Rotaract of Central Alameda County

This Rotaract club has tremendous character. It has made a serious impact on the surrounding community since inception.
This club has reinforced my belief that any person’s wealth is the good that he or she does in this world.

It’s always good to see young people giving back to the community, and the Rotaract Club of Central Alameda County certainly does this with great energy and heart. They are always finding ways to volunteer where they can, providing a spark of energy & fun. Definitely check out their website and Facebook page.

As a member of Rotary, I have always encouraged young members to become active. When Rotary initiated Rotaract as a program geared to college through early career), some groups have struggled, others have truly succeeded. Rotaract of Central Alameda County has really stepped up to the plate and have been one of the success stories. They go out of their way to help many different community groups. I personally have put on a number of events (FIRST Robotics, Engineering Student Workshop for Japanese) that they have helped with. They are certainly there for all of our Rotary events. They have creative ideas and have lots of energy!

The young women and men of this Rotaract club have really taken off in their first few years of service. We in the Castro Valley Rotary Club truly appreciate the energy and creativity they have brought to their support for our own events (Annual Chili Cook Off, Valley Blues Festival, et al.)
We very much value this new addition to our service community. We hope more young professional join and start a life-​long commitment to actively working to make our corner of Alameda County a great place to live!

When I moved out to the Bay 2 years ago, I didn’t really know too many people. I was in Rotaract all through my undergrad years at UC Davis, so I decided to check out my local chapter here in Central Alameda County (AKA San Leandro, Hayward, Castro Valley). Not only did I become extremely involved with all 3 cities’ communities, I also became family with all the Rotaract members in the club.
Some background info about Rotaract: Rotaract is a Rotary-​sponsored international service club for young men and women, ages 18 – 30. Rotaract is comprised of college students, graduate students, young professionals, and innovative, lively, and compassionate community leaders. Rotaract combines community work along with professional development skills. We are part of an international family with Rotary, Interact, Interwheel, Youth Exchange, and Youth Scholars personally committed to serving our local, national, and international community.
This local chapter, Rotaract CAC, was only chartered in June 2012, so we’re a fairly young club, but don’t let that fool you. Last year I served as Community Service Director and as a club, we accomplished roughly 800 service hours with fewer than 20 charter members within a year. That year we also fundraised enough to prevent 1,500 babies in Africa from childhood AIDS through congenital transmission from our international service project: Child AIDS Prevention (CAP) project with Los Altos Rotary. We also did a continual joint Adopt-​A-​School project at the Melrose Leadership Academy in Oakland with the Oakland Sunrise Club.
We’re quite a busy club so there is always an opportunity to come out, meet us, and join our events :)
Flash forward to the present: I am now the current president and all I can tell you is that our club only gets more ambitious and passionate with time! It’s only 4 months into my term and we have already reached our fundraising goal for CAP to save 2,000 children’s lives and we have collected 2,200 toothbrushes for our current International Project: Smile Kits, where we are sending 5,000+ donated toothbrushes to rural schools and orphanages in Mindanao, Philippines through philanthropy missions.
I could probably gush on about all the awesome service projects (my favorite part), socials, and professional networking we do, but you’ll just need to come check it out yourself. Hope to see you out there and welcome to the Rotaract family: D