Aloha, Fellow Rotarians!

We have an exciting year ahead of us. Our goals are enormous, but so are the needs of our community and the world.

We live in a time when our actions can move the needle--create positive change--in many areas. 

Our focus for the past few years has been on providing free meals and bags of groceries to a community in Kona that suffers from food insecurity. Last year, as part of a hui, we helped provide thousands of hot meals and bags of groceries--all at no cost to the recipients. The Meet N Eat program is something that brings significant benefits to our community and is something that we will continue to fund and provide volunteers to serve the meals and hand out the bags of food.

We will also support Girls Exploring Math and Science (GEMS), the Salvation Army, the Keiki Museum, and more this year. 

Two of our stellar club members--Kris Hazard and Larry Webb--will be (again!) organizing volunteers for the Mitsubishi Electric PGA golf tournament, which has provided us with significant funds that we use for higher education scholarships and community projects.

We also want to re-start Keiki Vision, a free in-school vision test for area 3rd graders. This is, for many, our favorite Rotary activity, which we dearly missed the past several years. 

Our club will also be focusing on the social aspects of our club. We will have at least one social and one community service project each month. We hope that those unable to attend many meetings will join us for food, drink, and fun at non-meeting events. We have visits to a goat farm, the Aloha Theatre, holiday parties, and more planned for the Rotary year.

If you are reading this as a potential member, we’d love to invite you to one of our meetings! I am biased, of course, but the Rotarians in our club are some of the most interesting, community-minded, and genuinely kind people I have ever met. We are a club that does things and cares for each other, so if that interests you, reach out.

Brian Asbjornson

2023-2024 President