Club Projects

Below is a comprehensive list of our Club Projects. To sort the list by status of the projects, use the category list on the right side of your screen.

Andover Caring and Sharing

Our club supports this annual Christmas community service outreach to needy families both financially and with volunteers. WE work with the local police department, fire department, and other charitable organizations to collect donations of toys and food products from the community. The toys are then made available to families in need free of charge so that they can have presents as well as a family meal over the holiday season.

Andover Food Bank

The Andover Rotary Club has been a strong supporter of the Andover Food Bank [ http://www.andoverumc.com/andover-community-food-bank ] for many years. In a strong Partnership with the Andover United Methodist Church we help to ensure that the shelves remain stocked with supplies for those families in the community who may be experiencing need up to once per month and six times per year. You can help this worthy cause by visiting the link provided above!

Andover Hometown Christmas

We serve in various capacities at this event by collecting toys and canned goods for Caring and Sharing, serving hot chocolate, promoting free sign-up for the Dolly Parton Imagination Library book club, and helping children make crafts and s’mores.

Andover Literacy Project

One of the core initiatives for the Andover Rotary Club is Supporting Education (to see the six main focus areas go to https://www.rotary.org/en/our-causes ). The Andover Rotary Club is built an outreach program to provide reading materials to at risk children in our community.

Andover Summer Lunch Program

During the school year there are programs that families in the school district can take advantage of to supplement their dietary needs, but these same programs are not available when school is not in session. To fill this gap in support, the Andover Rotary Club is proud to partner with the Andover Food Bank by helping to staff and supply a weekly lunch program for those in need in our community. Stations are set up at local schools over the summer where families can stop by to collect nutritious lunches for the week as they need.

Clean Water in Zimbabwe

Over the past few years and exciting opportunity has, and is, being realized for the Andover Rotary Club to support children and families in the Chiredzi River Basin in Zimbabwe by providing not only clean water but other village needs as well. Through a partnership with the Chiredzi River African Wildlife Trust (CRAWT - http://crawt.org/ ) and their resources on the ground in Zimbabwe, we have already provided clean drinking water to two separate schools with almost 1,000 students.

Cuban Water Filtration Project

The Rotary Club of Andover partnered with Larry Cox of Hope Community Church to purchase and install a water filtration system in rural Cuba. This is the seventh such system that Larry and his team have installed, and the first in several years since Cuba closed their borders due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Greater Andover Days

Greater Andover Days is held every fall and the communities largest social event with over 5, 000 people attending annually. The festival includes a food court, KidFest, 5K fun run, parade, fishing clinic, car show, business expo / craft fair, carnival, ice cream social, live entertainment and a fireworks show in Andover Central Park. The Rotary Club is proud to volunteer extensively to make this annual community bonding event the success that it is.

Hands2Serve

The Rotary Club of Andover works in partnership with the City of Andover, Andover Fire Department, Andover Rental Center, and several local churches to help our neighbors who need assistance with cleaning up their properties. Projects include yard work, hauling trash, painting and some light carpentry for those who do not have the physical ability or resources to do this work themselves. The projects are submitted by various senior centers, city and county departments, local nonprofit organizations, and participating churches.

Haus of Brews

Our club's annual major fundraiser, Haus of Brews is a unique craft beer sampling event featuring local homegrown craft breweries, catered food buffet, dessert and live music outdoors in the Fall in Andover. The event is held at Treescapes, 1202 N. Andover Road. Grab your friends, family and co-workers and come join us! All proceeds benefit local community service projects.

Kids4Kids

Kids 4 Kids is an organization made up of Andover high school students who serve disadvantaged children throughout the community. The Andover Rotary Club is proud to sponsor this worthy organization through various efforts such as supporting their annual major fundraiser and assisting with the delivery of donated presents for their annual Christmas store for foster children.

Memory Books for Kindergarteners

Our club provided notebooks for teachers to use for student memory books.

Perfect Pairings (P2)

Our biggest event, an international-themed wine & food tasting fundraiser held annually in the Spring at Terradyne Country Club in Andover. Funds are raised through ticket sales and auction items, and benefit our many local and international service projects.

Polio Eradication

Rotary, along with our partners, has reduced polio cases by 99.9 percent worldwide since our first project to vaccinate children in the Philippines in 1979. We are close to eradicating polio, but we need your help. Whether you have a few minutes or a few hours, here are some ways to make a global impact and protect children against polio forever [ https://my.rotary.org/en/take-action/end-polio ].

Rotary District 5680 Refugee Project

The Rotary Club of Andover is partnering with nine other area Rotary clubs (Derby, El Dorado, Newton, East Wichita, West Wichita, Sunrise, Old Town, and Downtown Wichita) in our district to provide refugee aide. Together, we are helping the Wichita office of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) resettle hundreds of families fleeing Afghanistan and other crisis zones. IRC helps refugees find homes, jobs, English classes, and connects them with resources to help them transition to their new environment.

RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Awards)

Every year the Andover Rotary Club provides scholarships to select USD 385 and USD 402 Juniors to attend the RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Awards) camp held each summer at Southwestern College [ http://www.sckans.edu/undergraduate/leadership/rotary-camp/ ]. This camp is an opportunity for these students to learn teamwork and leadership skills over the summer so that upon their return to school as seniors they can have a meaningful and positive impact at the school and in the community.

School Desks for the Ruware School in Zimbabwe

One of the great things about service to others is being able to build relationships across the world, and while in Zimbabwe on our clean water project it came to the attention of our club that while our past efforts with sponsoring school desks had gotten every student off of the ground and at a desk at the smaller school of 170 students, the Ruware school with over 600 still had about two thirds of its students sitting on the ground. To help out the Andover Rotary Club donated funds to build desks that would get another 60 students off of the ground.

School Mini-Grant Program

The goal of the Rotary Club of Andover grant program is to engage our children and youth in opportunities that develop civic engagement and service attributes while creating positive change within our community. This grant program supports the Kansas Social, Emotional, and Character Development (SECD) standards that encompass practicing good citizenship as respectful, responsible, empathetic, and ethical individuals. Andover classrooms or school organizations can apply for mini-grants of up to $500. Our primary areas of focus are:.
• Leadership
• Community Service

Sunlight Children's Advocacy & Rights Foundation (SCARF) Basketball Court

The Andover Rotary Club teamed up with the Andover YMCA, Academy Sports and APAC Wichita to add a basketball court to the backyard of the SCARF home in Andover, KS ( http://www.scarfks.org/ ). This project will provide children of all ages served by SCARF a much needed outdoor activity during their stay while maintaining a safe and secure environment for the children.

The Ride

Our club provided volunteers for this local firefighter support and fund-raising event at Timbuktu in Andover.

Wreaths Across America

Rotary Club of Andover has partnered with Friends of the Andover Cemetary to support Wreaths Across America. There are slightly over 200 veterans in the Andover Cemetary. Our goal is to remember and honor our veterans by laying wreaths on their graves in December each year.

Zimbabwe Sunflower Oil Project

The Zimbabwe Sunflower Oil project encourages farmers in Zimbabwe to grow sunflowers and harvest them for seeds. Harvested seeds are taken to the project’s refinery where they are refined into cooking oil. The project’s goal is to enable farmers to practice Sustenance agriculture, which occurs when farmers grow crops to meet their needs and then have enough produce remaining to sell for extra income.

“I Like Me” Books

We provided personalized books to kindergarteners in Andover schools. We presented the books in person to each child, in every class.