Socials

Award Winning Club, Social Events, Grants and Scholarships

Over 50 Westport Rotary members and guests attended our monthly social event on August 31, 2023 at the beautiful home of Rick and Totney Benson near Compo Beach in Westport. The party was held on a two-level patio with a magnificent view of Long Island Sound and a roaring firepit as the sun went down.

This was our first club Pot Luck Dinner and it was a resounding success. The food was plentiful, varied and delicious, the group was spirited and happy and a birthday cake was brought out for Goldie James, our President in-waiting. A fun evening!

Photos by Dave Matlow and Ellin Curley

Westport Rotary will be hosting a graduate student from Kenya from August 2023 through May 2025. Sponsored by a local Rotary Club near Nairobi and hosted by Westport, he will be taking a two-year Master’s Program at the Yale School of the Environment. Yale gave him an $80,000 scholarship and the Rotary Foundation gave him $30,496 for tuition, fees, books, supplies and a new computer. Some of the funds were supplied by Westport Rotary and District 7980. Yale has also given him a loan to cover the balance of his expenses. Over the last several years Westport Rotary has sponsored three local students to study abroad with Rotary Foundation Scholarships, but this is the first time we will have hosted one in Connecticut.

The student is Jimmy Musili, a biologist and conservationist back in Kenya. He is 36 years old and has left a wife and two children in Kenya to get his Master’s Degree here. He plans to go back to Kenya in 2025 and continue working in the Kilui park system he left to pursue his degree.

Westport Rotary is doing more than just handing him a check. Rick Benson and Lyla Steenbergen of Westport Rotary, met him at JFK airport and took him to New Haven to help him get settled into the Yale housing he will share with other international students. They also helped him procure a bicycle so he can get around New Haven and are looking for other Rotary members to take him on interesting outings in New England and New York City since this is his first trip to America.