Despite a difficult year owing to the pandemic, the Noon Rotary Club made an impact.
Randy Bayliss recognized that taking over as president of the Noon Rotary Club of The Villages in the middle of the year would be a challenge.
He devised a game plan for what they intended to accomplish while balancing pandemic safety, club duties and working out where the club should move next.
With a pandemic, the Noon Rotary Club accomplished more than anyone thought.
Members of the club volunteered to collect food for local food pantries, partnered with Forwarding Paths and Friends of SoZo Kids to provide items for children and young adults, and held its annual fire safety donation, where personalized books were given to first-graders at Lady Lake Elementary School, Fruitland Park Elementary School and Wildwood Elementary School.
Bayliss, of the Village of Mallory Square said, “We donated nearly $30,000 to local, regional and international causes, plus more on an individual basis.”
Bayliss was invited to take over as president in the middle of the year. He faced the issue of keeping club members while still generating interest, unaware of what would happen with the current pandemic.
They quickly switched to various techniques to have club meetings using Zoom, which limited participation to roughly 25 members because they couldn’t meet in person.
“Over the year, the group lost about six members, but we ended up gaining nine more,” he said. “We were able to finish the year with around 60 members.”
As the year progressed, they collaborated to develop new methods to expand their mission of service to the community.
“We have several fundraisers that we plan to hold throughout the year,” Bayliss said. “Some of those include a golf outing, a contractor showcase and Carols by Candlelight concert series. It’s going to help us create a better relationship with the community.”
They worked on a variety of initiatives both locally and globally during the year, along with the Jingle Build with Habitat for Humanity.
“We were able to take second place with our playhouse during the contest,” Bayliss said. “These houses were designed per requests from the families who were set to receive them after the contest. It was a lot of fun, and it gave us a chance to bond together as a club.”
They also delivered disaster help to the Caribbean in the aftermath of hurricanes and organized a Christmas fundraiser in Guatemala to construct stoves for people who cook over an open fire.
“We wanted them to have some of the same comforts that we have but also improve their way of life.” he said.
Bayliss declared at the end of the year that Andrea Bonivich will take over as president for the coming year.
“I am hoping to grow our club membership with a focus on community active people,” Bonivich, of the Village of Charlotte, said. “We have a wide array of talented people, and I just want to add to them. We do a lot of charity work, but we also do a lot of other projects including working to identify a Rotary Global Grant Project to help change the world.”
As more people become involved in Rotary, the club welcomes them to come to a club meeting on Tuesdays at 11:30 a.m. at Wildwood Community Center or visit rotaryclubofthevillagesnoon.org for additional information.