The Shepherdstown Rotary Club has presented its 2024 Vocational Service Award to Laura Rau, the owner of Shepherdstown’s On the Wings of Dreams shop.
The presentation was made at the Club’s October 22 breakfast meeting at Shepherdstown’s Bavarian Inn. The accompanying photo shows Rau and her husband, Jeff, center, with Club Vice President Dale Homan, left, and Kristin Alexander, Executive Director of the Potomac Valley Audubon Society (PVAS), right.
The Rotary Club gives this award each year to an outstanding business operator or professional person who embodies values and principles that exemplify Rotary ideals, especially service above self and a commitment to high professional and ethical standards.
Homan said the club wanted to recognize Rau for donating a portion of her shop’s sales to the PVAS every year for the last 17 years. The donations have consisted of three cents for every crystal and mineral the shop has sold, and over the years they have added up to a total of $5,950. All these donations have been used to support PVAS’s programs for children, which include camps, scholarships, and programs that promote conservation and exploration in nature. In addition, the shop has made substantial donates to the Animal Welfare Society of Jefferson County and Shepherdstown Shares.
“We greatly appreciate local businesses that are willing to give back in the way you do,” Homan said. “And we hope your example will inspire other business owners to do similar things.”
Rau thanked her loyal customers for helping to make the shop’s donations possible. “We feel honored to have had so many years of wonderful support from our local community,” she said.
Alexander said: “we’re extremely grateful that Laura has been so supportive of PVAS for so many years.”
The On the Wings of Dreams shop is located at 139 West German Street in Shepherdstown. Rau has owned and operated it since January 2003. In addition to crystals and minerals, it offers a wide variety of sterling silver and natural stone jewelry; Native American jewelry, books and music; incense; sages, shells and prayer feathers; ceremonial herbs; statuary; essential oils; prayer flags and both Himalayan metal singing bowls. Its website can be found at www.WingsOfDreamsShop.com.
