On Saturday, March 14, (Pioneer Days weekend) the Kearny Rotary Club will once again be hosting their Steak Cookout Dinner event at the General Kearny Inn from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. For a donation of just $25 per person, you can enjoy a generously cut, Certified Angus Beef® New York Strip steak cooked over a hot mesquite fire by a real local cowboy! The meal comes complete with beans, a baked potato, grilled Texas toast, a salad and your choice of either lemonade or iced tea. Volunteers from the Kearny Rotary Club cut the steaks, bake the potatoes, cook the beans, manage the mesquite fire and custom cook each steak to personal perfection. You may be asking, “Where does that money go?” It turns out that the money goes to many local beneficiaries.
Like other community-minded organizations, much of the money from the Rotary Steak Dinners funds scholarships for graduating seniors at Ray High School. Last year they were able to give $4,500 worth of scholarships.
Every year the Rotary Club of Kearny also organizes their “BookShelf Project.” They provide the supplies for the Ray High School Shop class to build bookshelves that are presented to every first grader moving on to second grade at the end of the school year. The Rotary Club also buys a selection of eight to 10 books for each student to start their book collection for their bookshelf. These students continue to receive additional books through the end of the third grade. The Rotary Club arranges additional funding from a SaddleBrooke Outreach Program Grant to help with the book purchases. Hundreds of Ray school students have discovered a love of reading through this program, now in its 10th year!
Last year the Town of Kearny needed a $1,100 hose diffuser so that our fire department could pass state inspection of fire hydrants. Rotary paid for and donated the diffuser.
Rotary donated $600 to pay for the music and rights for the Ray High School Marching Band to play the theme from the movie “Frozen” during half-time shows for this past football season as well as in parades and at competitions.
For the past six years the Kearny Rotary Club has sponsored and hosted the annual Scholarship Banquet in the courtyard of the General Kearny Inn. They cook and serve a nice meal for all the scholarship recipients and their families as a prelude to the awards ceremony as a way of providing a nice setting for all the recipients to be featured in the spotlight in front of their parents, grandparents, and peers.
All of these good deeds are made possible because the people of the Copper Basin generously support these special Rotary Steak Dinner events. And as a side benefit they get to enjoy the Best Steak Dinner in the Southwest!
We hope to see you there!
Submitted,
/s/ Gerry Kaufhold
Kearny, Ariz.