About Us
The Kishwaukee Sunrise Rotary Club is a dynamic chapter of Rotary International. Our Club was chartered October 20, 1991 to serve the Northern DeKalb County area. We provide service to youth, service to the elderly, service to the disabled, vocational service, scholarships, and promotes international understanding through educational and humanitarian programs.
Club History
The Kishwaukee Sunrise Rotary Club was chartered October 20, 1991, by the DeKalb and Sycamore Rotary Clubs with Jim Forster providing the “moving force.” The Charter President was Kirk Reed, and other charter members were Dean Breuer, Brad Copple, John Countryman, Dan Cozzo, Joe DiCiani, Dave Emmert, Pat Fagan, Bob Hamilton, Diane Hammon, Ton Harbour, Jim Harder, Sharon Holmes, Paul King, Brian Kloberdanz, Marc Loomer, Bruce Madden, Greg Millburg, Steve Milner, Phil Paulson, Jim Pfotenhauer, Steve Puisis, Tracy Scholle, Kurt Schweitzer, Betsy Smith, Roy Smith, Craig Snider, Bev Spier, Peg Walt, Sue Wheat, and Joe Wiegand.
Community and International Service
Our club focuses efforts at both the local community level and the international level. At the community level, we participate in Meals-On-Wheels, Salvation Army Bell Ringing, Salvation Army Back To School Drive, Adopt-A-Family at Christmas, and food collection for Salvation Army Thanksgiving dinners. For our international focus, we currently help sponsor the Jane Adeny Memorial School of Girls in Kenya and donate items to the Tepehua Community Center in Mexico. In years past, we helped fund and install wells in Costa Rica. We further support international exchange students coming in to the DeKalb/Sycamore area.
We also give donations to organizations such as United Way, United Fund, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, and AdventureWorks.
For vocational service, we provide three $1000 scholarships to graduating high school seniors for college. We currently only do one major fundraiser during the year which is our drive through dinner in the fall. We are planning to launch our own community grant for children, youth and families in the spring of 2017. Most of the fundraising activities also serve as social gatherings for the club.