Community Service Projects

Brookline Rotary is commencing its first service projects of the new term, and COVID 19 is affording us even more opportunities and challenges to serve our community than usual.  
  • We are taking advantage of the Kellogg Feeding Reading Program to provide free children's books to local family shelters.  This project involves simply purchasing qualified Kellogg products while at the grocery store, which the company exchanges for free children's books.  Details below
  • Time for our annual "School Back Pack Project".  Once again members and friends can purchase school supplies themselves or send money to the club and we will shop for you.  This year we will not gather to put the supplies together but will deliver them to our local partners for distribution.  Though the where and how of school may still be uncertain, students will still need paper and pencils, and school supplies may be the last item on stressed families' "to-buy list".  These items may be small but they mean a lot to these students.
We think the free children's books is an easy one to implement without gathering together, yet it will benefit distressed members of our community while supporting our goal to address literacy.  We are taking advantage of the Kellogg Feeding Reading program.  With this program, every qualified purchase that you make between now and Sept. 30, 2020, can be redeemed for a free children's book from Penquin Random House.  We will pool all the books and donate them to one/or more of the local family shelters.  Here is how it works:
  1. Got to the Kellogg Feeding Reading 2020 website and register. www.FeedingReading.com
  2. Look at the list of qualified products and go out and purchase 1-10 of these items.  Many of us do not eat Kellogg breakfast cereal and don't support the ingredients in many of them, but you can select from a variety of products, some healthier than others and you can donate the items to Brookline Food Pantry enabling this project to do double duty)
  3. Keep your entire receipt and upload it to your phone or computer.  If the receipt is long, it may take several photos/shots to upload the entire receipt.  Remember you can only upload 5 photos/day.
  4. Once you have been notified (which can take 72 hours) of your rewards points, you can redeem them for the books of your choosing.  Remember we are all selecting books at the same time so try to avoid choosing the obvious books like The Hungry Caterpillar.
  5. You can submit your receipts up to 10/30/20 but purchases must be made before 9/30/20.
  6. Books can be dropped off at Elias Audy's Mobil gas station (corner of Cypress and Boylston Streets), or contact Susan Rack for curbside pick up.
Please share this project with family and friends.  The more books the better.  We can always find places to donate them.  Feel free to contact Susan with questions.  
 
For School supplies, checks can be sent to the club or via electronic transfer.  Notify a member of the service committee that the money has been sent so we know what to shop for.  If you purchase the items yourself, drop off is again at Audy Mobil on Cypress St.