The month of August brought us our annual Taste of Hops & Vines fundraising event and boy did it not disappoint! Each and every one of you should be incredibly proud of your efforts. Even with a lighter slate of vendors and lower than expected ticket sales, your efforts saw us to our most successful monetary event to date. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
We heard from the Sheriff's department and the owner of Dependable Solutions on the topic of fraud and scams this past month. There was lots of great information and ways to best protect ourselves from bad actors trying to access our information and take what they can. Reflecting on the information presented, I can't help but think how great it is organizations like Rotary exist. It's so, so easy to get caught up in all the 'bad' we hear on a daily basis, but it sure is nice to belong to a group of people doing good.
If you know of someone who you think would bring good information to the club, be a dynamic and thought-provoking speaker or have an interesting topic to share, there is room on the speaker list. Please just let me know if you do fill a speaking slot.
We had another successful fundraiser this November to raise money for the Rotary Foundation. Matt Rossetter had the highest score and won $10.00 and his name enshrined on the Rotary bowling pin. After our game we enjoyed food and drinks in Flaherty's restaurant. Pictured here are fellow bowlers Jerry Peterson, Mike Spellman, Matt's wife Casey and Matt. Rotarians-you have a full year to sharpen your skills for the next "tournament."
The Christmas holiday are now in the rear mirror but it did not past without our Club members joining together to the make it brighter for those less fortunate in our community.
We strived to make this happen in two ways by:
• stuffing Christmas stockings for the children at Solid Ground and
• helping raise funds for the Salvation Army by ringing bells.
Thanks to 16 of our Club members - and some of the spouses - 57 children of 22 families at Solid Ground woke up to a brighter Christmas morning.
Our effort this year was aided by students from the Mounds View High School Volunteer Club which stuffed 6 stockings for the children at Solid Ground.
The stockings were stuffed with great care and creativity by all, certainly bringing great joy to children who would other wise not experience the magical moments and giving spirit of Christmas.
One member, as in previous years, donated a huge box of Mrs. Field’s cookies for the Solid Ground staff and families to enjoy.
Without a doubt your stocking stuffers brightened the holiday season for the children and their parents who are struggling to escape homelessness and build of a new life of self-sufficiency. In addition, you are truly modeling for them the true spirit of service above self.
During the holiday season 18 of our Club members also aided the Salvation Army’s annual fund raising effort by Cub Foods during the coldest days of December. Once again the students at the Mounds View High School joined our efforts by ringing bells from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. both nights in single digit temperatures.
A sincere and heartfelt thank you from the families at Solid Ground and those served by Salvation Army for your thoughtfulness and generosity during the past holiday season.
Dave Newman is working on a District Grant “LIFT – processing center update and rent” for supporting a community in Nicaragua that is paired with a Global Grant that Stillwater Sunrise is working on for the same community. There has been a significant development related to the government of Nicaragua requiring Rotary International to work with the Department of Interior. Rotary International will not agree to those terms. In addition, Rotary International has decided in order to comply with sanctions applied by the U.S. Government to Nicaragua it is not possible for The Rotary Foundation funds to be sent to Nicaragua. Our district and our club are in the midst of figuring out what these means to the overall LIFT project, projects that are supporting other efforts in Nicaragua and to the folks in Nicaragua that are relying on commitments we have made.
Don Martin is working on a Global Grant “Ear & Hearing Care (EHC) for Liberia” which will provide instruments for 7 hospitals in Liberia for hearing testing. The fundraising portion of the Global Grant was met in October! That is a milestone! We can thank 20 clubs that pitched in from $100 to $5,000 in support of this grant. The next step is authorizations by the presidents of the Host club in Liberia, and the International club (us), as well as DDF authorization from the districts. Once that is accomplished, (finally) The Rotary Foundation will review the proposal that was approved by our district back in August.
We continue to evaluate requests for funding. At our meeting in October, we considered:
A water project in Kenya from Forest Lake
Additional funding for an ESL project from Columbia Heights – Fridley
The Guatemala Literacy project from Rice Lake (Wisconsin) for $500
The first 2 projects were already fully funded by the time we offered support, so we have withdrawn our offer of support.
