June is the last month of the 2017-18 Rotary year so I can reflect on the year.
The biggest accomplishment happened in August with the new fundraiser – Rotary’s Taste of Hops at Snail Lake Regional Park. The committee composed of Kevin Keenan, Ken Hola, Bill Klumpp, John Suzukida, Betty Ziskovsky, Paul McCreight, Bill Kiehnbaum and Sandi Bahr did a great job. The event was well attended, fun and netted enough to fully fund for our scholarship, donations to local service, community and international service projects of our own and donations to Rotary Foundation. In fact we were able to add a few projects and contributions that were not in the original budget.
We continued the full range of community service projects throughout the year. Our Rotary Youth Exchange student from South Korea left in July. While we did not have a full-year 2017-18 international youth exchange student, we’re ready to welcome a short term, summer youth exchange student from Spain arriving later this month. Participation of Mounds View High School students in Camp Enterprise and our Strive scholarship continued.
Bob Freed has prepared an international district grant project that is pending at this time and, if approved for a district match, we’ll have a big new international project in India to operate for the next 2 years.
Our club has met our goal to increase membership again in 2017-18. After our club membership dropped to 23 a few years ago, we increased to 29 members last year. This year we are about to increase to 32 members with new members Bob Overby, Al Ramos and Charlie Oltman (soon).
Financial support of the Rotary Foundation by both our club and individual donations is important to help Rotary International be leaders in international service, including the Polio Plus program. Our goal of $6,000 in donations to the SHARE - Annual Fund and $1,500 to Polio Plus has been exceeded for 2017-18. However, every year our District received grants proposals for more than the funds available. Please consider an additional donation to the SHARE- Annual Fund of Rotary Foundation before June 30, 2018.
We have continued to enjoy outstanding programs at our meetings every week. We had to make a change in meeting location and we have been pleased by the new breakfast served and meeting space available at Shore 96. Thanks to all our members for continued active service.
Finally, the biggest event for the year will be on July 3 – installation of Bill Kiehnbaum as our President for 2018-19!
This is my last submission as director of Club Service. Glenn Bowers will be the new director. It is time for a change. Organizations such as Rotary need changes in roles to keep their vitality. In the past year, we added several new members, had a successful fundraiser and performed many community service projects. Let's remember to have fun when we are performing community service projects.
This lists shows people responsible to be the "Greeter" for the day, and also to begin the morning. If you are unable to be the Greeter on the assigned day please trade with someone and let me know about the change.
Arden Hills Shoreview Rotary Club seeks District Grant to fund Sewing School in India
Our Rotary Club (AHS) recently submitted a request for a District Grant from Rotary District 5960 to fund the development of a Sewing School in Amaravathi, Andhra Pradesh, India. The requested funding is for a new school that would be developed by an Indian NGO called PUSHPA, which is the outgrowth of a Minnesota Non-Profit Corporation, also named PUSHA, organized by Gummadi Franklin and his wife Shirley. The Franklins spoke to our club in November, 2017, regarding the activities of PUSHPA’s charitable programs in India that are designed to help marginalized low caste or Muslim peoples help themselves out of impoverished circumstances.
Our proposed budget for the two-year project is $17,550. The proposed project will establish a sewing school to provide needed vocational skills for young women from such low caste or otherwise impoverished families in Amaravathi, Andhra Pradesh. The sewing skills that we anticipate the students will develop will enable them to work in jobs other than as field hands, engage in micro entrepreneurial enterprises and sew clothing for themselves and for other members of their respective families to minimize expenses for clothing in a heavily clothing conscious society, where beautiful clothing is greatly appreciated, especially for women. The young women for whom it is envisioned that this project will serve are very poor and come from historically marginalized communities of people whose only source of revenue comes from field work. Having sewing skills could lift these young women up in ways that little else could.
PUSHPA has been working to develop low cost development projects in India since 2007 and has developed significant institutional knowledge about development projects designed to help marginalized people in Andhra Pradesh, India. Some of these projects have proven to be quite workable with minimal financial commitments. One of the best of these projects developed by PUSHPA has been a vocational education program developed to teach practical sewing skills to young women in Rajupalem, Andhra Pradesh. In the picture below, students from the sewing school in Rajupalem are receiving their certificates of completion. Gummadi Franklin is the man pictured directly behind the young woman in the lavender saari who is receiving her certificate of completion.
The success of the sewing program in Rajupalem has led elders from a different community, in the village of Amaravathi, Andhra Pradesh, to engage the leaders of PUSHPA’s Indian NGO in discussions regarding the possibility that PUSHPA would work with them to establish a new sewing school in Amaravathi. Our project has been developed to help fund the development of this new sewing school.
2017-2018 Wrap Up from Programs and Youth Exchange
The Rotary year is coming to a close at the end of this month. One sign of a healthy club is the fact that we continue to have interesting and relevant programs each week. Thanks to all the volunteers who made that happen by coordinating speakers during the year.
Our inbound short term exchange student from Spain arrives this month. Sergio Valenciano Vico arrives on June 28. His exchange partner Mason Matlock will be at our club meeting on July 24. Please circle that date for a chance to meet them.
And thanks to everyone for helping “Make a Difference” in the world and local community during the year.
