The Rotary club of Richmond Hill recently honored two Junior Rotarians of the Month and gave money to five county schools.
Airam Lopez was awarded the March Junior Rotarian of the Month award along with February student Jucquez Tyus-Jenkins, whose schedule did not allow him to attend the previous month.  
 “The dedication and work ethic these two young people show is truly amazing, and I thank the Rotary Club of Richmond Hill for focusing on future generations and our school in particular with these monthly awards, which are highly motivating for our students,” Richmond Hill High School Principal Debi McNeal said.
Club President Lesley Francis presented $500 to each of the five schools in attendance for the principals’ funds, which allow the principals to help individual students whose families cannot afford expenditures that are important to their child’s education.
Examples are glasses, books and equipment or joining in school trips. Each of the five principals accepted the donations and said a few words of appreciation and explained why it was important to their schools.  
Other principals in attendance besides McNeal were:
• Mary Anne Tiedemann, RH Primary School
• Walt Barnes, RH Elementary School
• Crystal Morales, Carver Elementary
• William McGrath, RH Middle School
An additional $500 was awarded to RHMS to support its field studies program, applied for by life-science teacher Robert Hodgdon.
“Our club’s objective this year is to ‘Light Up Rotary’ and to support future generations in particular,” Francis said. “This year, we have already committed over $15,000 to young people through these donations to our schools, our J.D. Gardner and Mary Bean scholarships, our GRSP sponsorship, our Backpacks of Love program as well as donations to Family Promise and the young people who benefit from the Horsin’ Around program. This is the reason so many of us in Rotary work so hard at fundraising and running the club to enable us to serve the community in which we are lucky enough to live.”
For more information about the Rotary Club of Richmond Hill, go to www.rotaryofrichmondhill.org.