Since 2012, The Rotary Club of Anaheim has provided backpacks to students in Anaheim. In this program, we annually provide hundreds of backpacks stuffed with all of the school supplies the students will need for their school year. These backpacks are provided to lessor affluent elementary school students who would otherwise have to do without these necessary classroom supplies. In 2022, 500 loaded backpacks were distributed. After a couple of years of delivering remotely, we were once again able to distribute to some of the students directly.

The Neighborhood Clean-up program is back on a twice-yearly schedule with Spring and Autumn clean-ups. The Rotary Club of Anaheim works with City of Anaheim to pick up litter, haul away oversized items, and remove graffiti. All are welcome, with neighbors, local youth groups and Interact clubs participating. In addition, the Anaheim Fire & Rescue has been out to give away and fit bicycle helmets for the local children. As the neighborhood is getting cleaned up, look for more activities to combine with the clean-up.

Starting in April 2023, the club has been a participant in The Day of the Child. The event, held by Biker’s Against Child Abuse (BACA), The Raise Foundation and Higher Ground Youth & Family Services, brings together service organizations and a carnival for children. Parents can get useful information from local organizations, as well as Anaheim Public Organizations, while children participate in carnival games, food and raffle prizes. In April 2024, the club, along with the Rotary Club of Newport Mesa gave away and fitted 80 child bicycle helmets. The event also hosts a mobile library and a clinic that can make reading glasses on the spot. A great event for the local community in Anaheim!

Starting in the 2022-2023 Rotary Year, the Rotary Club of Anaheim has joined the Community Quinceanera project led by the Muckenthaler Cultural Center. The Community Quinceanera is a group celebration for young women at risk. Due to “risk”, photos of the event cannot be shown. The event provides a Quinceanera experience, including gowns, jewelry, etiquette lessons, dance lessons, and empowerment lessons. In October 2022 & 2023, the Club provided funds for the food at the event. This an important event in a young women’s life, and the Community Quinceanera provides this important rite of passage for young women who need it most. We hope to be able to support this great event for many years to come!

Each year, the Rotary Club of Anaheim participates in the annual Holiday Celebration at the Braille Institute of Anaheim. Anaheim Rotarians help prepare and serve meals to the institutes’ clients. After a break, due to COVID, the annual event came back in December 2023.

Rotary has Partnered with the Love Our Cities program across the county. In Anaheim, Love Anaheim holds weekly good panties and partners with Better Way Anaheim to provide community service projects for those who are homeless will provide basic work experience as well as access to additional services. The Rotary Club of Anaheim supports Love Anaheim with sponsorships of projects for seniors in need. Shown in the picture is the Senior Encouragement Card project conducted at the Dale Junior High School Servathon on January 21, 2023. The Club help sponsor the Senioe Care Packages and co-led the card project shown.

Since 2014, the Rotary Club of Anaheim has participated in a single day house build in Mexico. The Club, along with other clubs from Rotary District 5320 (Southern California) sponsor the house build, through Corazon, Mexico, and send volunteers by bus to Mexico for the build. The project in February 2020, built two homes in Tecate, Mexico, in a single day. The program returned in 2023, and is now back on a yearly schedule.

In 2020, the Rotary Club of Anaheim joined as one of the many clubs that support the Guatemala Literacy Project (GLP),. The GLP is one of the largest grassroots, multi-club, multi-district projects in Rotary. More than 600 clubs and 80 districts have been working together since 1997 to improve education for underserved students in Guatemala. In that time, nearly 225,500 students have been served through four sustainable programs that are tested and proven to work. In 2017, then-RI President Ian Riseley called the GLP “the gold standard of Rotary projects” for its sustainability and impact. Starting in 2023, the club has sponsored a specific student for higher learning. This support continued in 2024 and we hope to be able to sponsor more students in the future.

The Rotary Club of Anaheim provides food and transportation for over 100 underprivileged children from the Boys and Girls Club, YMCA, Cops4Kids, and Orangewood Home to the San Bernardino Mountains each year. In partnership with the National Parks Service, the children spend a day of fishing and other outdoor educational programs. During the years that Jenks Lake is not available due to environmental conditions, the children spend the day at Oak Glen Nature Preserve in a comprehensive educational program.

The Rotary Club of Anaheim has partnered with AYUDA, a non-profit organization that provides free dental services to underprivileged children and adults locally as well as on an international level. The Rotary Club of Anaheim established this partnership over 26 years ago, purchasing portable dental equipment and providing other funding that makes these dental clinics possible. A member of the Rotary Club of Anaheim is a dentist who taught at USC and enlists his students through the oversight of AYUDA to provide dental care in these clinics. Clinics supported by the Rotary Club of Anaheim have taken place all over the world, including Central America, Asia, and Europe. Local clinics are held at an Anaheim elementary school on an annual basis and serve 100 students each year.