Today’s speaker was Dr. Ann Frisch from the White Bear Lake Rotary Club. Dr. Frisch serves as a Senior Advisor for “Nonviolent Peaceforce” which is a Non-Profit organization working to promote unarmed civilian protection as a tool for reducing violence in conflict situations around the world. She is also involved with Rotary’s efforts to reduce the global risk associated with nuclear weapons. This was the subject of today’s presentation, which took the form of a discussion session with the members in attendance. Dr. Frisch asked us each to consider two things: 1) What questions did we have about the subject of nuclear weapons and, 2) Who would we trust to provide answers to this question. The first part of this was easy as there were many questions from the group. The second part was difficult as most questioners responded with “I don’t know” or “No One” when asked who they would trust to provide an answer. Following are the questions posed by the group:
What would be the environmental impact of various levels of nuclear blasts? (i.e.something less than complete destruction of our world)
How do we guarantee liberty without the threat of using nuclear weapons?
What is the strategy that would replace “mutually assured destruction”? (i.e. the newer, smaller players like Korea may not be able to launch weapons sufficient to destroy the world, but how does their entry into the picture change things?)
What is the impact of pulling out of the Iranian nuclear agreement?
If we get rid of all nuclear weapons have we really changed the ultimate horror possibilities? (i.e. there are other threats equally as bad, such as chemical weapons)
How can the U.S. be trusted to keep our promises around nuclear weapons when we have taken steps such as killing Kaddafi and Hussein?
We know what countries have nuclear capability. What weapons don’t we know about like dirty bombs, chemical weapons, etc.?
What is the potential damage to the Electro Magnetic Pulse that could be caused by nuclear weapons? (impact to the power grid)
Can we get rid of nuclear weapons? What do we do with the nuclear material?
Members stated they didn’t know who could answer most of these questions or who they would trust. In a few cases it was felt that the scientific community could provide some answers, such as for the question on impact to the Electro Magnetic Pulse. Dr. Frisch later sent me the attached link to a "Trello Board" which maintains information on this subject and might be a source of information for us as we think about these questions.
Today we heard from new member Bob Overbye, who gave us a brief overview of his personal and work background. Bob hails from the small town of Augusta, Wisconsin, home to the food business "Bush's Baked Beans". He earned his bachelor's degree from the Carlson School at the U of MN, then a masters degree from the University of St. Thomas. He started out in the brokerage business, going on to be president of his firm. He was later lured away to the insurance field, however, coming to own an agency in Faribault, MN for 9 years. He grew this business to significant success but tired of the long daily commute from the northern suburbs of the Twin Cities, hence his change to now own the State Farm franchise in Shoreview. His wife is also a State Farm agent, working in New Brighton. We are thrilled to have had Bob join our Rotary group!
Former Rotary District Governor Jim Hunt was also in attendance at today's meeting and provided a good update and overview of our district's Fast For Hope program. FFH is unusual in that it is a rare district-wide program that is separate from the Rotary Foundation. Funds come directly from clubs and individual members in our district. The program started 10 years ago and was initially focused on building wells in Haiti. There were challenges along the way and a lot of lessons learned about how best to undertake good works in this part of the world. It has since become focused in the village of El Corozo in Nicaraugua. A primary lesson was the need for ownership by the local community so FFH has become driven in the practice of training El Corozo citizens to own and lead the most needed projects that get staffed and supported by FFH. Successes include improvements to the school and beginning studies to construct a new road leading into and out of the village, which currently becomes impassable by mud for half the year. Many Rotarians from our district have traveled to El Corozo to assist with work and training there and we were all encouraged to consider joining a future trip.
The Club welcomed several people including visiting Rotarian Ron Hughes from the Excelsior Club, Honorary Member Irene Meinen, Prospective Member Charlie Oltman, and visitor Peggy Wedell.
The guest speaker was Conner Mulhern who was present to talk about his experience as an exchange student. His most recent exchange experience involved living in Morocco for several months during 2016. He showed slides and discussed his experiences as an exchange student. Previously, he had been to Turkey as an exchange student and because of his experiences he is fluent in Arabic, Turkish and Spanish. During his most recent exchange, he also took time to backpack through Europe and spent time in several European countries including Italy, Austria, Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Belgium, France and Spain. He also spent a few months serving as a public affairs intern for the US Embassy in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emeritus (UAE).
Conner discussed and showed many pictures of his experiences living in Morocco as an exchange student as well as his other experiences in the Middle East and Europe.
Today we welcomed Jill Wiedemann-West, CEO of People Incorporated, a community-based mental health system, which has been serving MN for nearly 50 years. Services include intervention, treatment, recovery outreach, supportive services and housing. People Inc. serves seven counties, includes 60 programs and employs 700 people. It is one of eight nationwide to receive a federal grant that supports a "one-stop shopping" approach to mental health care. This approach holds promise and is much needed to help deal with the current, difficult issues in our society such as homelessness, opioid addiction, and high stress levels in our children. On that latter note, club member and Mounds View High School Principal Stephanie Bruggers, spoke about a very disturbing trend seen recently in teen suicides, including at MVHS. There were three from last year's graduating class and one current student during the past year. The school district has responded by bringing in a counseling team to conduct listening sessions with students and to develop a plan of action based on the results of these sessions.
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