2026 Educators of the Year

https://www.facebook.com/Palos-Verdes-Peninsula-Rotary-139617196804395/

PVP Rotary Celebrates 64th Birthday

PVP Rotary Celebrated

Our 64th Birthday at our Old Home

Palos Verdes Golf Club

We had a fine showing of attendance to celebrate our 64th birthday. A Big Thank You to Minal and Sanjay for the providing the balloons, to Norton for bringing all the Rotary meeting equipment and materials, and to the trio that talked about our club's past and current.

First Norton, who joined our club the first time in 1965, gave us lots of trivia about the early days. Then Rick Mendoza provided great remembrances of special past members in the later years, and finishing up was Greg O'Brien, who led a discussion of various scenarios of how the 4-Way test can be used to guide us in our Rotary, and other areas, of our lives.

And Thank you as well to everyone who was able to attend this special occasion!

PVP Rotary Foundation 2025-2026 Grants

The PVP Rotary Foundation Board of Trustees met on April 7, 2026 to evaluate and decide from a large number of Grant Applications received.

The following grants were approved:

Peninsula Seniors will receive $2,500 for Purchase of a Philipps Automated External Defibrillator
The Salvation Army College will Receive $2,000 for the purchase of 8-10 Chromebook devices for use by the children for educational purposes
The PV Art Center will receive $5,000 to support the PVAC Youth Studio Digital Arts lab by purchasing digital tools and equipment, such as tablets, styluses, beginner 3D and animation software, and digital filmmaking supplies.
Collage: A Place of Art and Culture will receive $8,100 to support their programs to refurbish musical instruments and equipment to be donated to students who lost access to school-provided instruments. Funds may also be used to advance their various music instructional programs.
The Rotary Club of Panaji, Goa, India will received $1,100 to contribute to their $8,500 fundraising effort to purchase 3 Fundus Photo Devices to mitigate blindness related to Diabetes in the local population. Sanjay Murty will be personally matching this grant.
Peninsula Heritage School will receive $2,500 to provide scholarships to children who would otherwise not be able to attend without financial assistance.
The Joanna Medawar Nachef Singers will receive $2,100 to provide for the travel and housing expenses for an underserved student to perform with the group at the prestigious Carnegie Hall in New York City on May 29, 2027.
Unity Water Foundation will receive $2,500 (with a matching grant from our Rotary Club) for a total of $5,000. The funds will be used to purchase additional Hippo Rollers and water filtration systems.
The Peppertree Foundation will receive $4000 to support the development of the new George F Canyon Nature Center.

The above grants were funded from the Foundation's Schaber and Long Term Investment accounts.

In addition to the above grants, $25,000 has been set aside for individual scholarships to be given to local students, including 4 scholarships for students in need at El Camino College. These are funded by Sponsors of our club's Educator of the Year event.

Revisit the Educator of the Year Celebration 2026

The Rotary Club of Palos Verdes Peninsula once again honored nine outstanding educators from public and private schools on the Peninsula at the 45^th Annual Educator of the Year event. Held at the Palos Verdes Golf Club on February 19, 2026.

World Polio Day - October 24

24 October is World Polio Day!

As World Polio Day approaches, we’re getting ready to amplify our message about eradicating polio to protect the world’s children from this devastating disease.

We’ve made tremendous progress so far, and now’s the time to intensify our fight to make polio the second human disease ever to be eradicated. In 2020, the World Health Organization’s African region was certified free of wild poliovirus, showing that eradication is possible even in very difficult circumstances.

The wild poliovirus remains endemic in just two countries — Afghanistan and Pakistan— but as long as polio exists anywhere, it remains a threat everywhere. So let’s use World Polio Day to advocate for the support we need to end polio in countries where children are still as risk.

Get involved
Take action this World Polio Day by hosting virtual and community events, creating fundraisers, and sharing posts about the importance of polio eradication on social media.

Use the World Polio Day Toolkit to find resources and tips for planning activities and promoting a polio-free world.

Download the World Polio Day Toolkit

Click here for the latest report on polio cases in the world:

https://polioeradication.org/wild-poliovirus-count/

Julia Parton - 2023 Citizen of the Year

President Julia Parton - 2023 Peninsula Chamber Citizen of the Year

Our own President Julia Parton has been selected as the 2023 Chamber Citizen of the Year.

Julia is everywhere. In addition to the Rotary Club of Palos Verdes Peninsula (where she’s a returning President) she serves on seven boards of directors: Torrance Police Foundation, Peninsula Seniors, Toberman Neighborhood Center (San Pedro), Switzer Learning Center, Palos Verdes Estates Foundation, Palos Verdes/Peninsula High School Athletc Booster Club and Palos Verdes Junior Women’s Club.

Julia has been a Rotary member for 27 years. This month, Peninsula Rotary joined an effort to collect diapers for Warren Chapel in San Pedro. A church representative came to a Rotary blood drive on Oct. 20 at Hesse Park to pick them up. The previous day, Julia ran a booth at the Torrance Chamber of Commerce business expo. Last year, she and Malaga Band won the western theme award for best decorations.

Future Plans?

"I just want to keep going," Julia says. "There are a lot of challenges around us, and I want to help out as often as I can and as long as I can,"

Return of HOVOOTM!

HOVOOTM returned to the Palos Verdes Peninsula Rotary Club on Saturday, August 26th!

“What the heck is HOVOOTM!” HOVOOTM! is the concept of our club going out into the community and doing hands-on volunteer projects every month. It is the acronym for “Hands on Volunteer Opportunity of the Month.” See, isn’t it easier (and more fun) to say or write HOVOOTM! every time we want to talk about our Hands on Volunteer Opportunity of the Month projects?

On Saturday club members participated in our first HOVOOTM, aiding the PVP Land Conservancy at the Outdoor Volunteer Day at Alta Vicente Reserve. Volunteers walked the hillsides removing invasive plant species to help preserve the native sage scrub habitat that is critical to local wildlife. Thank you so much to David Rowe and Rick Humphrey for bringing HOVOOTM back! And for club members for participating.