All of us in the Rotary Club of Three Creeks knew it would happen sooner or later.

Our own Susanne Holmberg, co-founder of the Rotary Club of Three Creeks, has been named District 5100 district governor for the 2025-26 Rotary year.
 
“Being selected as district governor to serve during the 2025-26 Rotary year is an honor and I am excited to follow incredible community leaders who all have the same passion and love for Rotary,” Susanne said. “This is an opportunity to make a difference locally and regionally, to share my vision and to make Rotary more accessible and attractive.
 
“Our Rotary clubs have an extraordinary impact in our communities, and I am proud to bring experience and vision from our Three Creeks club to inspire others,” she added. “Rotary welcomes creativity, diversity and collaboration; it is a way to change lives. We are changemakers.”
 
Susanne’s appointment was announced on Saturday, Oct. 15 by current District Governor Steve Williams, and she has already begun work with current leaders. Effective immediately, she is the district governor nominee designee, and she will begin working with her three predecessors in an intense succession program that gets her involved in district leadership right away. She’ll also shortly begin formal training from the district and from Rotary International, leading up to her year as governor.
 
“After reviewing applications, checking with references, and completing an interview with each of the candidates, the nominating committee discussed the strengths of each of the candidates,” Williams said. “After deliberating for some time, the committee has made the unanimous decision to nominate Susanne Holmberg of the Rotary Club of Three Creeks Vancouver to be District 5100’s District Governor for the Rotary Year 2025-26.”
 
Susanne has been active in District 5100 since 2006 and was instrumental in the formation of Vancouver's Rotary Club of Three Creeks in 2016. She has served as an assistant governor for the Clark County region and currently serves on the district's Learning and Development committee. She has also served on the district’s Grow Rotary committee.
 
“The members of the Rotary Club of Three Creeks are so proud and excited to support Susanne in her role as district governor,” said Rotary Club of Three Creeks President Andi Costello. “Her commitment to Rotary and to ‘Service above Self’ is evident in everything she does. We look forward to her continued innovative approaches and leadership to carry Rotary forward and be more approachable.”
 
The role of district governor in Rotary is similar that of a non-profit executive director, but as a volunteer. Susanne will be the chief executive of District 5100 which includes 66 Rotary clubs and seven Rotaract clubs stretching from Seaside and Long Beach in the west along the Columbia River to Wallowa County, Oregon in the east and from Battle Ground in the north to Stayton in the south.
 
While the Three Creeks club is Susanne’s “baby”, she had previously been a member of the Rotary Club of Vancouver, where she served as club president in 2013-14. She also served two terms as the founding president of the Three Creeks club.
 
She is also a Rotary Foundation major donor, bequest society member, Paul Harris Fellow and a member of the Polio Plus Society. When she officially takes leadership of the district on July 1, 2025, she will be the ninth District 5100 governor from a club in Clark County. She is also a board member for the North County Community Food Bank and serves on the Clark County Public Facilities Board, representing the lodging industry. Professionally, she serves as director of creative strategies and talent development for Vesta Hospitality, a national lodging company based in Vancouver.
 
She will be the first district governor from Three Creeks, and the first from a Clark County club since Barb Crozier of the Rotary Club of Camas-Washougal served her second term in the position during the 2015-16 Rotary year.
 
Past Clark County district governors include Ron Keil (Rotary Club of Vancouver, 1970-71), Sam Jones (Rotary Club of Vancouver, 1982-83), Ron Hart (Rotary Club of East Vancouver, 1987-88), Buck Heidrick (Lewis River Rotary Club, 1999-2000); Dave Jay (Lewis River Rotary Club, 2007-08), Dr. Dennis Wickham (Rotary Club of Greater Clark County, 2008-09), Barb Crozier (Rotary Club of Camas-Washougal, 2010-11 and 2015-16).

At its October 13 meeting, the Rotary Club of Three Creeks board of directors voted to appointed Kinsey Dhoot and Charla Burke to leadership positions.

Dhoot, who had previously served as the club administration director and president elect nominee, was appointed to fill the open position of president elect, following a resignation from that position.

Burke, a newcomer to the club's leadership group, was appointed to fill the opening in the club administration position following Dhoot's promotion.

In January 2023, Dhoot will begin her training to become the club's next president, a position she will rise to on July 1, 2023 and serve through June 30, 2024. Burke will serve in the club administration position through June 30, 2023.

Dhoot, who has a long history with Rotary - having served as staff advisor to an Interact Club in the Evergreen Public Schools and traveling to third-world nations for Rotary National Immunization Days in the fight to eradicate polio, will become the club's eighth president. She has been a member of the Rotary Club of Three Creeks since November 2020.

