Videos About Rotary
Rotary Volunteers at School Fuel
Rise Against Hunger
Providing Free School Supplies
Working With Texas State Students
Women in Rotary
Supporting the Environment
Supporting School Fuel
Funding Scholarships
Rotary Study Abroad Program
Welcome to the Rotary Club of San Marcos
Monica Gutierrez Discusses the Rotary Foundation on November 4
Monica Gutierrez is this year’s District Rotary Foundation Chair. She will speak to our San Marcos club about the Foundation on November 4. November is Rotary Foundation Month.
Monica has an extraordinary amount of experience with Rotary. She has been a member of the San Antonio North Central Rotary Club for 22 years and served as Rotary District 5840 Governor in 2023-2024. Monica represented Rotary in Northern India in 2010 as part of a National Immunization Day polio vaccination effort. In 2012 she spent a month in Southern India leading a Rotary Group Study Exchange Team.
She graduated from Texas A&M College Station with a BS degree in Industrial Engineering and has been employed at H-E-B for 28 years. She current serves as IT Program Manager for the Digital Manufacturing team.
The Rotary Foundation is the charitable arm of Rotary International. It is a non-profit corporation that funds international humanitarian, educational, and cultural exchange programs to advance world peace and understanding. It is supported by voluntary contributions from Rotarians and friends of Rotary and provides funding for service projects in the U.S. and all around the world. San
Marcos Rotary has received many District Grants funded by the Rotary Foundation.
Fredericksburg Nonprofit Provides Free Medical Care to Villages in Mexico
Misión De Candelilla (MDC) is a non-denominational Christian medical mission organization. The Fredericksburg, Texas based group sends medical mission teams to nine villages (ejidos) in rural Northern Mexico six times a year to provide free medical care, free prescriptions, and spiritual support for communities (mdcmexico.org). Kelly Graham is a pastor and the Executive Director of the organization. He will share information about MDC at the Rotary Club of San Marcos meeting at noon on Wednesday, December 16 at the VFW Hall, 1701 Hunter Road. Visitors are always welcome at Rotary meetings.
In 1986 a small team of medical volunteers made their first trip to Boquillas and Las Norias. The project expanded over the years to nine villages in the remote northern Mexican desert close to Big Bend National Park. Seven are in the Mexican State of Coahuila and two in far eastern Chihuahua.
In addition to medical care MDC provides wellness clinics in small schools, helps with construction projects, and provides school supplies to children. The Rotary Club of San Marcos purchases and packs hundreds of bags of school supplies each August that are delivered by MDC to children in Mexico.
Graham says that MDC has provided medical care to more than 1,000 villagers over the past 40 years. Patients receive lab tests, EKGs, ultrasounds and medications all without charge. Children in the villages also receive a full year of vitamins for free. Graham says that they keep charts for all patients and have been seeing some patients for 40 years.
Many of the people in these three villages make their living harvesting the candelilla plant, extracting wax by boiling and then selling this to the government to make candles and soaps. The candelilla plant was the inspiration for the name of the mission.
David Rodriguez is the co-chair of Rotary’s school supplies project that partners with MDC.
He said Rotarians have been packing school supplies for Mexico for many years and wanted to know more about Misión De Candelilla. Kelly Graham was invited to tell the club about what happens in the villages, and the challenges and rewards of providing medical and spiritual care to such remote locations.
San Marcos Rotary is a nonprofit, nonpolitical and nonreligious service organization. The club is 105 years old.
The Rotary Club of San Marcos TX sponsored a Pints for Polio fundraising event on 23 October 2026 at Thirsty Planet Brewing, a local craft brewer. The brewer donated the cost of the beer. A notable aspect of the event was the number of attendees who had relatives who got polio before the Salk vaccine. Also, one non-Rotarian attendee, Mike Brock, shared his story about becoming paralyzed from the waist down and living in a hospital for a year before he regained function in his legs. The event was a celebration of Rotary's polio eradication effort combined with emotive stories of lives affected by polio before vaccination was available.
School Fuel San Marcos is one of the favorite local charities of the Rotary Club of San Marcos TX. We are helping to pack food for kids on weekends and holidays. We do it every third Thursday. In addition to Rotarians, we happily recruited Rotary spouses, children and even grandkids for the work.
Here is some info from the website of School Fuel:
Since 2013: Supporting Education by Feeding Children
More than 75% of SMCISD students qualify for free or reduced-price school meals, so while students have access to breakfast and lunch during the school week, many return home on weekends to little or no nutritious food.
Hunger makes it difficult to concentrate, retain information, regulate emotions, and fully participate in the classroom. Students who lack consistent access to nutritious meals are more likely to struggle academically, have lower attendance, and face behavioral challenges that can interfere with learning.
JOIN US FOR LUNCH AT A WEEKLY MEETING
San Marcos, TX 78666
United States of America