Promoting literacy is very important to our club.  We started Reading Rocks in Rockford and normally have our Hook a Book tent at that event to giveaway age appropriate children's books.  Reading Rocks was not able to be held this year due to COVID.  In lieu of that event, we will be giving away free age appropriate books to kids at our booth at Start of Summer.  Please stop by our booth (in front of the Rockford Hemp Co in downtown Rockford), vote for the duck you think is the prettiest (drop some money in a jar to help your duck win), participate in the duck shoot and have your child draw a duck to win a free book (everyone is a winner).  We look forward to seeing you on June 12th!

We have been selling Big Daddy Ducks throughout the spring and have close to 200 entries for the 2021 race. We will race the ducks this year on Saturday June 12th @ 5pm as part of the Start of Summer festivities. It will start at the dam in Rockford and end in Richardson-Sowerby Park on the other side of the bridge.  Please come down and see the race. It is always a  lot of fun, and it is something that you don't see very often (large rubber ducks - many of which are decorated in all different ways - floating down the river).  Come see the ducks before the race as well.  We will display them all day on the 12th.  You can pick a favorite duck and vote for it with money.  The duck with the most money in its jar at the end of the day will win a trophy for the Prettiest Duck in Rockford.  Look for announcements on this website and our facebook page about voting online for each duck.  Online voting starts on May 31st.  We will award trophies for the fastest and slowest ducks in the river race.  Any person or family or business can enter the race.  To enter the race, you need to make a donation of $100 to Rockford Rotary.  It is still not too late to purchase a duck.  If you would like to purchase one, simply fill out our duck request form HERE.  We will get back to you as soon as possible. Thank you for supporting Rockford Rotary! 

The 2020 Rotary Chicken BBQ was held over the weekend of September 25th/26th.  We didn't know how it would go because of COVID, and the weather is always a huge variable.  Well, everything went really well. The weather was beautiful, the awesome people of Rockford came out and enjoyed the car show, art show and some BBQ chicken downtown.  We cooked over 1000 chicken dinners in two days on our 4 green eggs.  Thank you to everyone who stopped by to encourage us and buy some chicken.  We really appreciate it!  We did run out of meals. For that we apologize.  If you bought a ticket ahead of time but didn't get a meal, please stop by Knape Industries on 10701 Northland Drive in Rockford. We will be happy to refund your ticket. 

Thank you again for all who helped make this year's BBQ a big success! See you next year.

A big thank you to everyone who came downtown to see the duck race on Saturday!  We had a lot of fun, and it was a very close finish.  

 

Here are the results:

Fastest Duck - Car Care Center Cedar Springs - this was an extremely close finish.  Car Care was third with about 60 feet to go. Then the leader (West Michigan Investigations) inexplicably went dead in the water and Care Care caught the current.  The duck touched first and then went under the barrier. We had to lunge for it to stop it from going down river.  It was an exciting finish with a lot of spectators cheering on the ducks.  

Slowest Duck - Sable Homes.  They edged out Heather J. Cadorette's Tiger King duck for last.  

 

The Prettiest Duck in Rockford (determined by the amount of money collected in the duck's donation jar while on display downtown) is Integrity Tax Service's duck.   

 

As previously announced, the PJF duck was voted the Most Popular Duck in Rockford. They are a multi-year winner of that title.  

 

You can see all the ducks and duck winners here:  CLICK.

 

Thanks again for everyone who came down to watch the race, donated and or participated. We had a great time with the event and look forward to a bigger field of ducks next year.  

 

Stay safe!