Menlo Park Rotary Club              

Rotary is a worldwide organization of 1.2 million members in 32,000 clubs in more than 200 countries. All Rotarians subscribe to the motto Service Above Self which guides them in their many community service projects. The Menlo Park Rotary Club has about 80 members and supports numerous local organizations with funding and volunteers. The club is also the lead organizer of a major project in Guatemala . Click here for more information.

Rotary awards $67,000 in scholarships  

Nineteen local high school students received a total of $67,000 in scholarships from the Rotary Club of Menlo Park at an awards ceremony April 7 in the SRI auditorium in Menlo Park . Elibet Jimenez of Eastside College Preparatory won the $10,000 John D. Russell Scholarship. The other winners —from Menlo-Atherton, Eastside Preparatory, East Palo Alto High School, Menlo School and Sacred Heart Preparatory — received either a $5,000 or a $2,000 scholarship. More than 100 other high school students received scholastic achievement awards. The featured speaker for the evening was Latoya Haywood, a sophomore at Menlo College, who shared her tips on surviving the early college years.

Photo by Veronica Weber/The Almanac Students awarded scholarships by the Rotary Club of Menlo Park are, from left, front row: Julia Cabral, Molly Dickinson, Menon Pallavi, Syddney Hessel and Annamaria Prati. Second row: Ramika Evans, Elibet Jimenez, Jessica Zigterman, Alexandra Allegra and Michael Greenberg. Back row: Oscar Coaquira, Alp Kutlu, Alexandre Popp and Eric Heimark. Also receiving scholarships were Elise Delagnes, Cynthia Gonzalez, Marcos Lopez, Daniel Rozenfeld and Gilberto Soria Mendoza.

Narrowing the field of 52 applicants was a difficult task, said Rotarian Harlow Johnson, who headed the six-member scholarship committee. Each student submitted a lengthy application, and the top 30 candidates were interviewed.

Syddney Hessel of Menlo School, the winner of the $2,000 Drue Kataoka Arts Scholarship, was chosen by a separate committee that included Ms. Kataoka.

Many applicants shared stories about the challenges they have faced. Below are some details about Elibet and two of the $5,000 scholarship winners.

      • Elibet Jimenez is the daughter of Ignacio and Rita Jimenez of Menlo Park . She is graduating from Eastside College Preparatory and is visiting Stanford, Williams, Brown, and Yale in the next several weeks to make a decision about which college to attend. Elibet has been co-editor of her school newspaper, “The Eastside Panther.” She has completed an impressive number of advanced placement courses and is interested in majoring in humanities or English.

      • Molly Dickinson is the winner of the $5,000 Robert Paroli Scholarship. She lives in Portola Valley with her parents, Jack and Suzy Dickinson, and is graduating from Sacred Heart Preparatory. At Sacred Heart, she has been active in varsity rowing/crew, (requiring 15 hours a week for 46 weeks). She works in community service and enjoys photography.

      • Oscar Coaquira is the winner of the $5,000 Arthur Flegel Scholarship. The son of Vilma Castro and Oscar Coaquira, Oscar commutes from Tracy to attend Menlo-Atherton High School . He intends to attend either UCLA or Cornell. A native of Peru , Oscar is studying to become tri-lingual. He plays the clarinet and is first chair in the school’s symphonic band. 

Other winners of $5,000 scholarships are: Michael Greenberg, Menlo School, Rotary Foundation Scholarship; Cynthia Gonzalez, Menlo-Atherton High School, Rotary Foundation Scholarship; Ramika Evans, Eastside College Preparatory, the Tsui/Tsiang Family Scholarship; Marcos Lopez, East Palo Alto Academy, Business Professional Scholarship; and Gilberto Soria Mendoza, East Palo Alto Academy, Doris and Ormand Rector Scholarship.

Winners of $2,000 Rotary Honor Scholarships are: Eric Heimark, Menlo School; Alp Kutlu, Menlo-Atherton High School; Pallavi Menon, Sacred Heart Preparatory; Alexandra Allegra, Sacred Heart Preparatory; Alexandre Popp, Menlo-Atherton High School; Annamaria Prati, Menlo School; Daniel Rozenfeld, Menlo School; Elise Delagnes, Menlo-Atherton High School; and Julia Cabral, Menlo-Atherton High School.  

Menlo Park club members teach reading to third-graders at Garfield School  

Garfield School student Karla Delgato with Rotary Club member and tutor Betty Toguchi. Proceeds from Tour de Menlo support tutoring and field trips for Garfield students.

When Doug Adams of Menlo Park was president of the Rotary Club of Menlo Park, he started a tutoring project at Garfield Charter School .  That was 10 years ago and it's still going strong.   The 27 Rotarians who took part in the program at Garfield School this year were honored at the club's annual tutor appreciation luncheon on May 7.   During the school year, the tutors meet weekly with their charges at Garfield , a preschool through eighth-grade school in the North Fair Oaks area of unincorporated San Mateo County .

Their pupils are in third and fourth grade, the time in a student's education when he begins to learn through reading. "If kids aren't reading at third-grade level, studies show they are the least likely to be successful in their later school years," says Mr. Adams.

The tutors work with the same student each week from October to May, spending about 45 minutes a session. "It's an excellent opportunity to help on a one-to-one basis," says Mr. Adams.

The program's goal is English literacy, a challenge when the school's population is 96 percent Hispanic. Most of the children come from homes where no English is spoken, Mr. Adams says.

The tutor's teaching materials vary, from phonics books for those who are far behind in their reading skills, to National Geographic books on many subjects. The students like choosing their own subjects from the books available, says Mr. Adams.

Foundation contribute about $5,000 a year to the tutoring program. The money has been used for library books, outfitting the tutoring room with supplies, building a playground shelter, re-landscaping the front of Garfield School , funding science camp, a college day at Menlo College for the school's entire seventh grade, and funds for field trips.

In instructions given to new tutors, volunteers are asked to let their student's teacher know if they can't make it to a tutoring session. "The students really look forward to their time with their tutor and are disappointed if they are unaware you will not be there," it says.

It seems the feelings are mutual. "The tutors just love the kids," says Mr. Adams.

For more information about the program, e-mail Mr. Adams at dougadams1@aol.com.