Community Projects
From a playground built by thousands of neighbors to scholarships, flags, and blood drives, here is how Sunrise Rotary serves Arlington.
Service above self
Projects with Arlington fingerprints all over them.
Most of what we do is funded by our Flag Program and the generosity of our members. Every project below is planned, funded, and worked by Rotarians and the neighbors who join us.
Dunlop Park Creative Playground
The Arlington Parks and Recreation Department had long-range plans for a playground at the J.W. Dunlop Sports Center at Fielder Road and North Green Oaks Boulevard. Our brand-new club, chartered in 1987, signed on without a firm grasp of the size of the undertaking. We hit the jackpot.
1989. Designed by Arlington kids with architect Robert Leathers, and funded by a wine tasting, a run, a haunted house, a casino night, a spaghetti supper, and a pancake breakfast on an icy morning, the Sunrise Creative Playground was built by more than 2,500 volunteers in five days, March 29 to April 2, 1989. Donated materials, services, and cash totaled $89,000.
2005. After 15 years of heavy use, the club rebuilt the entire 10,000-square-foot playground with long-lasting composite and recycled materials. More than 1,000 volunteers worked from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. under the lights, September 28 to October 5, 2005 (one day hit 104 degrees). Total cost was $215,000, with the City matching up to $100,000. Mayor Robert Cluck cut the ribbon on October 8, 2005. A recognition walk and wall of engraved bricks and plaques honor the donors.
The club continues to maintain and upgrade the playground today.
The creative playground is totally a community project. Everybody has a chance to take part in it, and the Sunrise Rotary Club of Arlington is officially issuing you an invitation now to get involved.
Richard E. Greene, Mayor of Arlington, 1989
Scholarship Program
Each year the club awards college scholarships to Arlington high-school seniors. More than $124,600 in scholarships has been funded by our Flag Program alone. Applications are reviewed and students are interviewed by club members every spring, and winners are recognized at a Friday meeting with their families.
2026 applications are open. Download the application below and follow the instructions inside. Questions? Contact the club.
Youth Service and RYLA
Rotary Youth Leadership Awards
Every June we sponsor high-school juniors and seniors to attend RYLA, an intensive leadership camp at Texas Woman’s University in Denton. Our Flag Program has provided more than $35,000 for RYLA scholarships. Interested students and school counselors should contact us in the spring.
Schools and Scouts
We host STEM Day at Adams Elementary, celebrate chess champions at Thornton Elementary, give tablets for perfect attendance, and donate dictionaries and books to local schools. Boy Scout Troops 545, 615, and 934 help place our flags and share in the proceeds, more than $42,000 to date.
Speaker’s Gift
In lieu of a speaker’s gift each week, the club donates a book, signed by the speaker, to a local school library. Dozens of books every year, each with a Rotary story behind it.
Community Service
Blood drives
With Carter BloodCare and partners like Prosperity Bank and HOPE International, we host community blood drives. Every two seconds someone needs blood.
Holiday Families and food drives
Each holiday season we adopt local families and provide gifts, groceries, and financial support, more than $51,000 through the Flag Program. We also run can drives for Mission Arlington.
Community events
We turn out for Taste of Arlington and other city events throughout the year, lending hands wherever the community needs them.
We also support Phased IN Arlington ($10,000), local Scout troops, and other Arlington charities ($65,000 and counting).
International Service
Rotary’s signature project is PolioPlus, and Sunrise Rotarians give generously to finish the job. Beyond polio, our members have painted schools and hospitals, donated ambulances and buses, funded clean-water projects, provided dictionaries and children’s books, and supported the Avoidable Blindness cataract surgery project, the artificial limbs program in India, and the Wheelchair Foundation in Mexico and Peru.
Want to help?
Most of our projects are funded by Flag Program subscriptions. For $75 a year, you can fly the flag and fund all of this.