Christmas Toys:

Since 2011, the Borrego Springs Rotary Club has proudly hosted the annual Christmas Toy Giveaway – a heartwarming tradition rooted in compassion and community spirit. Originally created to support families facing financial hardship, the program began with volunteers delivering gifts directly to homes in need.

Today, every child in Borrego Springs receives a gift. The Toy Giveaway is now a festive drive-through experience at the Community Resource Center with Santa and the elves bringing joy to hundreds of families. With help from Interact Club members, our Rotary Club members select and distribute high-quality, age-appropriate gifts to ensure every child feels seen.

For this Christmas our Rotary Club spent $6,850 to uplift spirits, reminding us all of the power of selfless giving.  We distributed 300 toys on December 14th.  This year we have a $3,000 matching grant for toys.  If you help us fulfill the match, we can use already donated funds for other worthy projects

Borrego Springs Youth and Seniors Center:

The Children’s Center was opened in 1985 as the first Day Care program in Borrego Springs offering childcare to children ages 18 months and up. With qualified and specially trained staff, the Children’s Center now offers childcare to children from birth to 5 years of age. It also offers care to children who come at midday from the elementary school.

The Children’s Center offers parents comfort in knowing their child is in a safe and warm environment while they are at work. Each parent can continue to work while the Center prepares their child for Kindergarten. The Center has offered childcare to about 800 children, who have grown up to be wonderful, productive adults.

Our Rotary Club provides (modest) funding to the Center each year. We would like to provide more.

Borrego Springs Welcome Signs:

The Borrego Village Association (BVA) has designed and solicited funding for new Welcome to Borrego signs. The signs will support our residents and businesses, reflecting their pride in our community, and will communicate to visitors that Borrego welcomes them as a friendly, attractive and vibrant place to recreate, shop and dine. Our Rotary Club helped with funding.

Borrego Days Festival:

The Borrego Springs Chamber of Commerce plans and arranges funding for Borrego Days. Our Rotary Club supports the Chamber with our membership and by helping to fund the Borrego Days Festival. Last year’s donors are helping to fund this year’s Borrego Days. Please consider helping us contribute to next year’s Borrego Days Festival.

Borrego Springs Community Concert:

Founded in 1975, the Concert Association’s mission is to bring high quality, eclectic music to our community enriching the cultural landscape of our area. Almost every year Our Club allocates some of our donated funds to Community Concert. The concerts are a significant source of cultural enrichment and one key part of the multitude of arts that our residents enjoy.

Borrego Springs History Museum:

Mitzi Matijevich recently purchased the former offices of the Borrego Sun and has converted the building into a museum of the history of Borrego Springs. Our Rotary Club is the first community organization to help fund the first documentary our new History Museum is producing. This year our donation was modest. Please consider helping us contribute more next year.

Orphanage:

For many years our Club has provided support to an orphanage in Mexicali, Mexico that is overseen by Ernie Loza. We have provided funding to help build the orphanage, provided furniture so kids would have beds, tables, etc. and have provided funding for operational expenses. The orphanage has helped many parentless children grow up  and develop into self-sufficient, productive citizens.

POLIO:

The eradication of polio is one of the Rotary Foundation’s longest standing and most significant efforts. Along with our partners, we have help immunize more than 2.5 billion children against polio in 122 countries. We have reduced polio cases by 99.9% worldwide. Our Borrego Springs Club contributes to this initiative every year.

Three Worthy Programs:

Since Last season our Club had some additional money to donate and individual members supplemented it so we could donate $2,000 spread over the three programs below.

Boys and Girls Club: Club programs are designed to help kids develop physically and mentally by gaining self-confidence, knowledge, and perspective on their future opportunities. This is done in a fun environment supervised by trained staff.

Borrego Springs Little League: Our Club contributed to Little League so it could purchase some sports equipment as well as uniforms for kids who did not have them.

Borrego Ministers’ Association (BMA) Program: The BMA’s  Emergency Air Conditioner Loan Program helped a number of families survive extreme heat this summer. We, as a Club and individuals purchased two air conditioners for BMA’s program.