July 30, 2002: District 7150 lost a great Rotarian Saturday at 7:30 am when 22 year Eastwood member, Gordon Ketchum, collapsed while walking in a "walk for the cure" with his son Gary in Oswego. Gordie served as our attendance scribe for many years and was a one man sunshine committee. He took care of cards and flowers to the sick, delivered poinsettas to the shut ins at Community General Hospital, and volunteered for many years at the dome. Founder of the Ketchum Insurance Agency, Gordie was sponsored into Eastwood by his son and will be missed by all. In addition to Rotary, Gordie was a 20 year volunteer at Community General Hospital and served as a guidance counselor to the candystripers who worked there. He had just celebrated his 59th anniversary to Lois. Gordie was 80. - Shared by, Gary Katz

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4/99 The Eastwood Rotary Club will once again host our inbound exchange students for a weekend of fun on April 7, 8 and 9th, 2000. Students will stay with Eastwood Rotarians for the weekend and be hosted to a pizza party on Friday night, an educational trip on Saturday, and a dance and pot luck dinner on Saturday night. We look forward to this event each year, and our club is excited to meet our new ambassadors. - Bud Floor

5/99 - Eastwood has now set the dates for their annual Create-A-Book project during which over 200 kindergarten children will be given customized book that encourage literacy skills and promote shape and number recognition. Rotarians from throughout District 7150 are invited to witness this wonderful event as the books are given out at Elmwood Elementary School on Tuesday, June 8th and at Heman St. Elementary School on Wednesday, June 9th.

Each day starts at 9 am. Elmwood should be completed by 11:30 in order to let everyone get back to Casa DI Copani for guest speaker Kim Peak, the original Rain Man, who will address the club at the Tuesday noon meeting. The Heman St school project should end at around 2 p.m Elmwood is located on Syracuse's South Side, off of South Ave, while Heman St. is located in East Syracuse off of Route 298.

Please contact Create-A-Book publisher Dan Morrow of Morrow Graphics if you would like to witness this project. Dan can be reached at 425-0051. It would make a wonderful project for any club and any school in District 7150. Each book is custom imprinted with the child's name, friends names, and other personal information built right into the story line. By incorporating this personalization, the will to learn is brought forward.

Each child wants to read his name and the story, and be able to share this with friends. During the classroom session, each class is taught how books are made, parts of the book such as the title page, are discussed and a book is created from scratch for the teacher. Then each child gets their very own book. This is the third year Eastwood Rotary has given these books to children. - by PE Gary Katz

4/99 - Once again, Eastwood will be firing up the Create-A-Book engines, giving out over 200 customly designed books to over 200 kindergartners at Elmwood Elementary on Syracuse's South Side and at Heman Elementary in East Syracuse.

The books are tentatively scheduled to be given out during the last week of April and Rotarians from other clubs are invited to Participate and see how the project works.

Under new Create-A-Book distributor Dan Morrow, a Syracuse Rotarian, we do five or six classes in each school. We show the kids how books are made by creating one for their teacher. Each book also includes shape and color recognition exercises which we review. Then we pass out the books, each one with the child's picture, name, friend's names, favorite color, etc printed right in the text! Contact Dan Morrow at Morrow Graphics at 901 James St., Syracuse, to see this wonderful project work.

This marks the third year Eastwood has sponsored the program. Every kindergarten child in each school gets a book, takes it home, and finds someone to help him or her learn to read it. It definitely promotes literacy! - by PE Gary Katz

Rotary Club of Eastwood is in their 19th year of serving the public at the Syracuse University Carrier Dome. They also worked two years at Manley Field House before its close. Rotarians and spouses from Eastwood, Rotarians from other clubs, friends and relatives work a concessions stand preparing from scratch and baking pizza, grill hot-dogs, coneys and sausage sandwiches.

We also grill peppers and onions for the sausage sandwiches, prepare nacho dishes in two sizes, bake pretzels and salt them, serve popcorn, candy and dishes in two sizes, bake pretzels and salt them, serve popcorn, and candy, and pour a variety of soft drinks in two sizes.

We estimate that this seasons alone with 25 events (6 football, 18 basketball, 1 concert) we will have put in at the very minimum 2,370 man/woman hours of work. We are certain that this project is the largest and longest running of any club in the district and even in the entire Rotary World. The motto of Service Above Self goes far beyond the projects that this club undertakes in the areas of Educational and Charitable work.

This club of 45 members is active at Camp Goodwill, Samaritan Center, Ringing the Bell for the Salvation Army, WCNY, Holiday shopping for needy families, Gift of Life, Create-a-Book for children, International Youth Exchange, Community General Hospital, Bingo Monday and Wednesday at the Jewish Home of Central New York, Nursing Scholarships, Literacy Volunteers, Food Pantry, and many others. All of the fund raising comes from the Carrier Dome and selling Entertainment Books.

Eastwood Rotary will host the 1999 District Conference in Montreal. The club will not be able to work at the Carrier Dome on October 2nd and will certainly lose over $1,000. that day. Each person who is asked to join Eastwood Rotary learns in a very length Rotary Information meeting about how active our club is and aggress to become active in the causes of Rotary. We have a very high bar to carry into the future, and we must be sure that it continues. - by Historian Stanley Rubenstein