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job,” he said.
The only new thing this year,
Opdyke said, is the re-engineering of
the boxes for the chicken dinners.
They have been enlarged a bit to hold
a larger bottle of water.
“The boxes are custom made every
year by Plymouth Packaging which
donates a portion of the expense to
helpus,”Opdyke said.
He added that along with the 700
students who volunteer to help the
Rotary Club during the barbeque,
there are about 100 adult volunteers
who help organize the students and
another 97 Rotarians, who work at the
event.
“We start, usually, on Saturday after-
noon bringing in the blocks for the pits,
bringing in the conveyers and all the
equipment we use. We aren't done
until Monday afternoon when we pack
everything away for storage.”
He added that in addition to the vol-
unteers, the Rotary Club owes a real
debt of gratitude to the city.
“We couldn't do this without all the
help the city gives us,” he said. “Paul
Sincock and the Department of
Municipal Services do so much to help
us. They store the cement blocks, store
the tarps and screens we use in the
packaging areas and give us a lot of
logistical support throughout theweek-
end,” he said. “Christensen's Plant
Center and Mark Baldwin
Landscaping both donate space for us
to store equipment, too,” he added.
“Canton Waste and Recycling donates
the dumpsters. This is really a commu-
nity project. We couldn't do it without
all this help.”
“The chicken barbeque, the largest
fundraiser of the club, along with the
other projects the club takes on during
the year, generated more than $99,000
in donations that went directly to the
Plymouth community last year,”
Opdyke said. That does not include
funds the club sent to Rotary
International for the world-wide
humanitarian efforts of Rotary.
FALL FESTIVAL 2013
Page 4
Barbeque
from page 3
Members
of
the
Plymouth Rotary Club
Chicken
Barbeque
Committee this year
include Kent Early, back
row from left, Mike
Sullivan, Jeff Stella, Rich
Eisminger, Scott Wirgau,
Mike Muma, front left,
and Chairman Paul
Opdyke.