GRSP carries on tradition of presenting their flags

DG Steve and this year's Rotary Youth Exchange students

DG Steve provided special recognition to his wife Anna and to "unofficial photographer" Carol Abreu from Roswell for their support throughout the year.

Buckhead's Annual Fundraiser

Midtown Atlanta RC celebrates 70 years of service

DG line participates in special Midtown Atlanta service project

This May, as Rotary celebrates Youth Service Month, District 6900 proudly shines a light on the students, young professionals, and emerging leaders whose lives are being shaped through Rotary. From Interact and Rotaract to GRSP, RYLA, Laws of Life, scholarships, and mentoring, we are not just serving youth — we are investing in the future of our communities and our world. The photos are from District Conference, where many of you saw an amazing show on Saturday morning showcasing our GRSP, RYE, Laws of Life, RYLA programs. GRSP students acted as golf cart drivers and many great interactions occurred. Remember that RYLA starts June 6 so please sign up your students - there's an article later in this newsletter about this.

April was a pretty exciting month and started with some fun on April Fool’s Day. Then, we got ready for several district wide events this month, including our Club Leadership Learning Seminar (formerly District Learning Assembly) in Columbus. About 170 club and district leaders joined together there to get ready for their upcoming roles in the next Rotary year. It was a very well received event with great presenters and overall programming to ensure networking, learning and readiness for leaders. DG Steve Ivory presented the state of the district, a vote was taken to approve RY24-25’s financials and DGE Cynthia Edwards presented her vision for 26-27.

Special Events: Anna and I had the distinct honor of attending two special events in April. One was the Rotary Club of Buckhead's Foundation Fundraiser in which the club raised over $200K for their future community projects. We also joined DGE Cynthia Edwards, DGN Buck Buchanan and future AG Jared Evans for the special 70^th Anniversary Celebration of the Midtown Atlanta Rotary Club (MARC), where the city presented a proclamation in the club's honor. The governor line participated in a service project with MARC and DG Steve presented several awards the club won at District Conference MARC 70th Anniversary.

Foundation Giving: Extremely proud of our district! We lead Zone 34 in Polio Plus giving and are in second place among the Zone's 14 districts in Annual Fund giving - only about $11,000 behind the leader. Please consider giving so we can show the zone our generosity and support of our Rotary Foundation. Total giving this year is an incredible $1,053,991 with $539,533 to our Annual Fund and $258.377 to Polio Plus!"

Service Project Later This Week: Service opportunity coming up May 6–9 at Camp Tanglewood in Augusta - focuse on repairs and improvements at the camp, and volunteers are encouraged to participate in what promises to be a meaningful and rewarding experience.

Membership: Our district is working on forming several new clubs including the recently chartered Southern Crescent Rotaract Club, the Rotary Club of North Atlanta Professional Alliance, which started with 16 and has 15 new members in the process of joining. There's also a new club forming that will likely meet in Buckhead at a restaurant owned by a former Rotaractor/Interactor. This emerging club has 25-30 prospective members, thanks to the outstanding efforts of Audley Knight and the District Membership Committee. And, there is a prospective companion club , another Rotaract club and potentially another new club all in the formation process. Unfortunately, we have a club that will be turning in its charter in an area of major business decline. We are working to transfer individual memberships to other clubs. Our district membership is currently 3812 and we started 2025 with 3765.

Thank You for Your Service: You'll see many stories in this newsletter about awards presented to individuals and clubs at District Conference last month. I wanted to shout out to two individuals - my wife Anna and Carol Abreu from Roswell for their support throughout my year as District Governor. And to everyone in the district, know that we're proud of all of you for the work you do to make a difference in your communities and the world, and the support you provide for Rotary.