Next meeting
Wednesday, April 20, 2022

Competitive Skating &
Olympic Competition Insights

Kim Navarro

PLEASE NOTE: In-Person & Zoom meetings returned!  Please register.

–> Debi Zaft will email you the link for online, once you have paid.  Use this link to pay.  CLICK HERE!

Wednesday April 27: Puerto Vallarta Water Project
Wednesday May 4th: Tech Talk & Nuclear Fusion
Wednesday May 11: Rotary Student Awards
Wednesday May 18: Rethinking logging in the Mendocino Preservation Forest
Wednesday May 25: An African Program

Click here for the current calendar (Subject to updates).

UPCOMING SOCIALS & PROJECTS  

USEFUL LINKS

Visit our district at: http://www.rotary5130.org
Check out Rotary International at: http://www.rotary.org
Come see us at: http://rotarymeansbusiness

Watch The Meeting:  Did you miss the meeting?  Here is a link to the recording of last week’s meeting:
(Click here for recording)
Please note it is only available to view until: 4/24/22

Opening Ceremonies:

After President Ray greeted us, Ann Gospe led us in the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance, the Four-Way Test and gave us her Reflection for this week. In honor of her and Jeff’s son’s birthday, thirteen, she read us a story about a boy giving a list of demands to his mother. In short, the mother read them and turned the page over and wrote her response. What the mother wrote was sweet and to the point about what she does, has done, for her son. The boy changed his mind due to his mother’s love.

Visitors:

John Escobar, Sabra Locke (who will be doing Rotary Information soon), Mary Miyano, Curt Groninga (also has completed his application to rejoin our club. He was a member of from 1985 – 1997) Alex Crossland, Bo Kearns (a former Rotarian from Southern California) Shana Davis, and Laura Colgate

Sunshine Report:

All is good this week

Raffle:

Jeff Kolin said we had 9 marbles and the pot was $62.00. Ted Wilmsen had the winning ticket, but he did not pull out the blue marble. The pot rolls over to next week.

Paul Harris Awards:

Casey D’Angelo got a new award with one blue stone and picked up an award for his son Zac. Andrea Geary has a new award with one blue stone and Craig Meltzner has a new award with his first ruby. We will give them their awards when they can get to a meeting.

Hop To It For Hunger:

Shana Davis was here to pick up a check for $5000 from our Hop To It For Hunger fundraiser, she says that will give them $20,000 in buying power.

Redwood Empire Food Bank:

Sam and Rita McMillan, Ted Wilmsen, Casey Carter, Sabra Locke, Ray Giampaoli, Odalis Medianero and Kris Anderson participated in bagging apples and potatoes from 5:00 – 7:00 on Wednesday night. Our next workday at the Food Bank will be May 11.

100 Birthday Party:

Tickets are still available. The featured speaker is John Blount. We have a Rotarian that is a comedian that will be entertaining us too. See Mark Burchill for tickets.

Home Exchange Fellowship:

Mark Burchill is a member of this Rotary Fellowship. It has been dormant since Covid started but is active again. See him for information on this fun way to travel and see the world.

Giro Bello:

We are looking for more sponsors and riders. Please get the word out to your friends, family, and your social networks. We also need people to sign up for the various jobs. You can sign up on SignUp Genius or contact Karen Ball.

Rotary Club of Santa Rosa Foundation News:

With Vickie Hardcastle moving late summer to Lincoln, CA and Kris Anderson becoming the President, the Foundation has recruited Tony Roehrick to replace Vickie and Mary Graves will also join the board. Ann Gospe has been on the board and will now be on as the President Elect for the next year. Bill Rousseau, Bill Hatcher, and Nona Lucas will also stay on board for another term. Steve Olson gave a little recap of our local foundation. We have plus or minus $2.5 million which is the corpus to fund 15 restricted and 2 non-restricted scholarships and grants. The Foundation has started a new medical field scholarship. The Larry Miyano fund is now at $52,000 and can fund one engineering scholarship each year. If it gets up to $62,000+/- they will be able to fund two scholarships. He also thanked to volunteers who reviewed over 200 applications for our scholarships. The Foundation has paid for our Third Grade Dictionary project for the last two years.

Cherkassy, Ukraine Update:

Jeff Gospe said that another $16,000 was wired the the Rotary Club of Cherkassy for about 500 first aid kits. At this point between our club and East/West a total of $31,000 has been sent. FYI, if you need the tax deduction you can send your donation to East/West. If you do not need the tax, write off, you can donate to our club. Jeff donated another $100.00 in honor of Jacob’s thirteenth birthday.

Laura Colgate from the Valley of the Moon Children’s Foundation

Laura Colgate, president of the Children’s Foundation was our speaker today and she had a compelling story. The old “Moon” as they called it, was founded in 1996 to help children who were in the foster system. The new facility opened cost $6,000,000 and opened in 2005. They expanded from just providing financial assistance to educational scholarships (college and graduate school). Recently they added a dental program that does evaluations, cleanings, fluoride treatments, sealants, fillings, tooth restorations, temporary root canals and extractions.  They establish a Critical Needs Fund with the purpose of funding their scholars in emergency situations with the goal of keeping them is school. Alexander Crossland came with Laura to tell his story. He was just a toddler when he was taken from his drug addicted parents to live with his grandmother, but she had problems too. Eventually she passed away and he lived in a series of foster homes. He was on his own when he turned 16. He got connected with the Valley of the Moon Children’s Foundation and got the stability that he never had before. He got connected with TLC in Sebastopol. He got good grades and completed high school. He got scholarships for college but was unprepared for college. Laura Colgate got him the help he needed. He is now a sonoma State University graduate with a degree in finance and will be entering their MBA program. Bo Kearns from North Bay Business Magazine authored an article about the Valley of the Moon Children’s Foundation for their January issue.

Additional Pictures

Click on image to see slideshow of all pictures:

Governor, District 5130

Dustin Littlefield

Secretary

Debi Zaft P.O. Box 505 Santa Rosa, CA 95402

Board of Directors

President Elect, Kris Anderson
Club Service I, Membership, Julia Parranto
Club Service II, Club Meetings, Casey D’Angelo
Club Service III, Fundraising, Diane Moresi
Club Service IV, Member Activities, Anne Gospe
Club Service V, Information Technology and Records, Pete Lescure
Club Director, Casey Carter
Community Service I, Member Involvement, Rio Ray
Community Service II, Youth, Andrea Geary
Vocational Service, Carolyn Fassi
International Service, Dan Balfe

DIGITAL EDITION No. 452 April 13, 2022  EDITOR: Kris Anderson PHOTOGRAPHER: Jeff Gospe PUBLISHER: Richard Lazovick