Paradise Rotary

President Mary Makes the Paper

Exchange Student

Rotary Awards

Donates 450 Dictionaries to Third Grade

Paradise Rotary Donates Ice Machine

 

 

Our President Mary makes the paper.

Reprinted from the Paradise Post.

Mary Bellefuille serves as president of Paradise Rotary, a local club with many projects and ambitions. She’s lived on the Ridge since 1978 and has been involved in the community ever since. She also loves hiking, baking, and she owns 500 Santas.

How long have you lived on the Ridge?
Since 1978. We moved from Chico. I grew up in Sacramento, went to Chico State, got married in ’78 and moved up here.

What do you like about it?
The people, the small community, the surroundings. Anything you want to do, you can do here—water sports, mountain hiking, hunting.
 
What do you dislike about it?
Nothing really.

What do you do for a living?
I have a private fiduciary business to help people take care of services and estates. I’m also a certified guardian.  When we first moved to Paradise I worked in banking. I was fortunate enough to be able to work part time when the children were young. In 1993 I went to work for a local CPA firm for seven years. Then to the Boys and Girls Club in 2000, where I worked as the executive director. Now, I own my own private business.

What are some of your hobbies?
We like to go ride quads in the sand dunes, I love to hike outside in the mountains, swim, we like camping… and another I hobby have is that I collect Santas. I have around 500 and set them all out for Christmas. My mom got me started with three Santas that she did in needlepoint. And I love to bake.

Can you tell me a little about your family?
My husband and I have been married for 32 years. He’s a general contractor, his name is Paul. We have three kids, all born and raised here—Luke, Sarah and Aimee, and we have one 3 ½ year-old grandchild, Colby. He is of course, the light of our life.

I understand you are currently the president of Paradise Rotary Club. How did you get first get involved in Paradise Rotary, and what other ways are you involved in the community?
I got involved in rotary when I was the executive director for the Boy and Girls Club in 2000. The board suggested that I become a member of rotary, so that’s how I started rotary. But I’ve been involved since we moved here with fundraising for the community, I was a swim team coach, I was on the soccer board, I was the president of the soccer board at one point, and I started the Paradise Piranhas weekend swim meet to raise money for the swim team.
I was involved with school activities while my kids were in school, I was involved the “Every 15 Minutes” program, from the first one the school did, and my son was involved. He played the drunk driver.  

Can you tell me more about what Rotary does?
Rotary does so many things for the community.
There are 32,000 clubs worldwide. As far as locally, the coolest project is a $500 mini-grant program for school teachers. Last year and this year, we’re forming grants to elementary school teachers. We hoping it grows and gets community support by getting businesses involved, donating to it. 
We developed a Paradise Rotary Foundation, so that money comes back into the community. To help organizations, we’ve done flowers at a new park, planted a garden, we have section on Skyway we are responsible for cleaning, we helped with the Aquatic Park on Buschman Road years ago, and we are involved with two major fundraisers per year, and the money allows us to help organizations in town.
We donate dictionaries to third graders each year, and this year, we donated a book to every second grade teacher to have in their classrooms. We try to help the community be better than it already is.  
Some of the other things we do is that we have Hamburger stands on gold nugget days, we sponsor the a chocolate queen contestant,
We also joined with six other clubs in the area to host a teen driving clinic. That begins in June. Also we started two years ago, an Interact Club, which is a high school version of Rotary. It’s getting off the ground. It’s very exciting. The Interact club is required to complete at least two community service projects every year, one of which must be an international project. It is one of Rotary’s fastest growing programs, with more than 9,600 clubs in 117 different countries.  Butte College is in the process of starting a “Rotaract” Club also.
We also offer college scholarships each year to high school seniors and we sponsor juniors  to send them to Camp Royal, where they get leadership training for a week each summer.
Rotary also hosts foreign exchange students in Paradise. We’re actually looking for a family to host a foreign exchange student from Germany in 2010-11.  We sponsor inbound and outbound exchange students.
Our Rotary Club just did a project on the 17th where we installed smoke alarms and new batteries in smoke alarms to about 55 homes on the Ridge.  We would like this to become an annual project.
Rotary International has sent 5,000 shelter boxes with tents, pots and pans, and raincoats to Haiti. 

What are your responsibilities as president of the local Rotary?
To have fun, that’s the biggest duty… to oversee the club and help everybody focus on the direction to go in the community, and to raise money to continue to help the community. I’ve been president since July of 2009. Before that, I was on the board of directors.  Being the president is a lot more responsibility. You find out more things people are doing. I’m having a good time, and I hope the club is. It’s a great group of people, who are so civic minded. They help Paradise, and help Rotary in general. It’s a wonderful, amazing group of humans, and they are very humanitarian-oriented.

