Fellow Rotarians Anoop Mathur and John Suzukida became active with the Small Sums organization after we heard a presentation from the group at one of our regular meetings a number of years ago. Today, the groups Executive Director Leika Pierre-Louis joined our meeting to provide an update about the organization. The mission of this organization is to outfit individuals experiencing homelessness or housing instability with the required work items needed to start a new job. This mission is simple, very practical and powerful. Examples of the items frequently needed are appropriate work wear such as boots/shoes, mandatory tools for trade professions, bus passes, gas cards and test/license fees. They served over 1,200 people last year. We are invited to support their annual fundraiser on Thursday May 22nd which is a breakfast at 8:00 a.m. at the Town & Country Club in St. Paul.
We also heard today from Dan Dietz and George Cruze, volunteers who actively maintain the public gardens at Floral Park in Arden Hills. Our club has agreed to join them in this effort. They will be providing an orientation session for interested club members. There are many individual areas/projects that we can choose from in deciding where to focus our work.