President Lise Twilford welcomed guests and Rotarians to the June 5 meeting of the Allentown West Rotary Club. On its agenda were three donations to community organizations.

"It is a special day, an opportunity to use our resources to give back to the community," she said. "We believe in service above self. The money comes from the hard work by this group to put back in the community so you can do what you do as a nonprofit."

The first organization was Care Net of the Lehigh Valley. Its mission since 1981 has been to provide resources for pregnancy-related issues. They take information about sexual maturity to middle and high schools in the area.

The hope is by promoting abstinence, it will lower the rate of teen sexual activity.

Alice Kim said both venereal diseases and pregnancies are down in that age group.

While many tend to think of most teens as being sexually active, she said the actual number is 46 percent.

Care Net has taken its message to 14 schools in the Lehigh Valley.

She said 95 percent of teens want to find a life companion.

Among those 14 schools is Northwestern Lehigh, where Megan Slifka talks to health classes.

She has an interactive program and considers it an honor to serve in the classroom.

"We want to help students understand that they should invest with their hearts," Slifka said. "We tell them education is important, tell them what it is like to be married."

The consequences of intimate relations are explained and teens are helped by being shown how to say "No," and stop a relationship from going too far.

"Unwanted sexual contact is assault," Slifka said, adding many are surprised to learn a touch can be classified as assault.

Young men are shown taking drugs and alcohol can lead to sexual contact.

Michele Grasso said Meals on Wheels provides a second component that is as important or more so than the food.

This is interaction with the clients. There are 350 Lehigh County residents on the client list who receive one or two meals a day.

Of that number, 89 percent have meals subsidized.

"This $1,000 will help 400 people," Grasso said.

Every time she goes out she is amazed at the stories she hears.

One 92-year-old woman who lived in a house where the front was a shop and gas station, had a stroke.

The woman had been a dancer and she was put in contact with the volunteer's granddaughter who was a dancer.

"My life was fine before Meals on Wheels, but now I have a family," The woman said,

"We make sure they are OK," Grasso said.

The volunteer group Sons of the Carpenter resulted from the devastation in the South following Hurricane Katrina.

"It is all-volunteer based with no public grants, Cheryl Gressley said.

Consequently, the $1,000 will go a long way.

"We are surprised and grateful to Gloria Zimmerman [who nominated the group]," Gressley said.

From Pass Christian, Miss., to Christ's Church at Lowhill Food Pantry, the group, begun in 2005 by Weisenberg Lutheran Church, spread to many churches, helps wherever help is needed.

On their first trip to Pass Christian, they saw an area still as devastated as the recent pictures of tornado damage in Oklahoma.

The first building project was to restore Goodwill Baptist Church.

This followed by building a house for a member with a disabled wife.

"We raised money and built the home in Kempton Community Center," Gressley said. "The house was loaded on two tractor trailers and taken south. It was put together in Pass Christian in a week with 75 volunteers helping."

Members of New Life Evangelical Lutheran Church, New Tripoli, helped raise money for an aquatherapy room for Lance Pierce, who suffers from Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

"We paid for the materials and volunteers did all the work," Gressley said. "This week we are working with Habitat for Humanity volunteers at the Sixth Street Shelter. We've been to Nashville, Indiana and Alabama where there were floods.