Who would you most like to meet, living or dead?
The person I'd like to meet is Bill Cosby. He has such a great outlook on life and he makes me laugh.

If you had the power, what would you change about America?
I would get rid of the answering message menu trees— for ‘this,’ press 1, for ‘that’ press 2, etc., and go back to having humans answering the phone in the business world.

What do you like and dislike about The Post?
I like fact that it involves community stuff. I would like to see less of the wire service, and more concentrated support for things happening in Paradise.  

What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?
Do your best in what you do. Whatever you do, do it the best you can, and have fun while you are doing it.

What advice would you give to others?
 Enjoy life. Don’t count the days, make the days count.

 

Our Exchange Student - Josefa Caceres

The Paradise Rotary Club participates annually in the International Rotary Youth Exchange Program. For over 75 years, students and host families have broadened their horizons through Rotary Youth Exchange. More than 80 countries and over 8,000 students each year participate in the program, which is administered at the regional level by Rotary districts and at the local level by Rotary clubs. The program aims to bring the world closer by allowing students to be ambassadors, teaching people about their own countries, cultures, and ideas.


This year, Josefa Caceres from Distrito 4340 Chile, is being hosted by Paradise Rotarian Tim Elloway and his family. Josefa is sixteen years old and is a Senior at Paradise High School. She will stay with another Paradise Rotary family during the course of her year long stay. Josefa will participate in Rotary District activities with other Youth Exchange Program participants and go on various outings with Paradise Rotarians to enjoy and learn about our culture. She just recently attended a Blink 182 concert.


Rotary Youth Exchange is one of the least expensive international exchange programs open to high school-aged students. Because volunteers in Rotary clubs and districts administer the Rotary Youth Exchange program, there are no agency fees. In the program, students are responsible for airfare and insurance. Room and board are provided by host families. Rotary clubs provide students with a monthly allowance and pay for participation in district activities.

Josefa would love to share her experiences in Paradise thus far. She can be reached at the Elloway residence at 873-2439.

The Paradise Community Park has a new ice machine thanks to the Paradise Rotary Club. This ice machine will provide much needed additional ice for various community events and town emergencies.”

$2,000 in mini-grants to elementary school teachers in Paradise.

Four Paradise teachers, Jonathan Mattern, Laurie Waring, Kelly Mordock Levin, and Mike Blaschke, are winners of the Educational Mini-Grant Program sponsored by the Paradise Rotary Club. Applicants were judged on their creative ideas of how they would use the grant money in their classrooms. Teachers will receive their $500 awards and share about their projects at a banquet this Thursday, February 18th at 5:30 at the Paradise Elks Lodge.


3rd grade teacher Jonathan Mattern of Children’s Community Charter School and 6th grade teacher Mike Blaschke of Paradise Charter Middle School will use the grant money to purchase a smart tablet for each of their classrooms. Students can respond to questions and sketch ideas onto the smart tablet which will project the image to the projector screen in the front of the classroom. 4th grade teacher Laurie Waring of Ponderosa Elementary School will use the grant money to support her annual class trip to Sutter’s Fort in Sacramento for a Living History Program. Students will live the life of an 1840’s pioneer during an overnight stay at the fort. Kindergarten teacher Kelly Mordock Levin of Paradise Elementary School will use the grant to enhance her science and exploration lessons. Materials to be purchased for her hands-on discovery table include magic sand, magnet marbles, color mixes, crystals, and ladybug, worm, butterfly and ant habitats.


All elementary school teachers of grades kindergarten through 6th grade on the Ridge and the Golden Feather School District were encouraged to apply for the mini-grants. This is the second year the Paradise Rotary Club has funded a yearly Mini-Grant Program to raise money for local school teachers. 20 teachers total from Paradise schools applied for the grants. For more information contact Tom Gagne 873-0332.

Rotary Donates 450 Dictionaries to Third Grade Students

One of the major goals of The Paradise Rotary Club, our Rotary District 5160, and Rotary International is to promote literacy in children and adults both locally and internationally.
The Paradise Rotary Club fulfills this goal by running an annual local dictionary donation project. Each year the club donates an American Heritage hardback Children’s Dictionary to every 3rd grade student in Paradise and Spring Valley regardless of the school they attend. Students receive these dictionaries through their schools and then get to take them home.


Trevor Davis, a Paradise Rotarian reports it costs the club around $4,000 to organize this project. These funds are raised through various club fundraising events throughout the year. School Principal and Paradise Rotary member, Casey Taylor says, “This donation is invaluable. This project ensures that every student in our town has a quality educational resource in their home they can use well into their middle school years.” Club members deliver dictionaries to each school in Paradise and Spring Valley during November. Presentations include a dictionary activity where students look up the word “service” in their new dictionaries, and a brief description about the local Rotary Club.

For more information, contact Casey Taylor at 530-872-4100.