Burke is a relative newcomer to Rotary, who has become involved in the club and is passionate about its extensive service to the community. She joined the club in January 2022. This is her first service to the club's board of directors.

The Rotary Club of Three Creeks was recognized by ShelterBox International on May 5 as a Bronze Hero Award winner for the 2021-22 Rotary year.

Three Creeks included ShelterBox in its strategic giving in each of the past two years.

"This is a direct result of the grants that our club has made to ShelterBox in the last year, supporting families experiencing displacement from their homes due to natural disasters, political unrest or war," said Club President Nelson Holmberg. "So thank you to all in the club who participate in our fundraising in all of the ways that we all do."

RIDGEFIELD, Wash. – The 2022 season of Dancing with the Local Stars, presented by Banner Bank was a record-setting smash hit!
 
With a Broadway theme, eight local stars performed amazing dances and raised funds while entertaining a sold-out crowd in the Cowlitz Ballroom at ilani Casino Resort. The fundraiser for the Rotary Club of Three Creeks Foundation raised a best-ever $58,909, topping the $52,000 raised in 2021 during a pandemic-pivot virtual event, Dining with the Local Stars.
 
“I couldn’t be prouder of all of the local stars, dance pros, and – of course – of the small but mighty Rotary Club of Three Creeks,” said 2021-22 Club President Nelson Holmberg. “The fact that we were one of the community’s first major in-person fundraisers as we begin to come out of the pandemic restrictions makes it even more impressive. The giving hearts in this community never disappoint.”
 
Heidi Johnson Bixby won the coveted Mirror Ball Trophy in the 2022 event by raising a record $21,880. Cyndi Holloway of Waste Connections raised $19,082 for the previous record in 2020. Kinsey Dhoot represented the Rotary Club of Three Creeks as a dancer and raised $11,203 – the most-ever by a club representative – to finish second in fundraising.
 
Angie Cherry and her dance instructor partner Aaron Siebol scored the night's first perfect 40 from judges and won the night's Best Dance Performance. It was Siebol's second Best Dance win in DWTLS, after having paired with Kelley Campbell of Specialty Graphic Solutions for the win in 2019.
 
“It’s remarkable what this year’s cast accomplished, really,” Holmberg said. “The cast of local stars and dance pros experienced a competitor dropping out a month before the event, a new Local Star coming in a week later and quickly rising the fundraising scoreboard, three Covid isolations, changes in instructors due to Covid, snow days, difficulty finding locations to rehearse, or whatever other reason you could imagine. I personally thank this entire cast.”
 
The full cast of Dancing with the Local Stars included Cherry (Summit Funding), Dhoot (Rotary Club of Three Creeks) also dancing with Siebol, Johnson Bixby (Johnson Bixby & Associates) dancing with Ralph Stevens, Sarah Laughlin (Fuel Medical Group) dancing with Maksim Linchuk, James Oneil (Columbia Credit Union) dancing with Dani Synarski, Thomas O'Sullivan (ilani Casino Resort) dancing with Kristina Hendrickson, Nathan Stafford (Banner Bank) dancing with Melinda Piekstra, and Nic Stevens (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) dancing with Susan Vandervlugt.
 
During the event, the Rotary Club of Three Creeks Foundation also presented a check for $13,000 to North County Community Food Bank, one of the benefactors of funds raised by Dancing with the Local Stars. Since its founding in 2016, the club has given nearly $100,000 to organizations benefiting children, veterans, homeless & hungry in Clark County. All of that giving was a direct result of the club’s fundraiser.
 
Judges included dance pro Nicole Wieteska, Campbell (DWTLS winner in 2019), former Washington State University quarterback and Pac-10 Co-Offensive Player of the Year Jason Gesser and Kelly Muscarella, who won an audience drawing to be the fourth judge.
 
Master of Ceremonies for the second straight year was Tim Gordon, general assignment reporter at KGW Channel 8.
 
First Dance Productions and Bridge City Ballroom Dance produced and choreographed the dances, and provided instructor partners for the local stars.

CLARK COUNTY, Wash. – With Covid 19 still very present in Clark County and not everyone comfortable with being together in even small indoor groups, the Rotary Club of Three Creeks took the opportunity to encourage members to serve on their own.
 
January brought the “Pick your own Cause” service project to a club that’s completed nearly 70 projects in less than six years.
 
“I am proud of our members for stepping up to continue to lead by example, even in challenging Covid times,” said Rotary Club of Three Creeks Service Projects Director Tina Vlachos. “By picking our own virtual service project, we are still able to commit our time toward service in ways that we are individually driven and inspired by, but as a collaborative where we are still able to join forces and share with one another.”
 
