Welcome to the Rotary Club of La Crescent

Are you a passionate volunteer who wants to make positive changes in your community and the world? Our club members are dedicated people who share a passion for community service and friendship. Becoming a Rotarian connects you with a diverse group who share your drive to give back.

Everything is Coming up Roses

Posted by Eileen Krenz on Sep 28, 2018

Its that time of year again, an opportunity to share the gift of Roses in our Community.

The Rotary Club of La Crescent is selling roses again this year as a fundraiser for support of our programs. Roses are on sale now, and will be delivered on Wednesday, Oct 24. We will be purchasing the flows from Bauer's Market again this year, and the bouquets are getting an extra special touch.

Roses are $20 per dozen. Orders need to be in to Eileen by Friday, Oct 12. Please see Eileen with any questions!

The public can order roses by emailing LaCrescentRotary@gmail.com

Looking for Signs

Posted by Bob Spencer on Sep 19, 2018

The Story of our Rotary Sign in La Crescent.

When District Governor Bill Hoel came and visited our club in August, he shared the Rotary goal of sharing our story, and increasing our visibility in our community. President Darren Winkers took it to heart and looked for opportunity. He noticed many communities had signs announcing Rotary's presence in the community. He asked the question, why don't we have that?

To dig into that, conversations were had with many long standing members of our club. "We used to have them", was a common message. Secretary Eileen Krenz uncovered that we still had the signs in storage, but that the City Council and State Highway department had made it clear years ago that it wouldn't be allowed. "For some time," Krenz explained, "We would go out and put up the signs near the entrance to the city on the highway. Some time later, Highway Department Staff would remove the signs and return them". After further research, we discovered that many of placement locations required the approval of 4 agencies and their rules: City Council, MN State Highway Department, Minnesota Scenic Byways Commission, Federal Highway Administration. La Crescent is a unique community to be home to 3 Scenic Byways. That also brings its challenges, as Scenic Byways have strict sign regulations.

President Winkers would not take no for an answer, and looked for more options. One area he found a clear exception on with all rules for those agencies was that private property was exempt. After reaching out to some property owners and friends of Rotary, our community now again has 2 Rotary signs visible to our community. One on the Wieser Brother's property along the Pike to La Crosse, and one on the Amlaw-Swift family property on Elm Street near the heart of town. While these may not be permanent homes for the signs, it gets them back into our community so we can share our Rotary Pride. This couldn't have been done without the fortitude of President Winkers by continuing to reach for the goal and sharing Rotary with the world.

Collaboration made Country Boom possible

Posted by Bob Spencer on Jul 17, 2018

The First Annual Country Boom took place in West Salem from July 13-15. One of its primary purposes was to bring together people from all over the Coulee Region.

Rotarian Pat Stephens was involved in the planning of the event, and due to a scheduling snafu, last minute volunteers were needed to help coordinate the parking lot. La Crescent Rotarians heard the call and knew we could do something to help. We committed to staffing the lot on Saturday, with a minimum of 60 volunteer-hours needed between 10am and 11pm. However we knew we could not do it alone. We put out a call to all area Rotary Clubs to help us, as well as to friends in La Crescent, such as the PTO, for help. The call was heard and answered.

Then the Rain came... and with the rain, mud. The parking lot that we were tasked to operate was now a muddy lake. However, with our new Clubrunner system, we were quickly and easily able to reach out to all volunteers to update them on the last minute changes, and ensure our volunteers could get to their new assignment areas where more help was most needed.

Natalie Olson from Rotary East, Tan Phan from Valley View Rotary, and Jaime Bly from the La Crescent PTO stepped up to help out out and put in an combined 20 volunteer-hours. La Crescent Rotarians put in an additional 45 Hours of help, with some putting in over 13 hours of work! Thank you to everyone who helped out!

Lets Play Together Playground Community Build Weekend

Posted by Bob Spencer on Jul 30, 2018

After years of fundraising and coordination, the La Crescent-Hokah Elementary School will soon have a more inclusive playground. Various La Crescent community members worked feverishly to finish assembling La Crescent-Hokah Elementary's new Lets Play Together Playground, a project started on Friday.

The Community Planned, Community Funded, and Community Built project aims to create a more inclusive playground for La Crescent.

Students spent five years raising over half the estimated cost of the project. A large contribution to the student's fundraising was the annual Great Green Run & Roll. The fundraiser involves students raising money for a run around the school.

The Rotary Club had $5,000 in unspent funds raised from the 2015 Music Extravaganza that we wanted to use to help the students of La Crescent. Through Grants from the Rotary Works Foundation and District 6250, we were able to contribute over $20,000 to the project.

While the funds help, this project was about more than the money, it is about bringing community together. Rotarians, Lions, PTO Members, Teachers & Community Members all worked together to assemble the playground July 27-29th. Rotary District Grant partners from Caledonia and Valley view also stepped out of their own communities to come and help us. It was a truly a collaborative effort.

The project is designed to update the school's aging playground while creating a space students of all abilities can enjoy.

"Our current equipment doesn't offer them the same accessibility or experience. We also have students who are on the spectrum who might have sensory needs, we've got students that might be in a wheelchair that want to still play with their friends," - Jeff Copp, La Crescent-Hokah Elementary Principal.

Check out a video of the entire build process... compressed to 7 minutes.