Oliver Gamson writes "I feel very adapted to the culture now, here in Austria. I’m finding German to be a very difficult language, but aside from that I feel at home. At the beginning of the month, I took a trip with the other Rotary Exchange Students to Prague, Dresden, and Berlin. I liked these cities a lot. As with most European cities, they had beautiful buildings and boulevards, and had generally nice atmospheres, making each of these cities seem very livable. What I liked about Dresden, and surprisingly Berlin as well, is that they were not totally packed with tourists. It was nice to see the cities in a more real way without everything being designed to capture tourists’ attention. It felt like a more genuine representation of the culture.
Coming home from the trip, I felt like there was a new mindset that I developed towards this exchange. I think before I was so comfortable that it almost felt like I had been living here much of my life, and I forgot how precious my time is here. After the trip I began to be pulled back into the reality of how my life here is temporary, but I found that to help me enjoy each moment more. So, for me this month has brought, above all else, a new perspective and appreciation towards each individual experience, and this year as a whole. Moments in which I have felt this new mindset to the fullest include performing with my orchestra in Vienna, dancing the Viennese Waltz during dance lessons, and each time I order a coffee and pastry in German, and sit down to enjoy it."
The conductor of my orchestra and I shaking hands after our concert.
Oliver Gamson writes 'Greetings and Happy Holidays to everyone back home! December has gone by very quick, but I’ve still had a lot of time to enjoy the holiday season here. There are beautiful Christmas lights in almost every street in Vienna, which makes it feel very magical whenever I’m walking through the city. I would say that it has been quite special to see how everyone celebrates Christmas here — the Christmas markets are always filled with people drinking punch or hot cocoa, the stores are playing Christmas music and are always busy with people buying presents, and the overall atmosphere has turned very festive and celebratory. I also spent a weekend in Innsbruck with the rest of the Rotary Exchange Students, which was quite fun. We did some charity work with Rotaract and shared a nice Christmas dinner where we exchanged gifts and sang together.This is the last month I am living with my first host family. I’ll be moving to my next family on January 6th. I already know my next family quite well, but I do have some nervousness to make such a big change in my exchange year. I am confident, however, that I’ll continue to have a wonderful time with many special and fun moments.'
Youth Exchange students in Innsbruck.
Me outside of the Vienna Opera House right after attending my first Opera.
Today's speaker was Deborah Pierce, retired former Director of the FBI's Art Crimes Unit. Ms. Pierce was with the FBI for 27 years and for a time was the Special Agent In Charge of their Minneapolis Office. This was an interesting look at a subject that is totally foreign to most of us. We were surprised to learn that more than 50,000 art works are stolen each year with an estimated total value of $8 to $10 billion dollars. The rate of recovery of these items is only about 10%. The "Top 10" list of most valuable artifact losses in the world include the 2018 looting of artifacts from the Iraqi National Museum, the Gardner Museum Heist in Boston in 1990, and the 2014 theft of a 300 year old Stradivarius violin in Milwaukee worth $5 million. Most museum thefts are "inside jobs" and occur when security and inventory controls are weak.
Our guest speakers today were several students from the Mounds View High School SOROR group and their advisor, Connie Desjarlait. The students participated in our District's recent Camp Enterprise, with sponsorship from our club. The spoke of their initial hesitancy about participating, but - as with so many others in the past - then going on to describe how meaningful the experience was. They learned a lot about themselves and were surprised at what they were able to accomplish with their group projects during that weekend. They talked about their future educational plans and how the Camp Enterprise experience gave them confidence to look for more leadership opportunities.
Our foreign exchange student Leonard from Austria provided a brief update on his exchange experience to-date. He appears to be thriving at MVHS, participating in cross-country events and doing well in his classes. His English skills were already good when he arrived but have continued to get even better. Our speaker was Jeff Howison from the State Demographer's Office. Jeff and his family moved to MN from Ohio this summer and his children attend Valentine Hills Elementary School in Arden Hills. He presented a summary of results from the last census in 2020, and described the census process as "truly a bedrock of American democracy" as it underpins the assignment of congressional seats and other critical government decisions. Minnesota's population grew 7.6% between 2010 and 2020 and now has a population of over 5.7 million. The growth figures vary greatly by county, however, with most outstate counties declining and the major population centers increasing. The trends vary by age and race also. The white, non-Hispanic population went down by 51,000 and the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) population grew by over 450,000. Our population has also gotten older, as much of the growth is younger population categories.
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