Regular club meeting June 4, 2020

Rotary of Nashoba Valley

Regular Club Meeting

June 4, 2020

Pledge and Words: Chris Mudget

RI statement on this week’s events

Rotary International page share statement about welcoming community of Rotary and making positive change.  Posted on our Facebook page. 

Happy/Sad fines: Bob: sad -microphone not working; Rich- happy lunch club, the Romeos is back in business (outside and lovely) sad about the rioting and the murder of George Floyd and how it could be possible; Chris S: Happy for helping nephew learn to ride is bike so much fun; Howard: Happy for great weather, gardening, walking, found a restaurant to takeout stuffed lobster for their anniversary; Guest: engaged and getting married in October making plans challenging; Deb K Happy about warm weather, in phase 2 of opening up again sad about what we have all seen and witnessed this week; Rita Sad same, happy about children, Nathaniel started internship this week; Chris M - sad - ditto with all, happy - last week takeout from Nashoba Valley Winery - excellent food even with limited menu, tonight doing 3rd iteration of dinner on screened porch with friends feels so amazing; Ron - happy backyard landscapers in to plant grass, sad to see the violence and anger; Susan - Happy - love this weather, brought kids hiking this weekend and enjoyed it, Sad - being a black woman and raising black children has been very hard; Carol - sad email trouble, happy about yard sale benefit for food pantry, Action Unlimited doing a lot of free advertising for small businesses, next Wednesday June 10 at noon speaker for Polio - donate cost of one meal while we have a short speaker, one Polio team - has gone viral next week; Carolyn - Sad - very sad, ditto with others, baby graduating, happy Laura is with us today, weather helping Ashburnham; Ray - hopeful and happy about Obama speaking about ways to create change, happy about spring and critters not getting his crop so far, Sunday in person visit with grandkids 1st time in 2 months; Glenn - sad for sure about the hate and violence, happy for graduates - has two, one college and one high school, Stow police came by with gift certificates and other goodies for Nashoba grads; Laura S- sad - zoom call have been rough - 13 today alone with no breaks, elementary school zoom call tonight though which will be fun

Sunday at Noon - 117 Graduation Rally through the three towns, starting in Stow.  

Service projects:

  • Lancaster IT tech support (Amazon Fire 8” tablet): Chris S. - no recent progress.  Issue is trying to help seniors but if they don’t have wifi it is creating an issue.  
  • Cards and letters for local nursing homes: Chris M.Nursing home residents in Lancaster is extremely quarantined so letters would be so welcome.  Even caregivers now are covered head to toe so they are feeling very isolated.  
  • Repair Café update (virtual): Ray.  Moving ahead, scheduled June 20 noon to 2pm.  Need people with items to fix so please step in!  You have to have tools and they will help you through the fix.  June 16 dress rehearsal!  Need some things for that.  Trying to extend sign up to June 17thish
  • Service opportunities and resources for Covid-19: (see Download documents on website)
  • Back to School backpacks - numbers of backpacks still being drilled down, Rotary will provide the backpacks, looking for outside donations for supplies then hopefully we will help pack the backpacks.  
  • Reminder: Send Laura (laura@spear.net) your service hours! Needed by JUNE 13!
  • Rotary International - reminder to help support them

Rotary 7910 monthly virtual get-togethers: interest?

Upcoming events:

  • Now: service opportunities in time of Covid-19 (Jacky)
  • June 20: Repair Café – virtual (Ray)
  • June 20-26: 2020 Rotary Virtual Convention! www.riconvention.org 
  • District installation: possible virtual event on July 9
  • Fall: In-person club installation event
  • November 8: Devens Dog Festival (Mary)
  • possible Christmas service activity: New England Home and Center for Veterans
  • Rise Against Hunger – February 6, 2021
  • June 2021: RYLA

Speaker: Laura DiGeronimo, is a Mentor Recruiter for LUK, which is a social services agency that uses evidence-based treatment and prevention service models to serve over 3,700 youth, adults, and families each year. The agency has 250 employees, over 80 foster homes, 4 residential program settings, and 6 office locations in central MA. 

70 kids are on the waiting list right now to have a mentor assigned to them.  It’s an hour a week commitment for one year (most spend a lot more than that just because it’s so fun) and does have virtual opportunities as well.  Large percentage of the kids are over 13 years old. 

One more meeting with Laura Spear as president on June 18 then Carolyn takes over.

Adjourned at 8:26am.