After 89 years of service the Sun Rise Rotary is retiring the club banner. Sun Risers have merged with Rotary Club of Fillmore to create a more vital, stronger club. The last meeting of the Rotary Club of Fillmore Sun Risers was held January 16 at the William L. Morris Chevrolet dealership. After presentations for special merit, the presiding member of the meeting stated, “Mr. President, the time has come to ring the bell to end this last meeting of the Rotary Club of Fillmore Sun Risers and retire the club banner.”

The following summarizes the history and notable achievements of the club.
Club Founding
Fillmore Rotary Sun Risers, founded March 28, 1985, sponsored by the Rotary Club of Fillmore is now in the twilight of its life. The members recognized the reality that to conduct the activities desired in a vital strong Rotary Club, more people needed to join together. The potential advantages of merging with the Rotary Club of Fillmore could make that possible. So, here we are today at the last meeting the Rotary Club of Fillmore Sun Risers.
One charter member remains active, John Scoles. —
Notable Achievements
An early club in the District to elect women as president – including Susan Bachman, Mike Andrews, Cindy Blatt and Irma Magana who, I think, has been our youngest president.
The club has twice been “District Best Small Club”, once when Larry Dunst was president and again under Cindy Blatt’s leadership.
PRLS – Potential Rotary Leaders Seminars
The club has been an active participant in the PRLS program. Among the present membership, we have 3 Master PRLS graduates and one who is 60% of the way to completion. We have 4 past members who also graduated from that program. We have 5 members who have completed Basic PRLS and 4 of them have made progress toward achieving Master PRLS. There are 9 other past members who completed Basic PRL
Charitable Activities
The club has a long history of local and international projects which have benefitted literally thousands of people. They run the gamut from aid to the indigenous people near Ensenada, water projects in several countries and representation on Polio National Immunization Day projects in India. Local projects focused heavily on youth providing scholarships, support for classrooms such as the dictionaries for third graders where more than 3,000 dictionaries have been provided through the years.
The Rotary Foundation
Through the years, the club has contributed more than $107,600 to the Rotary Foundation to support projects throughout the world and close to home. This is an average of over $3,800 per year during the life of the club. Through these donations, 51 different persons have been recognized as Paul Harris Fellows in addition to the good work the money made possible. In 2003 the club was the 427th Rotary Club to be recognized as a club with 100% of its members holders of a Paul Harris Fellow. (Remember there are over 10,000 Rotary Clubs world-wide.) For several years now the club has distinguished itself with every member contributing to the Foundation and the per capita giving exceeding $100 per member.
Few years later, members of the club were recognized as major donors to the Foundation. Of the 1.3 million Rotarians, these folks joined 9,000 – some Rotarians who had contributed $10,000 or more to the Foundation.
Recognized at the meeting were:
Joe Aguirre – Fund raiser par excellence for his projects – a pin with two sapphires representing his 3rd Paul Harris.
Cindy Blatt – continuous efforts in the community and substantial work on the club merger – a pin with one ruby representing her 7th Paul Harris.
Tim Hagel – for efforts above and beyond as president displaying great leadership in leading us through the merger process – a pin with his first sapphire representing his second Paul Harris.
Irma Magana – for high energy though her presidency and continued efforts in youth and New Generations – a pin with 3 sapphires representing her fourth Paul Harris.
Sean Morris – leadership as president and suburb contributions to the details supporting the merger of the clubs – a pin with 2 sapphires representing his third Paul Harris
Kyle Wilson – In recognition of his attention to detail as secretary and now as International chair – it’s been gratifying to see his Rotary horizons expand – a pin with 2 sapphires representing his third Paul Harris.
Then the time came to ring the bell to end this last meeting of the Rotary Club of Fillmore Sun Risers and retire the club banner.