The Rotaract Club is a service-based club outside of Wesley Service that helps to provide Simpson College students opportunities on and off campus.

The club meets once a month on Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. in one of the Carse classrooms where they work on their project of the month.

At the September meeting, the club wrote cards to show support of military members affected by 9/11. During the October meeting, they will be working on a project related to mid-terms and Halloween.

Everyone is welcome to join. If anyone wants to become part of Rotaract, attending a meeting is the best way to join.

“The easiest way is to come to a meeting, or they can always email me,” President Amanda Stadtlander said.

Outside of meetings, there are even more service opportunities.

Rotaract often helps with Meals for the Heartland, Helping Hand and other groups in the Indianola and Des Moines areas.

Helping Hand is a food and clothing pantry organization that serves all of Warren County. Rotaract recently started their partnership with Helping Hand.

“We just did a big introduction to them as a way to get people into their facilities to see what they do, what they’re about and then using that as a recurring event once a week at a set time that Rotaract or people from Simpson can go there and help them,” Stadtlander said.

To get more information about this event, attend meetings or follow the group on Facebook.

Rotaract also holds events for the Simpson campus rather than just club members. They set up Meals for the Heartland to reach a wider group of people than just the club.

Meals for the Heartland is one of vice president Laura Nielsen’s favorite events.

“I think it’s super fun that it’s a team thing, so there’s a little bit of competition to it and it’s such a large group of people and we get so much done,” Nielsen said. “Like you can literally see how much you get done.”

Events with groups outside of Rotaract is also one of Stadtlander’s favorite events as well.

“My favorite projects are doing ones where we can get people beyond Rotaract involved. Meals for the Heartland is great because we can get so many different sports teams and other organizations so that’s always great,” Stadtlander said.

While Rotaract does events during meetings, the best ones are larger events.

“The big events are always fun. Lots of prep work, but always fun,” Stadtlander said.

Rotaract’s next meeting is Thursday, Oct. 10 at 6:30 p.m. Email President Amanda Stadtlander at [email protected] with any questions.