The Rotary Club of Yelm’s motto is service above self. Derrick Platt, the club’s newest president-elect, aims to embody that phrase during his tenure as its leader.
Platt, a 2019 Yelm High School graduate, was announced as the new president-elect on Nov. 21 and will officially assume the position of president on July 1, 2025. He began working with Yelm’s Rotary Club this past summer after graduating from Whitworth University in Spokane.
Platt, who also works as a realtor at Keller Williams, joined the club because he was inspired by the ways it served the community, including its summer lunch program for students in need, teacher mini grants and food pantry, among others.
“I didn’t have any connections here these last four years, and I was looking for connections for real estate. I was looking in the community and finding things I could get involved in, and friends suggested I check out Rotary,” Platt said. “I saw the activities they were doing in the community, and I was like, ‘OK, this is the group I want to be a part of.”
Over the past five months, he helped with the Rotary Club of Yelm’s summer lunch program delivering bags of food to children in the Yelm Community Schools district who have free and reduced lunch during the school year but don’t have options when school is out. Platt wanted to be involved in the club giving back to the district and the people within it who were negatively impacted by the double levy failure.
“[The Rotary Club’s] involvement with the youth and the school district is super awesome because every kid should have opportunities and not have to worry about where they’re going to get their next meal,” he said. “There’s a lot of opportunities that were taken from the kids. Not having the levy presents gaps that need to be filled, and I think Rotary is helping fill those gaps. There’s still a lot more gaps that need to be filled.”
Platt said he felt called to give back after the Yelm community supported him and his family, as he played football and wrestling, winning two state titles in the latter. He was born and raised in Yelm and attended Fort Stevens Elementary, Yelm Middle School and Yelm High School.
“The community has always been super supportive of me and my family. They’ve always supported us and showed us love. The coaches and the teachers in Yelm are the people I’ve learned from,” he said. “I just felt called to give back because I’ve been given so much. That was my calling.”
As the president-elect, Platt is currently learning from incumbent President Larry Hanson as well as the club’s board. His goal in his one-year tenure, which begins in July, is to recruit more volunteers to the Rotary Club of Yelm and continue to address needs in the community.
“It’d be super cool to get a bunch of new people in there and get some younger people who want to help but maybe don’t know this opportunity is there,” he said. “I want to get the current members who aren’t that involved more involved. I’m hoping that increasing the membership and getting new people brings in new ideas and they can see different gaps that are in the community that we may not be seeing already.”
Platt encourages community members who are interested in getting involved to attend the club’s weekly meetings at 7:30 a.m. Thursdays at the Tahoma Valley Golf Course.