Whether in Vancouver, Ridgefield or in Cathedral City, Calif., 17 “Three Creekers” as club members often refer to themselves, completed a total of 39 hours of service.

• Jesse Braman and his wife Amanda ran a 5k in the Clark Public Utilities’ Race for Warmth, to help raise funds for Operation Warm Heart, the PUD’s program to help those in need to pay their utility bills
• Charla Burke, Kinsey Dhoot, Chuck Green, Nelson Holmberg, Susanne Holmberg, Carol Mackey, Dan Sockle and Dan Wetmore all walked a 5k in the Race for Warmth
• Kelley Campbell donated platelets to the American Red Cross
• Louise Hoover ordered bouquets of flowers for the frontline health care workers at PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center
• Garry Lucas made homemade chicken noodle soup in a slow cooker and delivered it to neighbors who had been ill for a week
• Laura Miller and her husband Jeff picked up litter along the Salmon Creek Greenway Trail, where they also found a county key ring and returned it
• John Sandstrom generously donated to SelfWA for the Dolly Parton Imagination Library program, and to Meals on Wheels
• Jim Selby and his wife Betty took time out of their annual winter visit to Cathedral City, Calif., to pick up cigarette butts and other litter in Panorama Park.
• Kristi Straight and her daughter Annie created and delivered care packages for Office Moms & Dads
• Vlachos made Valentines cards for “Cards for a Cause”, which are provided to sick kids in the hospital.

 
“This was an encouragement for us to do more and I would say it was welcomed with open arms, turned to a great success,” Vlachos said.
In April 2020, right after the pandemic started, the club created its first-ever virtual service project as members were ready to get out and do service projects. The club designed its project within Covid restrictions and safety guidelines, and the project was a success with a dozen members contributing a total of nearly 80 hours of service, illustrating how badly people wanted to be out and about early in the pandemic.

Rotary International President Elect Jennifer Jones unveiled the Rotary Theme for 2022-23, the Rotary Year that begins on July 1, 2022.

The announcement of the theme in January is not meant to supercede the current "Serve to Change Lives" theme for 2021-22 but instead to celebrate and introduce the theme that will officially go into effect on July 1.

The theme "Imagine Rotary" is inspired by Rotary's initiative to rid the world of polio (the purple) and it's newest Area of Focus - environment (the green).

“Imagine, a world that deserves our best,” Jones told incoming district governors on 20 January, “where we get up each day knowing that we can make a difference.”

Jones told the incoming governors about a chance she took when a member asked for assistance in getting a young peace activist out of Afghanistan during the U.S. troop withdrawal last year. At first unsure how she could help, she relied on “that certain Rotary magic” and contacted a former Rotary Peace Fellow she had met a few years earlier. Less than 24 hours later, the activist was on an evacuation list, and soon she was on her way to Europe.

To better engage members, Rotary needs to “adapt and retool,” Jones said, using her hometown as an example. Windsor was once the automotive hub of Canada. But after plant closings left thousands without work, the city needed to retool, in the same way an auto plant would, preparing for new parts or a new model. Now, Jones said, Windsor is a leader in agribusiness and medical and aerospace technology.

For Rotary, “finding the right ‘part’ to engage each member should be our core function,” Jones said. “It comes down to the comfort and care of our members.”

Our January "Pick Your Own Cause" service project is an exciting opportunity for you to do whatever you'd like to do!

Whatever you choose to do, please be sure to document your chosen project with a photo and the number of hours you volunteered by sending me a quick email note or text so we can share as a group and on social media. And, there's an added BONUS if you get a non-Rotarian buddy to tag along with you on your project, and you share that on your own social media, tagging them. Please let Tina know what you and your non-Rotarian friend did so she can enter you into a raffle that will be held at one of our February club meetings!

Need some suggestions? You could do something as simple as the below:

• Donate to the United Way's Covid 19 relief fund
• Bake cookies for a single parent
• Do some yard work for a neighbor
• Pay it forward at a Starbucks or other drive through
• Consider donating blood

Or do something that takes a little more creativity or sweat equity:

• Mail out a handmade card to Cards for a Cause
• Do a neighborhood walk and pick up litter
• Drop off a meal or get well package for a sick or injured person in need
• Deliver meals for Meals on Wheels (this would be done Monday through Thursday, so please do a delivery prior to the 29th, and it will count as your act of service).
• Help a neighbor or friend paint or repair anything that needs an outdoor fix
• Consider participating in the Clark Public Utilities Race for Warmth (100 percent of race proceeds assist CPU customers with assistance paying utility bills)

OR come up with your own idea! There are loads of non-profits in the community that need volunteer help.