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Borrego Springs is a beautiful but small and isolated community in the eastern desert of San Diego County. There are very few middle class jobs here -- most families work in poorly-paid and seasonal jobs tourism support (hotels and restaurants) or agriculture/recreation (citrus groves or golf courses). 99% of our schoolchildren quality for free lunches. To supplement families' resources, several years ago our Rotary Club began distributing presents to all children in the school system, since they're easily identified; then 6 years ago or so, we began including younger children as well so that they wouldn't feel left out. We now offer gifts to all children ages 0-18 years.
This means that we now distribute over 430 gifts each December. Just purchasing the gifts is a significant effort, so we have a small team which has done this together over the years and gotten the process down so that it runs very smoothly. We get names, ages, and sex of children by family from the school district. We try to give the highest quality gifts that we can afford, and put a lot of thought into it. Art supplies, small electronics, room decor, etc. for older kids; craft & science kits, well-made toys, etc. for younger ones. We try to choose things that will be wanted and needed. Large families get an extra gift, like balls, games & puzzles, that can be used as a group. We have begun ordering all presents online, from multiple sites if need be, in order to get the range of items needed for the diverse children served.
As an added civic benefit, we now work with a recently-formed Hispanic community group in Borrego, OLAX (Organizacion de LatinX), to create a festive event for the children. On the evening of a widely-publicized date in mid-December, there is first a gathering of the families at our local park's bandstand, with children's performances, hot drinks and sweets, and a Santa Claus. Then the families drive a block away to line up in the large parking lot outside the Community Resource Center, where presents arranged by age group have been set up for distribution. There, several Interact students play an important role by going car to car, noting the families' names and ages and sexes of the children, and running into the CRC. One of the 6-8 Rotarians staffing the event takes the information, picks out age-appropriate presents, and puts them in a large plastic bag labeled with the family's name, which the students then deliver to the cars outside. Each year we improve the process and it works well.
But each year we also spend more money; for December 2023, we spent over $7000, at an average price of $16/gift. At the same time, we have decided to focus more of our community financial support on providing scholarships for students here who are going to vocational schools or colleges. The money we would save by obtaining this grant -- $3200 - would be repurposed as scholarship funds next spring.
Therefore, after I was told by Alan Turner that this kind of effort would quality for a District Matching Grant, we are requesting $3200 from the District.
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