Meet Mando and Jay

The club’s last meeting of August moved outdoors. Corporal Taylor and Corporal Lynn brought the Beaumont Police Department’s K9 unit to the August 27 meeting, and members followed them out to the lawn beside the Chatigny Center to meet the department’s two dogs, Mando and Jay, and watch them work.

Also on hand were Lieutenant Jeremy Harris, who oversees the department’s K9 program, management analyst Tara Chamberlin, and Hailey Petta of the Office of the Chief. The club is grateful to all of them for making the time, and to the two corporals for a program that got members out of their chairs.

On August 20, Chris Boatman, city manager for the City of Beaumont, took the club’s podium for a City of Beaumont overview — the goals, the departments, and the investments shaping the next few years of city life.

Boatman came to Beaumont this spring, appointed in May and sworn in at the June 2 city council meeting. He arrived from the City of Redlands, where he served as assistant city manager, bringing roughly seventeen years of municipal management behind him.

The priority he set out is a plain one, and the club quoted it back to him on his certificate: to ensure the city continues to deliver reliable, high-quality services while planning responsibly for the future. That is not a case a room of Rotarians needs to be talked into. It is the same instinct that puts a bicycle rack at the library and a Peace Pole outside a community center. Do the useful thing now, and build it to last.

School is back in session, which makes the next few weeks the ones that decide whether Beaumont Interact picks up a new class of students this year. Rotary’s youth work runs well past the club’s own Thursday lunch, and this is the part of it every member can help with directly.

Interact is open to students ages 12 to 18, middle school included. The club meets every Thursday at 6:00 PM at the Albert A. Chatigny, Sr. Community Center, 1310 Oak Valley Pkwy. Students take on real service projects, log verified service hours, and build a first working relationship with adults outside their family and their school.

Two printable Interact flyers are now posted on the club website, ready to hand to a student, a parent, a teacher, or a school office. Over the summer, Interact members also ran a book collection for the club’s Little Libraries — hundreds of donated titles, sorted and shelved by students, keeping free books in circulation across town.

If you know a student who belongs in that room, the fastest useful thing you can do is forward a flyer. Interact advisor Ary Hernandez can be reached at 909-848-3489, and the club posts its work on Instagram at @beaumontinteract.

The Senior Thanksgiving Dinner returns on Saturday, November 14 — the club’s longest-running project, a free holiday meal for Beaumont and Cherry Valley seniors served every year since 1971.

The placemats on those tables carry sponsor advertising, and they are being sold now: $25 for a business-card-size spot, $50 for double that size. It is an unusually direct piece of local advertising, sitting in front of a guest for the length of a meal, and every dollar goes toward putting that meal on the table.

Contact Yami Goldberg at 909-841-3753 or simplygold35@gmail.com. Artwork and payment are due no later than November 7. If you own a business, or bank with one, or buy your tires from one, this is an easy ask to make on the club’s behalf.

A new district website. District 5330 launched a rebuilt site in August at district5330.org. Worth a bookmark for grant information, the district calendar, and training registration.

A new District Governor Nominee. Jeri Simpson of the Rotary Club of Lake Arrowhead was elected on August 22 and will serve as District 5330 governor in 2028–29. She is in her second term as her own club’s president and currently chairs the district’s Rotaract program.

Corazón Home Build, September 11–13. The district’s international service weekend in Mexico builds a house for a family over three days. Seats on the bus have been going quickly; registration runs through DACdb.

Rotary Leadership Institute, September 19. Parts I, II, and III all run here in Beaumont, at Beaumont Presbyterian Church. RLI is the district’s foundational training for members who want to understand how Rotary actually works, and this time it is a short drive rather than a weekend away.

The governor visits October 1. District Governor Richard Lemire makes his official visit to the club, meeting with the board before joining the full club at lunch. Plan on being in the room.