Each year the Otterbein Rotary awards scholarships to 3 or 4 local graduating seniors from Benton Central. This year’s recipients were Grace Adams, Tad Foster, Annie Pruitt, and Evan Mak Hoffman.
Bob Feemster presented the scholarships to Grace and Tad during a Rotary meeting this summer.
In 2017, the Otterbein Rotary purchased three Little Free Libraries and placed them around the community – Ron Thompson Park, Fellure’s Grocery Store, and the town of Greenhill.
In 2020 the libraries were spruced up by Rotarians Dave Buck, Al Hefner, Nancy Lee, and Bob Feemster.
With COVID-19 affecting the lives of everyone in our small community, the three Benton County Rotary Clubs (Boswell, Fowler, & Otterbein) worked together to obtain a $5,000 grant from the Benton Community Foundation.
With Otterbein Rotary’s portion of the money we donated “Food Vouchers” to the Benton County Food Coop in Oxford to be distributed to families needing groceries and gasoline to be purchased at Fellure’s Grocery Store.
The club also collected food at Fellure’s to donate to the Benton County Food Coop.
The club also donated Food Vouchers to Otterbein Elementary School’s “Backpack Program”. The backpacks, filled with food items and vouchers, are sent home each Friday to families dealing with food insecurity.
Benton County Retirement Village
The Otterbein Rotary Club applied for and received a grant through the Benton Community Foundation in the amount of $1,000 to purchase social enrichment activities for the 13 residents of the Benton County Retirement Village. Purchases included Bean Bag Toss, life-size checkers and tic-tac-toe, life-size dice games, jumbo 4 in a row, horseshoes, and two Wii gaming systems with an assortment of games including bowling, fishing, etc.
Pickleball Courts – Several Rotary Club members – including our president-elect, play pickleball and suggested creating a court right here in our town of Otterbein. With the blessing of the town, we hired an individual to paint the pickleball court lines on two tennis courts in the town park. We then purchased pickleball equipment as well as tennis equipment for anyone to check out from the Otterbein Town Library
A group from Otterbein traveled to Honduras over the Christmas break to build a home for a mother and her five children. Otterbein Rotary covered the cost of a new cook stove for a family in Honduras