Can we fix the world? Can we fix our island?
Maybe. Maybe not. But we can try. And that is why we have Rotary.
Rotarians on St. Croix work together on dozens of projects each year to improve the lives of all of us. Over this Rotary year, 2024-2025, one club alone, the Rotary Club of St. Croix Mid-Isle, completed the following projects:
Rotary Mid-Isle partnered with Ocwen Property Management to provide $28,000 in scholarships for public school graduates headed for college (thirty years, ongoing).
Rotary Mid-Isle worked with the VI Department of Education to produce the Mathcounts Competition for Junior High scholars (thirty years, ongoing).
Rotary Mid-Isle was the major donor partnering with the VI Bar Association and the VI Department of Education to support the Moot Court Competition for high school students interested in a career in law.
Rotary Mid-Isle partnered with Rotary Harborside and The Lighthouse Mission to feed the homeless in Christiansted on Saturday mornings (twenty-six years, ongoing).
Rotary Mid-Isle partners with The Buccaneer Hotel and Resort by inviting high school freshmen to a Vocational Careers Seminar/Job Shadow Day that includes short presentations by tradesmen who explained how they received training to pursue a vocational career, lunch at the hotel, and a tour of the facilities emphasizing vocational opportunities available right here on St. Croix (twenty-five years, ongoing, the next seminar will be in the Fall of 2025).
Rotary Mid-Isle has landscaped the Golden Rock Triangle Peace Garden (over twenty years, ongoing).
Rotary Mid-Isle partnered with the University of the Virgin Islands School of Business for our twenty-sixth annual Entrepreneurship Seminar in which fifteen local business persons, many of them public school graduates and under forty, shared how they wrote their business plans, gained the experience, and sought funding to follow their dreams (twenty-five years plus, ongoing).
Through our “Captains of Education” program, Rotary Mid-Isle partnered with a major corporation (that wishes to remain anonymous) on island to fund three valuable educational projects, including the renovation of the school courtyard at Alfredo Andrews School – led by the sixth grade class; a business career preparation conference for Central High School students; and a planned French Immersion program for students at The Complex High School for a trip to Montreal, Canada. Each project was granted $5,000.
Rotary Mid-Isle supported the Herbert Grieg Home in their time of need when their kitchen burned, ensuring that residents had cooked meals brought in every day until the kitchen came back into operation, then partnering with THE MARKET to resupply the kitchen with essential utensils and condiments, also items for sanitation and comfort for the residents.
Rotary Mid-Isle continues to contribute to the Rotary Foundation, which is working to eradicate polio from the face of the earth and has helped reduce malaria by 50% over the last ten years in the southern region of Zambia, the most malaria-ridden area on the planet (over $324,000 to the Rotary Foundation from Mid-Isle members so far, over thirty five years, plus $91,000 this month from Mid-Isle Rotarian David Hayes’ estate).
Rotary International is the worlds largest membership organization whose members do service projects, consisting of over 46,000 clubs worldwide with 1.4 million members. On St. Croix, our four clubs consist of we, your neighbors, who use a little of our time to make our world a better place for us all. We cannot fix St. Croix, and we cannot fix the world. But we can never give up trying. Join us! Speak with a Rotarian in your friendship circle or neighborhood, and become part of the solution. To learn more about how you can become part of the solution, you can join Rotary Mid-isle at Teddy’s new event center at Five Corners on June 28th at 5:30 p.m. as we install 2025-26 incoming President Jaqueline Heyliger and her Board. Guest speaker will be Judge Wilma Lewis, and the program will feature a performance by the Guardians of Culture Mocko Jumbies. Tickets are available on EVENTBRITE.
Now’s your chance. Together, we can do our best to make the world, and our island, a better place. We hope to see you soon!
Stan Joines, President, Rotary of St. Croix Mid-isle, 2024-25
