Members of The Farmingdale Breakfast Rotary hosted the 51st District Conference held at the Nevele Grande, Ellenville, NY May 13-15. The gala event was attended by more than 125 Rotarians from 41 clubs throughout Rotary District 7250 of Nassau and Queens. Among the five Rotary past District Governors in attendance were Barbara and Charles Clemmens of Houston Rotary. They represented Rotary International president, Glenn E. Estess, at the event. The conference marked the end of a one-year term for District Governor Larry Jorgensen.

Programs presented at the conference included a spectacular slide show of NASA missions and future endeavors by engineer Dominick DelRosso and an informative session related to families coping with autistic children by program director, Andrew Baumann. Jim "Mudcat" Grant, renowned baseball pitcher and one of the Twelve Black Aces, was guest speaker at the centennial banquet. Mudcat's philosophy of educating future generations about racism and prejudice is in keeping with Rotary ideals to further understanding to build goodwill and peace in the world.

In his farewell remarks, Dist. Gov. Jorgensen discussed successful Rotary International service projects during his term such as disaster relief for victims of the hurricane ravaged islands of Haiti and the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean and a tsunami project which will aide in rebuilding and renovating an orphanage for the homeless children in Indonesia.. He also thanked Rotarians from the host club for their support of his office throughout the year. The District Governor also bestowed Rotary's highest award to three members of his centennial team. The Paul Harris medals were awarded to Tina Diamond, Farmingdale Breakfast Rotary president and centennial governor's aide, Debbie Podolski, centennial governor's secretary and Hank Chichester, co-chairman of the conference.

Locally, the Farmingdale Breakfast Rotary donations include aide to Outreach pantries, sponsorship of a youth baseball team, distributed five student scholarships, bell ringing for Salvation Army's holiday drive, contributed to the Farmingdale Summit's Family in Need fund and supported Rotary projects such as Rotacare and Gift of Life.