In December, the members of Boise Sunrise approved a cash card donation project which benefitted numerous Treasure Valley families dealing with cancer diagnoses as well as a very effective non-profit organization advocating for STEM education in a unique manner.
In all, ~$3200 was collected from the club and the initial recipients were 5 families where the mother was dealing with active cancer treatments.
The testimonials about the effect that these cash cards had on these families are captured below along with some pictures of those families.
I wanted you to have a little information on the women who will be receiving your club's generous gift.
Jenny - 39 years old, married with two children, ages 4 and 1-1/2. Her husband has had to quit his job to care for the family. She has metastatic breast cancer and is terminal.
Rebecca - 49 years old with 4 children. Has stage II breast cancer
Jordan - 32 years old with a child 2 and is pregnant and due in March. Has a rare form of metaplastic aggressive breast cancer.
Allison - 42 years old, with two young girls. Has breast cancer.
Amy - 48 years old - Is divorced and has a 15 years old daughter. Has reoccurrence of breast cancer, after 4 years. Had a mastectomy and is doing chemo.
Please let your group know how much this is going to mean to these women. Everyone of them is so excited to be able to surprise their recipient with this gift.
I also wanted to share pictures of all the wonderful ladies that received your generous gift from Boise Sunrise Rotary. These ladies and our volunteers were in tears. They were all so grateful. A few of them have asked for an address so they can send a thank you. The top picture is Amy, the next is Jordan, then Rebecca, then Allison and last is Jenny.
This is a wonderful thing that your club has done for these families. Thank you everyone for what they have done. We look forward to meeting everyone one day.”
Along with supporting these families, an additional $780 was presented to Devin Nakano and his non-profit YSTEM & Chess. About 80 students from Whittier Elementary and Taft Elementary are participating in this program. The 2023 Idaho State Chess Championships will be held this spring in Boise and a number of Devin’s students are going to compete. There is a tangible connection between chess skills and STEM skills and part of Devin’s approach is to position these students for careers in STEM jobs. His results so far have been immediate and impressive as evidenced by the story and photo below of one of his students becoming the state champion in 2022.
“The Y STEM and Chess Inc. (YSC) program has been such an amazing opportunity for June. She went through a lot over the last couple years but since finding Y Stem, her growth has been incredible. She now has incredible focus and her self esteem has skyrocketed!
June is now a State Champion in Chess and testing in the top 1% of her grade. June is eager to start learning computer science and cybersecurity. I’m so thankful for the YSC program and she LOVES it.”
-Jasmine, Board Member, Mother of June, Stanley and Shirley (all of whom are Y Stem students).
At Boise Sunrise, we are always looking for projects that leave it better than we found it. The Cash Cards at Christmas (and sometimes into February…) have always been a popular project with our club members. This year, those funds went in two different directions. The impact that they triggered is wonderful to share with all of our District 5400 Rotarian brothers and sisters. This kind of Service Above Self is what charges our batteries as we seek to serve our hometowns in varied and effective ways!