South Puget Sound Rotary is the only Rotary in Thurston County that meets in the morning.  We consider ourselves morning people who are enthusiastic about Rotary and Rotary’s mission in the world.  We enjoy working together in accomplishing a wide variety of service projects.  We gather on Friday mornings at 7:00 AM at the Viewpoint banquet room at Tugboat Annies Restaurant on the Olympia waterfront.  We welcome guests from near and far with hot coffee, a hardy breakfast and a spirited meeting with warm Rotary fellowship.

Some of the local service projects we have recently undertaken include renovation of a new family shelter for SafePlace.  On this project we helped to prepare the old building for renovation and landscaped the yard. We also provided SafePlace with funds to help with the renovation.  Prior to working on the shelter we repainted and refurbished the SafePlace administrative offices in downtown Olympia. 

 Rotary places a high value on vocational performance, and South Puget Sound Rotary expresses its commitment to vocations by supporting students preparing to enter the business world.  We send students to leadership training and we provide college and vocational training  scholarships to graduating seniors from the Rainier, Tenino, Rochester and Oakville High Schools.  We also sponsor a new Interact Club at Rainier High School.

In December of 2006 we provided gifts and food for a Holiday party for thirty teenage members of the "Homework Club" at the Evergreen Vista Apartments.  We also provided food and funds to the Tenino Food Bank during the Holidays.

In 2007 one of our bi-monthly hands-on projects was to make needed repairs to the “Out of the Woods” Homeless Shelter.  Another hands-on project was to assist the South Sound Reading Foundation with their book inventory at their warehouse.

We worked with a club in Rotary District 9210 to drill water wells in remote villages in north central Zambia, Africa.  Seven wells were drilled in 2006-07.  These wells provide clean water for thousands of families living in small villages outside the town of Kitwe, Zambia (see Current Photos button on the Home Page to view). 

In the last four years we have hosted exchange students from Niort France, Chiapas Mexico, Krabi Thailand and our current exchange student from Italy.  We sponsored an outbound student in Argentina last year and are sponsoring another to Switzerland this year.

We are a young, enthusiastic group of people that enjoy working together to help those needing assistance in our community and attacking thirst, hunger and disease in the larger world community. 

We warmly invite anyone interested in being involved with a spirited service club to come be with us at 7:00 AM any Friday morning at Tugboat Annies Viewpoint banquet room on the Olympia waterfront.