Service Projects
On Tuesday, July 8, 2009, the Queen Anne Roary Club of Seattle dedicated a park bench in honor of its founder, Ed Philleo, who passed away last year at the age of 88.
Ed served as a Rotarian for more than 50 years. In 1982 as District Governor in the Pacific Northwest Ed promoted Rotary First Harvest into a "District Project." Since then the food bank has served hundreds of thousands of hungry people throughout the Northwest. The First Harvest Model has been replicated in other parts of the country.
The concept is simple. Rotarians in rural communities contact farmers and ask permission to glean leftover crops with volunteer labor. Then, Rotarians who own trucking firms donate the carriage to cities with their trucks which often return "dead-headed" anyway from rural trips.
The networking of Rotary makes this project work.
The bench was dedicated at Queen Anne's Kerry Overlook Park which is the vantage point of the most often photographed skyline picture of Seattle.
Korie Voorheis
