|
Addison Rotary Meeting Members present:
Guests: Serunas , Egle Vasiliauskiene , Kent Smith, Mark Dyer The meeting opened with “ America ”, the pledge, the 4-way test and prayer. Bill Schaub introduced guests Serunas and Egle from the Rotary Club of Chicagoland Lithuanians. Mark Dyer and Kent Smith, Elmhurst Rotary, will be sharing information about Shelter Box. On Saturday, Sept 19, there is a seminar at the Holiday Inn in Willowbrook from 7:30-11am. The session is geared towards club public relations Jim Krage announced that Krage's Mobil will be celebrating '50 Years of Krage' from September 18-27. One of the unique features of the week is that full service will be offered to customers from 8am-6pm during the week. Don Hendricks reminded members that the Addison Kiwanis will be holding their President's Inauguration dinner meeting at Solace on Oct 9. Janis Jordan will represent Rotary at the event. The Kiwanis-Rotary annual joint meeting will be held on Tuesday, October 27 or November 3 at Solace. The speaker's topic will be “Moving Beyond a Petroleum Based Economy.” Don suggested that the annual Christmas outing be scheduled for Friday, December 19. He will look into the options of dinner and a play at Pheasant Run or Sunday buffet and a play at Drury Lane . Chuck Wartman will check with the District 4 principals to see how many dictionaries will need to be ordered for 3 rd grade students. District 4 Foundation is hosting the Kelly Miller Circus on Tuesday, September 22. Thank you to the Rotary for donating tickets for Lutherbrook students. Gary Sinagra announced that he has raffle tickets for MCCD. Tickets for the $1500 cash raffle are five for $20. Tickets for a trip to Hawaii are $20 each. Seranus announced that the Rotary Club of Chicagoland Lithuanians is celebrating its 1 st anniversary. They are hosting a Fall Golf Classic Fundraiser on October 18, 2009 to raise money to help children with diabetes in Lithuania (for more info, click here). They are also having an open house at their regular meeting on Thursday, September 24 at 6pm and welcome visitors. The club meets at Pappadeaux Restaurant, 921 Pasquinelli Drive in Westmont . Dinner is $20. Seranus also encouraged members to direct any Lithuanians to visit the club. Mark Dyer shared information about Shelter Box, which was created to aid survivors of natural disasters. A Shelter Box includes camping equipment and enough supplies for 10 people to live on for 6 months (food is not included). Shelter Box is the largest Rotary club project in the history of Rotary. The project was initiated in 2000 by Tom Henderson of Cornwall , England . In its history, it has lent aid to 800,000 people involved in 90 disasters in 60 countries. Some unique aspects to the program are: * Rotary sends people to accompany the equipment to make sure it gets to where it is most needed *Aid is delivered within 72 hours *Works within the Rotary network—the first call is made to a Rotary club in the disaster area in order to obtain immediate local knowledge *When a club donates/sponsors a full box, there is follow up information. The club receives a letter telling them where their donation box was sent and they can find further information about the disaster area/relief efforts on the Shelter Box website. Mark shared information about a trip he took to deliver Shelter Boxes to Somalia in February. Since there was aid for 7600 people and 90,000 people were in need, they worked with the local elders to determine the most needy. A key to making the program work is having volunteers follow the equipment to show people how to use it. In Somalia , teenagers were recruited and trained so that they could become the local experts. Shelter Box is still primarily supported by UK clubs (80%), but more US and Australian clubs are becoming involved with the project. A motion was made to donate $1000 to purchase a Shelter Box. Motion carried. |