The Rotary Club of Montgomery—Rocky Hill continues its service in Montgomery and around the world.
MONTGOMERY — The Rotary Club of Montgomery–Rocky Hill continues its service in Montgomery and around the world.
The club recently contributed $5,000 for emergency relief in the Philippines and joined members of the Princeton Corridor Rotary to conduct their annual cleanup of the Sacred Upper Grounds Cemetery.
”Our members felt very strongly that we needed to respond quickly to the crisis caused by Hurricane Haiyan, and we know from previous experience that working through a Rotary Club in the affected country can work very well,” Rotary President JB Turner said. “Local Rotarians have direct knowledge of the most urgent needs and are mobilized on the front line, so to speak.”
Some quick research by the local Rotary led to the Rotary Club of Liberty, Texas, which has a longstanding relationship with a sister club in Ormoc Bay, Philippines. Mr. Turner picked up the phone, contacted the Texas club leaders, and arranged to have the funds wire transferred to the Philippines.
”Based on my conversation with our colleagues in Texas, we feel very confident that the Ormoc Club will put our funds to good use and will do it quickly,” Mr. Turner said.
”I want to make clear that it is our community made this donation possible,” Mr. Turner said. “The funds we raise, primarily through the Run With Rotary, enable us to sustain not only our normal annual giving budget of approximately $45,000 but also an emergency fund that we tap into periodically when catastrophic events — Hurricane Sandy, the tsunami in Japan, the earthquake in Haiti — demand immediate action.”
Closer to home, Rotary Club members recently joined members of the Princeton Corridor Rotary to conduct their annual cleanup of the Sacred Upper Grounds Cemetery, a little-known historic cemetery tucked next to a farm field between Burnt Hill Road and the Washington Well Farm on Route 518. The event involves 12 to 15 people with mowers, weed-whackers, loppers and clippers.
”The people buried here were resident patients at the New Jersey Village for Epileptics or the old Neuropsychiatric Institute — the precursors of the North Princeton Developmental Center, which the township wrestled away from the state about eight years ago,” said Louise Wilson, who was on the cleanup team. “This cemetery is an important part of local and state history; the graves date back nearly a hundred years. It isn’t the oldest cemetery in Montgomery by a long shot, but it is unique. I expect many of these folks were forgotten even before they died. It’s important that we not forget they lived here.”
The local club meets every Thursday at 7:30 a.m. in the Cherry Valley Country.
For more information on the club, visit www.MontgomeryRotary.org.