Greetings Bethel Rotary Club!    
 
I hope this finds you and your family safe and well.  What a strange time we are going through right now.  The spread of the coronavirus has already caused so much disruption to our everyday life, here in our small town and on a national and global scale.  It has made us re-think so many things, including how we stay connected with one another. 
 
Though we have had to cancel our regular Tuesday morning breakfast meetings and the March 29th Spring Country breakfast, our club will be staying connected via a weekly E-Bulletin that will go out early each week to the entire club.  It will include a president’s message, news about Board decisions, and ways that you can get involved with community relief efforts.  It will also be a way that we can continue the tradition of Happy Dollars.  Michele has graciously agreed to put together this weekly E-Bulletin so please send Happy Dollars to her each week, no later than Monday afternoon.  You can also send her stories of inspiration from around the community, personal messages you’d like to send to the club…and any humor you would like to share. After all, we are going to continue to need updates on what’s going on with Scott’s emus!   
 
The Board will continue to meet via ZOOM and we will keep you updated on decisions that are made about postponing events.  As you may have heard, there have been many great community food relief efforts already, under the name of BANR (Bethel Area Neighborhood Response).  Dave Bean and the Bethel Food Pantry is working with Sunday River Brew Pub and the Good Food Store to provide meals to elderly people in the community and individuals and families who are being hit hard by the economic impact of the virus.  The Board has voted to earmark $1600 which will go towards these efforts.  We are very glad that we can support such a great community initiative and proud of the way people in our community are coming together to help each other. 
 
That, to me, says a lot about our community.  The spread of the virus is really bringing out the best in each other as people are putting “service above self.”  We are seeing the opportunities in this huge problem and people are coming together to care for the most vulnerable people in our community.  This is what we are all about.  If you would like to find out how you can volunteer for BANR relief efforts, see the sheet that Steve Smith will be sending out soon.
On another note, the May Day 5K is, of course, postponed and will be rescheduled for some time in the Fall at a date still to be determined.  We’ll have more info about that soon.
 
That’s all for now, send in those Happy Dollars, stories, and humor to Michele, and hopefully we will be able to meet again in person sometime soon.  Let’s send our support and best wishes to those people who are working in health care right now and those making key decisions about what happens next.  Some final words from Mother Teresa: “We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean.  But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.” 
 
In Rotary spirit,
                           Tim