The Tellico Lake Rotary Club continues to make a difference in Loudon and Monroe counties despite ongoing limitations associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Newly elected president John Cammack said the club resumed weekly meetings July 9.
“We’ve had two and we still meet in person, but we still spread out like we’re supposed to,” he said. “We invite people on Zoom and on Facebook Live to join us if they’re uncomfortable in person or if they’re out of town. I think the response overall is good. Now does that mean everybody’s showing up? No because we’re probably at 50 percent of people showing up, but I think a good bit of that is the fact several people are out of town. It’s not unusual for our club this time of year.”
The coronavirus has hampered many service organizations in Loudon County the last four months.
The club was forced to cancel its annual charity dinner and silent auction fundraiser in April. The dinner, Tour de Tellico and the Adventure & Activity Guide typically combine to raise $15,000 each year.
“We’ll resume doing our charity dinner and we’re hoping that we can do that next year,” Ron Randle, former club president, said. “If we can, and instead of having a guest speaker, we’ll invite local talent like musicians and singers from the schools to come and do a talent show to go along with our dinner. That’s the other big fundraiser that we use to help spread the wealth. We’re just getting back into the swing of things.”
The club donated an estimated $6,000 to various charities and $3,000 in scholarships for the 2019-20 fiscal year, Randle said.
“We’re doing as much as can,” Randle said. “We do some trail maintenance along the East Lakeshore Trail, which is something we can do. We have a tree farm that we put over in Tellico Village that we do maintenance on that occasionally. We’ve done some clothing drives for (the Good Shepherd Center). Every year, we do the dictionary distribution but that will probably come next spring.”
Randle hopes the club will be able to get involved with local school systems.
“Hopefully, we’ll be able to get back into the schools but we’ll have to wait and see,” he said. “We’re looking at other opportunities and talked about doing Adopt-a-School, but we need to get with the administrators. Maybe we can do things outside the classroom because I’m sure right now they’re going to be pretty restrictive on who comes in from outside of the school. We hope to be somewhat involved, but there’s things probably on the outside of the school buildings that maybe we’ll be able to do some projects of one kind or another.”
Cammack will face unprecedented challenges as he settles into his new role.
“Hopefully, we’ll able to conduct the club like we always have, but this COVID-19 stuff’s really thrown a monkey wrench in everything,” he said. “We’re hoping that we can get back to normal shortly, that’s No. 1. Two, we’re obviously looking for good members. That’s another priority, and part of that is getting our fundraisers back on track. We had to cancel a couple of them this year in the spring. It’s really just trying to get back to normal, which is probably going to be tough.”
The club is planning to hold the annual Tour de Tellico bike ride fundraiser Oct. 10 at First Baptist Church in Tellico Village.
Organizers are also expecting to hold the first Trek de Tellico on the same day for people who prefer to walk. For more information, visit www.tellicolakerotary.org.
“Trek de Tellico is a walking event because we felt there’s a lot of retired people in the Village and around the lake,” Cammack said. “We thought that might be something that people would be interested in. We’re putting that on the same day as Oct. 10, but it goes a little bit later than the bikes I think. We’re doing that, and right now it’s on go unless the government shuts us down for some reason. We’re going to continue with that because this is something you can totally do and social distance. It’s not a race, either one of them, but it’s just a ride just to go out and do it.”
