For two nights at the end of September several members of the Rotary Club of Kirkland provided assistance while local elementary students selected a new pair of shoes for the school year at the Totem Lake Fred Meyers.

It was part of Kirkland Rotary’s Annal Shoe project, which has been occurring for several years.

This year Rotary Club of Kirkland and Totem Lake Fred Meyers provided 49 pairs of shoes to students who qualified. Last year 60 pair of shoes were  provided.

As always, the Rotarians enjoyed meeting the students and their parents. In 2005, Kirkland Rotary decided to “adopt” the John Muir Elementary School in the Kingsgate neighborhood of Kirkland.

Rotary had already partnered with the school on several programs, when some other sources of assistance to the school went away.

Several projects have been undertaken since then with four continuing through this year: Reading Buddies, the Warm Coat program, New Shoes program and the Accelerated Reading program.

Rotary Club of Kirkland has been active in the Kirkland community for 73 years and raises money for this, and other projects, with their annual Duck Dash currently run on the 4th of July.

Community members who “adopted” a duck made the purchase of the shoes possible while Rotarians, John Muir Elementary staff and Fred Meyer put the event together.

The club meets at 6 p.m. every Monday night at the Woodmark Hotel at Carillon Point.