This morning was our tribute to our Youth Exchange Program.

Here you can see President Matt getting a little bit crazy with

some of the inbound exchange students from the Visalia area.

Ally, our inbound student from Ecuador,

was our first presenter today. She spoke about her

hometown and friend and family from Ecuador.

Caro, inbound student from Germany

presented her home town and country. Great

job to both inbound students.

Both students presented our club with their home

club banners. We will be displaying those banners

throughout the rest of this year to make them feel

at home.

Our club's good fortune has continued with two more great

students from around the world.

If you are interested in hosting a student next year,

please speak with Mark Perry or Sam Romero

about this unique opportunity.

Visalia Breakfast Rotary volunteers meet at Cal

Bennetts and assembled 165 bikes and trikes.

All of the bikes and trikes will be given away on

Christmas Eve at the Visalia Emergency Aid

Center.

Cindy Myers and a friend work hard at assembling

this bike.

In all, we had well over 30 volunteers that took

approximately 2 hours to assemble all of the

bikes.

VBR spent over $8500 purchasing the bicyles.

This is our 7th year sponsoring this bicycle

giveaway for Emergency Aid.

This was a family affair. Here, George Crites works

hard with his daughters, Georgia and Campbell, to

assemble the bikes.

Here is an example of some of the finished product,

rows and rows of future fun for the kids.

On Monday following the Assembly, our Projects

Director, Brian Rouch meets with the Directors of

Visalia Emergency Aid to ensure a smooth

delivery of the bikes and trikes.

Hoops of Hope was a new program this year,

mainly run by the Visalia area high schools and

heavily involving our Youth Exchange students.

District 5230 Youth Exchange Committee

member Mark Perry helped oversee the

event which was held at the Mt. Whitney

gym.

The program raises money through students who

get sponsors for each basket that they make. The

money is then used to build schools and hospitals

in Africa's struggling countries.

This year VBR threw a holiday party at President

Matt's. Here you can see an impromptu group of

caroler singing along with the pianist.

Even our Exchange students attended the Holiday

party. Everyone brought an appetizer and a favorite

beverage.

Mark Perry and Ally are enjoying a slick

game of shuffleboard.

Even the pianist joined in on the fun and stayed

to party with the last of 'em.

Everyone seemed to find someone to talk to.This

is something that we need to keep going.

Renee Lauck makes an announcement that next

week is our Cookie Drive for the Rescue Mission.

Don't forget to bring plates of cookies and/or gift

cards for the mission.

Dru Quesnoy tells the crowd about the holiday

party last weekend. One thing is for sure, not

many people missed the party as we were very

crowded, probably about 70-80 partygoers.

President Matt's daughter, Sarah, acted as

first-mate at today's meeting.

Dennis Vermillion gets inducted into the Aviators

Club today as "Sandman". Apparently during

college he was in charge of putting to bed those

students that partied too hard.

George Crites also got inducted as "Horhay".

George has many, many stories about his time

at USC. If you ever get the urge to feel disturbed,

ask him about some of them.

Our speaker today, Janell Spencer, spoke to

the club today about the COS Business

Internship Program available to business

owners in Visalia.

This morning President Matt (and assistant/daughter

Emily) started our annual Holiday Program off with

a dance number from "VBRs Best Dance Crew" including

.Anees, Dru, Sharon and Gary H.

Next up was Julie Bernsen and the Traver School

Elementary School Chorus who sang and played

instruments for the crowd. If you weren't in the

holiday mood yet, that ended right here. Julie's

attitude is so infectious that it left a few people wiping

away tears.

Julie even handed bells out to the crowd

who helped participate in Silver Bells.

Our program then took a wonderful turn as

we had five of our very own members, each

celebrating their own unique holiday, talk about

their holiday tradition and what it means to them.

Dave Cislowski talked about Hannukah.

Anees spoke of the Muslim holiday, Eid, but

reinforced the fact that his kids still expect

Christmas gifts.

Dennis told the club how he celebrates the

Buddhist holiday, Zen, as well as Christmas

with his family.

Bruce Panttaja talked about his families

Christmas traditions, as his boys came running

around the corner dressed in their PJs and

ripped open some presents. Bruce intended to

go deeper into the Christmas holiday but was

trumped by the noise coming from his kids.

Parag Sharma finished up our 5-Holiday program

with the Hindu holiday of Deepavali.

Here are some of the 165 bicycles and tricycles that VBR purchased and assembled. Today is the big day where they all get to meet their new owners.

Many Rotarians were on hand to help hand out the bikes and other food and gifts to the families of the Visalia Emergency Aid Center.

Here Jim Preston presents a young boy his tricycle. The line of families went about 4 blocks down the street, quite a site if you've never been there.

We even worked closely with other Rotarians including Russ Desch, the current President of the Visalia Sunset Club.

Even Santa got into the spirit today and surprised the families with a great visit and and some candy.