Good Weekend For Fun and Shellowship

I was honored and humbled to be a part of Rotary International’s District Conference 6960 over the weekend and to share the beauty and gifts of Southwest Florida with these awe inspiring folks.

Although the speakers, entertainment and work being done to help save the world (and I’m serious- they truly are helping folks around the world), it was time to get outdoors, take a boat ride to the secluded island of Cayo Costa and enjoy this amazing part of the planet.

And find some treasures!

I’m thrilled it was a beautiful day to hang out with them and thank them for their work. Most of y’all know that Congress Jewelers gives $25 gift certificates to all shellers on my iLoveShelling cruises but you probably didn’t know Scot Congress is a Rotarian too. He’s very generous to the shelling community but he’s also very generous when it comes to his Rotary Club so everybody on this Rotary cruise got a $25 gift certificate as well. Yippee!

Everybody was excited about that and to find shells and fellowship… ahem… SHELLowship.

It was especially fun to hang out with some of the Rotary Youth Exchange students who, by the way, were having a blast. Really, do you think they were having fun? LOL

The strength and possibilities that one group can do is so encouraging.

Okay so talking about encouraging… Dr Todd Golde – Director for Center for Translational Research Neurodegenerative Disease (in other words… he’s a guy trying to find a treatment for Alzheimers- pretty big deal I’d say) and the other phenomenal speakers at the conference were given thank you gifts from the District President Pete Doraugh… he chose to give them Pam Rambo Shellography! Wow, pretty humbling because again, its such an unbelievable honor.

Okay, I know everything here isn’t exactly talking about shells or the beach but these things are very important to me and most of the time y’all enjoy the same things I do. So I want to share another Rotary service project they accomplished over the weekend. Ive talked many times about CROW (Clinic for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife) because we’ve rescued countless birds and other wildlife on the islands while out shelling that we’ve taken there (to read them- CLICK HERE) … so this is way cool. If you’ve ever heard about Ozzie The Bald Eagle here in SW Florida, you know that this BALD EAGLE was injured and taken to CROW for his recovery. Well, he is ready for is next phase of recovery so he needs to be in a bigger L shaped cage to strengthen his wings and practice flying hard lefts and rights. Rotarians to the rescue! They cleaned and re-sanded the cage to make sure everything is fresh and new for OZZIE the celebrity EAGLE we all fell in love with after watching he and his mate Harriet care for their EAGLETS on a webcam. We didn’t get to see OZZIE while we were there since this is a very delicate recovery but just to be able to help get his cage ready was really awesome.

So now you see that so many things on our islands blend together and our shelling community bonds us in so many more special ways than just walking the beach. Oh and I didn’t even mention that Melissa Congress (I’ve introduced you to before at Congress Jewelers) is the President of the Board Of Directors at CROW? Isn’t that crazy how our lives intertwine so much?

But the most important reason that this was a particularly amazing weekend for me was because my husband Clark (Super Sheller Clark) was responsible for putting this whole conference together as the District Conference Chairman. I don’t talk too much about this part of our lives (maybe one other time CLICK HERE) but Im very proud of him and the good man he is. Whoop whoop! Way to go honey!