Rotary Club President Alison Pannell visiting the Los Alamos Daily Post Tuesday. Photo by Carol A. Clark/ladailypost.com
By CAROL A. CLARK
Los Alamos Daily Post
caclark@ladailypost.com
Alison Pannell is President of The Rotary Club of Los Alamos for 2022–23, the second time she had served in this role since joining Rotary in 2005.
The retired LANL financial analyst also has served as Rotary District Peace Scholarships Committee Chair, Rotary Youth Leadership Academy Counselor, Grants Manager, Youth Exchange Counselor, Polio Plus Committee Chair, LAPS Interact Club organizer, Distinguished Student Committee Chair, Essay Competition Committee Chair, Scholarship Committee, and has participated on the Club Board as President, Treasurer, and Club Foundation Committee Chair for Rotary International.
Pannell said one of her goals as Club President is to have improved membership growth while developing community partnerships to support numerous education and youth service projects.
“I believe that young people around the world are leading the way to create and implement solutions to achieve humanitarian goals and accelerate global problem solving,” she said. “I think our Club is well positioned to promote youth opportunities.”
Pannell also said she is extremely proud of the work the Club has done in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, providing PPE supplies to the Navajo Nation, and packaging 120,000 meals for food insecure families in Northern New Mexico. Internationally the Club has recently provided funding and clothing for Ukrainian refugees and is supporting a math remediation project in South Africa together with other clubs worldwide.
Rotarians enjoy camaraderie with like-minded professionals, and Club projects provide opportunities to develop enduring friendships. Club members who travel have friendly contacts in almost every city of the world. We offer Service Opportunities, Peace Initiatives, International Awareness, Friendship, Entertainment, an Ethical Environment, and opportunities for Leadership Development.
“Our Rotary Club is extremely active in the community,” Pannell said. “Should you consider joining us in humanitarian service? Absolutely! For more information, please contact me at 505.570.0629.”
Pannell shared her goals this year for the Club.
“My goals as President, which runs through June 30, have already been partially completed. We held our third successful Meals of Hope food campaign when, after purchasing bulk supplies, we packed, with huge community support, more than 35,000 meals that were then donated to The Food Depot for distribution to needy families in Northern New Mexico,” she said. “We greeted a student from Germany and one from Taiwan, and we sent three students abroad to Finland, France, and Japan. Club members have participated in the Fair & Rodeo parade and helped on LA Clean Up Day. We maintain the LAHS Memorial Garden and PEEC Tree House. Through Rotary Friendship Exchange, seven New York Rotarians visited us for three days, and we’ve held Purple Polio Glow, a PolioPlus fundraiser. Our Interact Club at the high school held a successful Spread the Warmth food and clothing drive, and we are participating in a Rotary International global grant, allowing us to support a South African math project, which provides quality tutoring to the underserved students at a Secondary School in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.”
Pannell added that her Club is looking forward to running the Purple Pinkie Polio awareness campaign in the elementary schools, selecting two LAHS juniors to attend Rotary’s Leadership Camp, presenting scholarships, honoring distinguished students, holding an ethics essay competition at LAMS, and supporting various extracurricular activities.
“Additionally we are very excited to be working with LAPS to develop a summer program with resilience training for students, emphasizing self-confidence and positive mental health. To this end we hope to encourage others in the community to partner with us. So ‘Watch This Space!’”, she said.
To help fund the Club’s work, the Foundation is holding a Surf & Turf event this Saturday, Feb. 25.
“The community is welcome to join us for a fun and family-friendly evening,” Pannell said. “Details can be found at https://app.galabid.com/surfandturf2023.”
Jennifer E. Jones leads Rotary International for 2022–23 as President, the first woman to be selected in the 117-year history of the organization. She is a Canadian communications executive. During her year, Jones is focusing on four presidential initiatives under the theme Imagine Rotary: advancing our commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI); creating a welcoming club experience; empowering girls; and expanding Rotary’s reach.
Pannell spoke about ways her local Club is supporting the Empowering Girls initiative.
“Our current District 5520 Governor, John Drusedum, chose Empowering Girls as one of his goals this year,” she said. “Recently, the District held a conference by the same name. I served on the committee, and we were able to draw together local and national speakers, all experts in areas of concern pertaining to girls. We brainstormed ideas to plan projects that would help young women in our communities. The following link shows the recordings from this amazing conference: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCLo7UsLq07Pvu1PYfaeChB_bM90gY8P_
Pannell explained that this project dovetails with the work of her Club in that Rotary International has seven Areas of Focus to guide service projects.
“This dovetails with what the Club is doing today because every year our Club carries out numerous youth programs,” she said. “Since 1966, our Rotary Club has developed a path to involve youth, including donating books for babies at LAMC, arranging health awareness campaigns, sponsoring essay competitions, awarding scholarships and distinguished student recognitions, offering leadership camp experiences and international youth exchange programs, and mentoring Interact, a Rotary youth club at LAHS. We also support various extra-curricular activities such as the debate and robotics teams. We hope to support the choir program, too.”
When Pannell is not busy with Rotary or other volunteer activities, she enjoys travel, hiking, skiing, opera, music, gardening and socializing with friends.
To learn more about the local Rotary Club, visit https://rotary5520.org/clubinfo/los-alamos. To learn more about Rotary International, visit https://www.rotary.org/en/about-rotary.