River Falls Rotarian Ted Marsh has invited us for breakfast and a tour at Abundant Life Church's Daycare Center this week. As we enter, staff will give small groups tours around the building to minimize classroom disruptions. We'll then have our normal meeting startup with devotions, Pledge of Allegiance, Rotary 4-Way Test, mission statement, breakfast, announcements and happy bucks. After that we'll hear a brief history of the facility, staff introductions, and detail about the transition through School/Daycare/RF4C/4K and employment opportunity. Pastor Ted will describe the building remodeling process that has occurred, including what he has been up to with the building process. Where, you ask? Good question! 896 State Highway 65, River Falls. Just a couple of minutes north on Highway 65 from River Falls; please plan accordingly.
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River Falls Rotary Burger Battle
Tickets now on sale!
Sandy Tauferner and Mark Klapatch-Matthias reviewed last year’s Earthfest, which was originally planned as an outdoor event at Glen Park. The cold and wind required organizers to move to the UWRF University Center at the last minute. Among the many challenges was finding and arranging space for around 75 exhibitors from groups across the area. At the event, Earthfest volunteers handed out lots of giveaways from Culver’s and other organizations. As in past years, the sustainability pledge was offered, and they received 76 new pledges.
Again this year Earthfest will have a Bluegrass Festival artist as part of the ongoing tie-in with that event . Mark said that he’s pretty comfortable with where the planning group of about 30 local people is, given that they are about a month from the event. The first year Earthfest drew about 1000 people by informal count, the next year attendance was estimated at around 2000. The number of exhibitors has grown from around 45 to 75.
We're excited to announce that this year's winner of the 2024 River Falls Rotary Burger Battle is Tarnation Tavern! This was one of the tightest Battles we've ever seen with Tarnation Tavern narrowly beating out last year's winner, Lazy River -- by less than .034 average points! Congratulations Tarnation Tavern on being voted the BEST burger in town! And we're having our 5:01 meeting this week at Tarnation to congratulate them and hand them the trophy!
Click READ MORE for a few fun facts about this year's Battle and a message to the participating restaurants:
At our February 27th meeting, board members from Grow to Share came to receive the symbolic "big check" representing the community grant that River Falls Rotary awarded. We will invite the group back later in the year to update us on the progress in acquiring and using the tools and equipment listed in their winning proposal.
Ryan Bishop, co-founder of Flannel River, began his talk by reading a letter written by a 16 year old high school student in 1991. The young man was filled with grief after the loss of a friend, and it suggested that the individual was ready to end his life. One day spent outdoors in nature at that difficult time was instrumental in turning that life around, and that is that reason that the title of Ryan’s talk is “1 Life to Live”. The mission of Flannel River is to provide outdoor opportunities to people regardless of their abilities, limitations, or means. Flannel River can fill gaps where people lack skills, confidence, resources, or the knowledge of where and how to access the rivers that we are lucky to have in our area (though Flannel River has not limited its trips to this immediate area).