4th grader honored at Rotary for Service Above Self

Zach Stachura, a 4^th grader at Clayton Elementary in Austin was honored today at the Rotary Club of Austin meeting for developing his own service project to help the victims of the Hurricane Sandy Disaster. Zach decided he wanted to figure out a way to help the children who had lost everything in the Sandy storm and would not get to celebrate Halloween and with guidance from his parents, Dave and Jill Stachura, both managers at AMD, Zach recruited his brothers, neighbors and friends to collect Halloween candy. Once they collected one hundred and eight pounds of candy, Zach took it to his orthodontist, Mary Kay Bechee, who paid the kids a dollar a pound for the candy and then matched that amount. So Zach’s service project sent over two hundred dollars to the hurricane area of Sandy through the Red Cross. Then the orthodontist sent the candy that was collected to our servicemen overseas for a holiday surprise. So through a desire to help others, Zach was able to help two groups with his donations. Mary Reynolds, a Rotary club member arranged for Zach to come and share his story at the Rotary meeting because Rotary’s motto is Service Above Self and the club wanted to honor Zach with an award. But to make the event even more special for a ten year old young man, Mary arranged for one of the knights with the EarlyAct FirstKnight Rotary project that teaches service and character to students in elementary schools to come and knight young Stachura with a medallion and a tap on the shoulder with a real sword. When the club asked Zach what his next project might be he said he wanted to start a service club at his school so they could do more projects to help people in need. The Rotary club is going to work with Zach to make that wish a reality.