Kay Baker and Mike Spellman have arranged some interesting and thought provoking programs for May. On May 7 Iris Tzafir will present reflections of a daughter of Holocaust survivors.  The presentation is timely because May 8 is VE Day, the day the Nazis surrendered to Allied Forces in 1945.  Shannon Brumbaugh will discuss Midwest Special Services (MSS) on May 14.  MSS is located near our meeting site.  The work of the Freshwater Society will be the topic of its executive director, Steve Woods, on May 21.  The month will close out with another visit from Shoreview resident and former MN DNR Commissioner and Shoreview City Council member Tom Landwehr on May 28 who will speak to us about the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA).  Tom is now  the executive director for The Campaign to Save the BWCA, an advocacy group opposed to plans to mine copper and nickel near the BWCA.

 

Thanks to Kent Peterson for arranging the programs and a community service project for April.  Rotarian Stephanie Cosgrove set a high bar for classification talks in her April 2 program complete with a Power Point presentation.  The Rotary Ethics Team made an April 9 presentation on the Rotary Four-Way Test and personal ethics.  On April 16 University of Minnesota engineering grad student Vini Taguchi's program featured the work of Engineers Without Borders.  The club traveled to Shoreview's new Loden SV Apartments for a guided tour and presentation by Josh Brandsted from Greco Development and Management on one of the city's newest apartment developments on the site of a demolished Deluxe building.  Rotarians joined other volunteers on April 30 at Incarnation Lutheran Church to pack food for Feed My Starving Children.

Today's meeting included a short "public service announcement" from Don Martin of Incarnation Lutheran Church.  Don leads their annual "Feed My Starving Children" mobile packing event which our club has helped support in the past.  He provided some great background information about this effort which has become very large scale, packing over a million meals over a couple day period.  We will again have a number of our members there on April 30th this year in lieu of a regular weekly meeting.  

 

We were also delighted to hear from one of our newest members, Stephanie Cosgrove.  Stephanie was born and raised in Iowa and became familiar with Rotary through her father, who was a long-time member there.  She learned the value of hard work early on - taking on jobs such as delivering papers, de-tassling corn, and babysitting throughout her youth.  After graduating from The University of Iowa with a degree in Journalism and Communication, she worked a series of jobs that included training roles at American Express, Toyota, and Deluxe.  The latter came after a move to the Twin Cities with her husband.  Her Deluxe experience led to a new role at Wells Fargo, focused on organizational development and change management work.  This work clearly inspires her and has led to becoming highly involved with a program known as Action Learning.  She is currently a board member for the World Institute of Action Learning.  Stephanie is currently a VP with Wells Fargo and travels frequently to other Wells Fargo Regional Hubs in San Francisco, Phoenix and elsewhere.  We are thrilled she has joined us and is already playing an active leadership role in our club!

Our speaker today was Ed Marek who is Rotary District 5960 Governor Nominee.  He will step into that role for the 2020-2021 Rotary year.  Currently Ed heads the district committee on ethics and his presentation today focused on the importance and relevance of Rotary's 4-Way Test.  He pointed out that Rotary's 4-Way Test makes it the only major service club that is grounded on ethical principles.  Given the current climate of political divisiveness in our country, the district's ethics committee has looked for ways to build more focus and recognition about this unique aspect of Rotary.   Ed hails from the St. Paul Sunrise Club, and showed a video from one of their club meetings in which individual members spoke to how the 4-Way Test has helped them in their professional lives.  The video also went on to cover other ways in which clubs might work to bring focus to the 4-Way Test in their local communities.  Clubs in Northfield and Eagan have held ethics workshops for local high schools.  Other clubs have conducted school essay contests and anti-bullying videos.  These are all practical ideas that could have a great dual purpose - publicizing the good work of Rotary in a way which directly benefits the local community.

Today we welcomed guest speaker Vinicius Taguchi from the University of Minnesota's chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB).  This was an impressive young man who is working on his PhD in Civil Engineering at the U of M.  He is also active in Twin Cities Rotaract, which is where John Suzukida met him when delivering a presentation at one of their meetings.  Taguchi's area of focus is in water resources research.  He talked with us today about EWB and their current projects in Ethiopia and Guatemala.  Both projects involve improving access to clean water.  Like Rotary, EWB's model for these types of projects requires active participation from the recipient community and support from a local NGO to ensure that there is community buy-in and ability to handle future maintenance.  Also, like Rotary, EWB chapters are governed by a larger organization when it comes to obtaining grant money to proceed with projects.  In the case of EWB, there is a national group that vets projects and NGOs and helps secure support from businesses and engineering firms.  EWB is modeled after Doctors Without Borders, but unlike DWB, does not go into war zones and therefore participants do not face quite as many risks in their work.  

 

Interestingly, Taguchi is also working with the City of Shoreview to help solve a problem that has been vexing the City for some time - the "greening" of the large pond on city property being caused by phosphates and other forms of run-off.  

Today's meeting was an interesting off-site visit to the new Loden S.V. apartment complex in Shoreview.  Josh Brandsted from Greco Real Estate Development spoke with us about the history of the project.  Discussions began in September of 2017 as the city looked for a way to address the commercial building that had sat there unoccupied for 7 years after Deluxe Corporation had faced downsizing.  Greco had not done any business in the Shoreview/Arden Hills area before but was quickly taken with the opportunity, impressed by the plethora of local trails, parks and lakes, as well as the convenience of the location.  The first phase, which includes 200 units, opened in July 2018 and is currently 95% leased.  The second phase, which will be another 200 units, will be started in the fall.  We were all impressed with our tour of the facility and its many amenities.  Some were expected - large, lovely communal gathering areas, fitness area, screening room and underground parking.  Others were a surprise - a dog washing facility, a bike room which included space and tools for bike repair, a small dog park and a pickleball court!  The average age of occupants is 31 and 40% are pet owners.   65% of the units are studio/1 bedroom with the remainder being primarily 2 bedroom units.  Rents range from $1,200 to $2,200 plus utilities.  It appears this project is a huge success.  Terry Schwerm spoke highly of Greco as a business partner and the high occupancy rate speaks to the fact that Loden is delivering what folks are looking for these days.