Lending a Helping hand

By Keith HoffmanEdited By Hoffman, KeithMonday, September 1, 2025

Offering a helping hand is what we do, and these organizations need our help. Please take a look at each one by clicking on each link. And if you are interested in running the Thanksgiving Day Grove Express 5k, we have the sign-up linked for your convenience. Thank You!

Habitat for Humanity - July Done In A Day

Saturday, July 19, 2025

Nine Downers Grove Rotarians worked in Hanover Park, IL, to help Habitat for Humanity build housing for local residents. Thank you volunteers for activating our motto of "Service Above Self"!

The Joy of Water

Friday, June 20, 2025

From our Villages in Partnership partner on our Water for Life Rotary project:

My dear Rotary members of Downers Grove, these videos just arrived from Teputepu Village, Ntambo Village and Mgwalangwa Village. Listen and see the joy as the drillers hit water. At Teputepu Village, we tried drilling 2 boreholes last year and could not find water and so the driller went to another village. Today they have found water at Teputepu Village and the joy is palpable. Thank you for bringing this gift of life to the people of Malawi!

Keith Hoffman stitched the videos together in this wonderful 2-minute piece. Enjoy!
Video or copy paste: https://youtube.com/shorts/1EtnNwizgjk?feature=share

Done In A Day - Mail Carriers Food Drive

By Lisa RasinSaturday, May 10, 2025

A big “Thank You” goes out to Ann Hattan, Cathy Mead and Laura Trompeter for helping with the Done in a Day project, which was the Mail Carriers Food Drive for the FISH Food Pantry on Saturday, May 10. Thanks to your efforts, we were able to organize close to 12,000 pounds of food donated that day. Thanks also to Jeanette Oakeshott for organizing the Rotary Volunteers.

Double the Fun, Double the Pleasure

By Richard LamFriday, November 29, 2024

Villages In Partnership gets $40K Matching Grant with our donation. Timing is everything!

Our board of directors at our last board meeting approved a $22,500 donation to Villages In Partnership (VIP), a nonprofit we have supported the last few years. This money is designated for drilling 3 wells in Malawi. Each well will provide potable water for an entire village which consists of hundreds of people.

I received an email from VIP on Tuesday morning asking for help to unlock a $40K Matching Grant with the deadline at the end of the day. They had their Giving Tuesday a week before everyone else. Well, the timing was perfect! I called VIP and asked if our donation could be applied towards the matching grant. The answer was a resounding YES! Here was the email that I received from VIP the day after.

"He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness"- 2 Corinthians 9:10

A heartfelt thank you to everyone who joined our livestream last night! Thanks to your generosity and the support of our amazing partners, we unlocked our $40,000 matching gift! This will help our brothers and sisters in Malawi "moo"-ve on up from from scarcity to sustainability!

Done In A Day: Halloween Window Painting 2024!

This family event has been a tradition in Downers Grove since 1966. The Rotary Club of Downers Grove and the Downers Grove Downtown Management Corp organized and ran another successful Halloween Window Painting. Helped by volunteers from the St. Joseph's Football Team, families provided donations to Downers Grove Area FISH!

Rotary hears from a Beneficiary

Tuesday, March 11, 2025

Cydney Chikalema was born and raised in Kalupe village in Malawi, Africa. He passionately told his story about the Rotary Club’s "Water is Life" activities to the large gathering at Tuesday’s breakfast meeting.

Cydney arrived in the U.S. last August after graduating from the African Bible College. He is currently working on his Master's Degree at Wheaton College with the support of Villages in Partnership, the international partner of the Rotary Club of Downers Grove. He grew up an orphan and later interned with VIP and saw first-hand the positive impact of our club's funding of borehole drilling to install fresh water wells and other activities.

During his presentation he repeatedly explained, “Clean water helps reduce diseases and changes daily lives in the villages.” He told the members and guests how excited the villagers get when they learn about receiving their fresh water, the planning involved, and the jubilee that breaks out when the drilling rig team strikes water.

Last year the club donated $7,500 to Villages in Partnership to drill a borehole in the village of Nkagula. Cydney described how the responsibility for every completed well is passed on to the villages. Each one, under the supervision of the tribal leaders, is operated by the local village's Water Council. They ensure participating households pay a small monthly tariff and care for the well. This well services 238 families, typically consisting of 5 or more members living in one-room mud brick homes with dirt floors, thatched roofs, and, of course, no electricity or running water. The village's women don't have to carry water from distant wells or polluted streams, freeing up time for the young girls to go to school and allowing mothers to care for their babies, tend to chores, or work on a farm as a day laborer.

Last year's well followed our clubs spearheading a Rotary Foundation Global Grant that began in 2020. Over the past few years, it has provided over 1,400 households access to clean potable water through boreholes drilled in five remote villages. You can see the locations on the map.

Cydney further explained that the Grant also provided handwashing stations for two market areas where not only hands are washed, but also fruits and vegetables can be cleansed from dirt and insects.

The Board of Directors recently completed this year's donation to VIP of $22,000 so that additional boreholes can be drilled. The wells are expected to be functional in May. Three villages with approximately 4,000 inhabitants will receive your gift of life-changing water. So, as we prepare for Rotary GroveFest, please keep in mind that your efforts are saving lives across the globe.

Done In A Day: NAMI DuPage 5K Pancake Breakfast

By Jeanette OakeshottSaturday, September 14, 2024

Nine Rotarians assisted with the NAMI 5k pancake breakfast last Saturday. We served a hearty breakfast of pancakes, syrup, orange juice, granola bars and banana to all. It felt good to assist our fellow Rotary club of Carol Stream in this endeavour.

We also shared our donation check of $1,000 made up of a $500 mental health focus grant from our district, together with our usual Done In A Day contribution.

NAMI is such a worthy organization and we were very happy to make a difference!