Foundation

The mission of the Torrey-Pines La Jolla Rotary Foundation is to raise and administer funds for charitable and educational purposes, using the principals and practices of Rotary and exemplifying the Rotary motto "Service Above Self". We focus primarily on supporting people and organizations in San Diego and Baja California, and in particular on helping the needy the young, and the elderly.

We are a small organization, but we believe that with focus, careful planning, and leveraging our contributions by working with other organizations when possible, we can and do make an impact out of proportion to our limited funds. We especially like to support student service organizations, in the belief that encouraging and assisting young people to help others benefits both the students and those they seek to help.

Since our founding in 1999 we have funded countless organizations and projects, including significant international projects in India and elsewhere using matching grants. In recent years we have been concentrating more on local and regional projects, but we do not ignore disasters and hardship elsewhere. For example, we made significant (for our size) contributions to Haitian earthquake relief and Japanese tsunami aid. We also contributed to a Rotary project providing protective vests for Afghani women police, and participated in a Rotary matching grant project for clean water in Uganda. Closer to home and consistent with our interest in supporting student service organizations, we made contributions to UCSD Alternative Breaks (student spring-break service projects primarily in 3rd world countries), Operation Santa (UCSD student project that distributes holiday gifts to poor children), the UCSD Flying Samaritans (students who operate a free medical clinic in Ensenada), and Engineers Without Borders - UCSD (water well in Africa).

Presently, our signature project is our Care n' Share Toys project, which collects and distributes toys (primarily stuffed animals) to sick children at Rady Children's Hospital (San Diego), Hospital Infantil de las Californias (Tijuana), Children's Lifeline (international hospitals and clinics), and most recently the free medical clinic in Ensenada operated by the UCSD "Flying Sams" student organization. In just a few years, we have distributed over 30,000 stuffed animals and other toys. Care n' Share is an example of how much can be accomplished by a small organization with limited funds.

We are a 501(c)(3) non-profit public benefit corporation. (Click here for approval document.) If you like what we do and would like to contribute, we'd love you to send a check to our address shown to the left, or you may make an online donation below. Thanks!

More information