Sock Hop & Cork Pop open to public Dec. 2
The Farragut community is invited to join Rotary Club of Farragut members at a Sock Hop & Cork Pop from 6 to 9 p.m., Friday, Dec. 2, in Farragut Community Center, 239 Jamestowne Blvd.
“It will be monumental — the bees knees,” said Scott Brockamp, RCF event and fundraising co-chairman with Jerry Schwallier.
This year’s event will take attendees back to the 1950s with live music planned, as well as a catered dinner, dancing, wine and hopefully a silent and live auction.
“We’ll have some seeing how low they can go under the limbo stick, and it’ll be fun to see who wins the dance contest,” RCF public image chairman Tom King stated in his Oct. 16 Flagship newsletter.
“It’s a big fundraiser for us this year, and we want it to be a big success,” Schwallier said during RCF’s meeting in Fox Den Country Club Wednesday, Oct. 12.
Tickets are a $100 per person, which goes to Rotary Club of Farragut Foundation, of which $75 will be tax-deductible.
They can be purchased online on Rotary Club of Farragut’s website, www.faragutrotary.org
“We’ve had a $10,000 anonymous donor (providing) matching (funds),” Schwallier said. “So, we’re raising sponsorships and funds toward that matching donation.”
Open to the public, this is the club’s biggest fundraiser of the year, so it can provide its many community projects, he said.
“We’re also doing the corporate sponsors,” added Schwallier, also noting businesses do not have to be club members to be a sponsor.
“We’re promoting it to corporations and businesses throughout Farragut. Even the event is not simply for Rotarians; it’s open to the public.
Saying he’s fairly new to RCF, “It helps me get to know our members and, in my prior life as a banker, I’ve raised funds before and did fundraising,” Schwallier said.
The annual fundraising event, normally a wine-tasting and dinner, had been on hiatus for three years because of COVID, he said.
“But it really gives us the ability to do the service projects,” Schwallier added.
RCF’s Scott Bertini and Julie Blaylock are co-chairs of those service projects, “so this kind of fundraising allows these service projects to go forward, and it works both ways — not only in terms of dollars but also volunteers, he said.”
Among many, the projects have included a toy drive for East Tennessee Children’s Hospital, cleaning up a school, building beds for children in need, reading to school children and installing Little Libraries in the community.
“We gave volunteer work and money,” Schwallier added.
With funds going to Rotary Club of Farragut Foundation (a 501(c)3), “it helps build the club’s endowment,” he said. “The foundation is the keeper of the funds (for the projects).”
