By Ted Apodaca
Seal Beach’s newest service club held its recent monthly meeting and celebrated its sixth month anniversary, as well as some new members. The regular monthly meeting took place at Old Ranch Country Club, where the Seal Beach Rotary holds lunch meetings on the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month.
One of its new members was newly installed Seal Beach Mayor, Lisa Landau, who was also the meeting’s guest speaker. The new branch of the international Rotary organization formed to focus service on the Seal Beach region, in agreement with the Los Alamitos branch.
The club launched in June, with 25 initial members. Since then, the club has grown to 35 current members. The club organized a backpack donation drive for area elementary schools and is working on projects to help Ronald McDonald House. It’s been a good start according to President Kevin Ruhe.
“We’ve had a wonderful response from the community as well as the members coming here, we want to have a feeling of belonging to something that is new and exciting and is ready to go out and do some excellent things in the community, so far, we’ve gotten a wonderful response,” Ruhe said.
For the installation of Landau, the group had a cake made with the Rotary logo and a welcome for Landau. Landau spoke at the meeting, giving members an update on what she hopes to work on as mayor of Seal Beach for 2025. Landau said public safety is a priority and emphasized that the money raised by the 1% tax increase must be used as promised.
She also she adding housing, particularly entry level housing, is an important goal, and she wants to work on beach and water cleanliness.
“Lack of clean water at the mouth of the river needs immediate attention,” Landau said.
The Seal Beach Rotary has lunch meetings scheduled for Jan. 14 and 28, at Old Ranch Country Club. For more information on the club, the meetings, and how to join, visit sealbeachcityrotary.org.
