Rotarians, including members from the Key City Rotary Club, met at Finley Hospital and assisted staff and volunteers associated with the Visiting Nurses Association in providing immunization shots to young children form the community. The Rotarians helped by registering parents and their children, holding children while nurses administered the vaccines, giving the children prizes for attending and conducting them through the clinic. This was an unusual but extremely rewarding experience for the Rotarian volunteers as they helped young children to become protected from childhood diseases and potentional illness. Every volunteer, after the project was over commented that they certainly would volunteer for this service again. The food feeling of helping young children with an important medical service provided many warm memories for the volunteers.

A second example of Rotarians volunteering their time to benefit a Community Human Service Organization is the annual "Bell Ringing" project carried out for the Dubuque Salvation Army. Annually, the Rotary Club of Dubuque, as well as many other local organizations, volunteer to ring the famous Salvation Army Bells in front of the donation kettles which appear throughout the community each Holiday season. On December 23, 2000, approximately 40 Rotarians took different, hourly or two-hour shifts making "joyful" noise with the bells and encouraging shoppers to donate generously to the Salvation Army fund. While the most recent bell-ringing day was not unusually cold, there have been years where the feet and fingers have become very cold. However, the wonderful feeling knowing that their efforts were doing a great deal of good for the community kept the Rotarians as warm as possible. The smiles of the shoppers as they placed their donations into the kettles gave the Rotary members a tremendous feeling of well being, gratitude and fulfillment! During their 2000 participation, a total of $4,000.00 was raised by the Rotary Club of Dubuque to assist the Salvation Army as that organization carries out its worth while human service - humanitarian projects in the area.

Financial assistance for Human Services
A significant investment in the Human Service facilities and agencies of Dubuque by the Rotary Club of Dubuque continues. Over the years, the club has provided financial assistance in the form of grants to Human Service agencies and these funds have had a noteworthy impact on the recipients. With funding raised by Rotary auctions and other fund raising projects, the Rotarians take pride in the financial help they have been able to provide to deserving human services agencies. At times, in past years, the Rotary Club of Dubuque has granted as much as $10,000.00 in grants at any given period. A special Rotary Committee has the responsibility of soliciting grant applications from Human Service providers and then researching and selecting those applications that we judged most worthy of support. The awards have usually been presented at a special Rotary Presentation awards program with representatives of the recipients being present to accept the financial grants. While a financial award may seem to be impersonal, none-the-less, Rotary members receive a huge feeling of accomplishment and good will because they remember how hard they worked to earn the granted funds. Hearing the words of appreciation from the recipient agencies provides a great feeling of accomplishment and a job well done by the club. The only regret is that we would hope to help more agencies with funding but we realize that the special funding can only go so far.

A good example of another way in which the Rotary Club of Dubuque helps Human Service agencies other than the special program mentioned earlier is separate grants made in conjunction with specific projects. As described previously in the project conducted in cooperation with the Visiting Nurses Association, the Rotary Club also provided $1,000.00 in financial support to the VNA for the Super Shot project. For information about the Rotary Club of Dubuque's Human Services assistance you may contact Rotarian Barry Bromberg at 319-557-9400 Fax 319-557-1296.