George Ellefsen	Cal George	Scott Helton	Don Hendricks
Diane Junokas	Jim Krage	Gary Sinagra	Bob Smith
Don Weiss

Guests: Erica Minchella, Chicago Far North Rotary; Daniel Yang and Grant Buhr, Project Focus

Don Hendricks reminded members of the District 6450 Conference being held April 29-May 2, 2010 at Lincolnshire Marriott Resort. He would like to get everyone in the club to attend the Friday night dinner on April 30. The club will pay for members' dinners. Members will pay for their spouses to attend. The dinner costs $28.

The Lutherbrook Harvest Gala is being held on October 24 at the Mid-America Club. A motion and seconded to donate $500 to the fundraiser. Motion carred.

The Rotary International will have a float in Chicago 's Columbus Day Parade on October 12. All club members are welcome to march in the parade.

A District-wide dictionary initiative to provide dictionaries for Chicago Public School 3 rd graders. A meeting will be held on October 17 from 9-11:00am at Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills for anyone who wishes to get involved.

Two Addison Trail students will attend the RYLA leadership conference.

Terry Elliott will be the speaker for the Rotary/Interact meeting at Addison Trail on November 4. Sherri Anderson and Steve Humphrey will present a District 88 update at the November 11 meeting.

Community members are encouraged to participate in ‘Addison Reads' again this year. Book selections are The Pact , We Beat the Street (for middle school readers)and Oh, the Places You Will Go! (for young readers) A motion was made and seconded to support the community reading program again this year with a $100 donation. Motion carried.

A joint meeting of the Addison Kiwanis and Rotary will be held on Tuesday, October 27 at noon at Solace. Members should inform Don H. or Bob S. if they plan to attend.

Raffle ticket money for the Mayor's Ball should be into George Ellefsen . All money collected for tickets sold by early November comes directly to Rotary.

Silent auction items are needed for the Mayor's Ball, as well. The club needs to provide 20 items for the silent auction.

George Ellefsen noted that Bob Smith, Nick Heidtbrink and George Ellefsen are the three authorized signers for the Addison Rotary Club accounts at Itasca Bank.

Erica Minchella, president of the Chicago Far North Rotary, introduced Daniel and Grant who spoke to the club about Project Focus, an organization that was founded in response to plight of children being kidnapped in order to serve in the military in the war in northern Uganda .

As explained on their website, www.projectfocus.org , “Project FOCUS, founded in 2006, is a grass-roots initiative of artists, writers, activists, young professionals, and students bound by a common purpose: to educate, inspire, and empower local communities in Southwestern Uganda and the United States . Our work in Uganda extends beyond material support and touches upon the human need to share and reflect on personal experiences with others. Through creative collaboration, personal narratives and exhibition, we hope to support community-initiated programs, actively combat social apathy, and reveal the common humanity within two seemingly different worlds.”

Initially, the founders of Project Focus wanted to help by getting involved with community development, building an orphanage or homes, but they shifted their focus to education, in hopes of empowering Ugandans. Through art and art therapy, projects are developed to help support the community. Project Focus is working with community-based organizations—Integrated Community Efforts for Development(ICOD) and Prince Primary School . The creative projects empower citizens, art exhibits educate and raise funds and sustainable development brings about change in the community.

Currently Project Focus is working to build an Internet Café, which could help provide vital information on health, hygiene and weather as well as tech training and a further way to share multi-media projects. They are looking for help in the form of technical or professional expertise, sharing information/presentation with other groups or direct donations.

Scott Helton will meet with ATHS student leadership and Project Focus leaders to see if this would be a project (concert, art exhibit) that students might be interested in supporting. This could tie in with the Interact Club and/or the International Fest at AT.

The meeting adjourned at 1:45pm.