March was incredibly productive for our club. We successfully approved changes to our by-laws. We had an enlightening discussion on the Guatemala Literacy Project (GLP), a large Rotary global grant project that has had a profound impact on literacy improvement thanks to the collective efforts of 800 Rotary clubs and 90 districts over the twenty-seven years. (www.guatemalliteracy.org). Emily Swisher, the GLP presenter sends this note,” Feeling grateful to Arden Hills-Shoreview club for such a warm welcome, important questions, and thoughtful discussion. It was an honor to present our project”. Her email describes how you can sponsor a student. I will share this email separately.
Excitingly, our club is poised to proposed TWO significant grant projects: 1) a global grant (~$60K) championed by Rotarian Don Martin for Liberia for providing necessary medical equipment and training for nurses to improve Ear and Hearing care, and 2) a district international grant ($28K) led by Rotarian Dave Newman for farmers in a Nicaragua community, that will directly connect small agriculture farmers with market, eliminate the middleman and thus realize the added value to their product, while potentially exporting a significant portion of their crops. The club will support both these projects by contributing the $3000 each, the remainder to be raised from other clubs and Rotary match grants.
What is commendable about these two proposals is that their potential to foster systemic and sustainable change with the respective communities. Reviewing the proposals, I couldn’t help but recall the teachings during my executive MBA of Prof Marshall Ganz of Harvard University. He emphasized that social change is catalyzed by purposeful individuals or organizations who respond to challenges, cultivate new relationships, and harness economic and cultural influence to drive action.
In the upcoming meeting, I will allocate time for Don and Dave to present their international projects. Thanks to Glenn Bower to encourage his committee members to think differently and propose these impactful projects.
As we continue to invite speakers to our club who shed light on pressing community needs like hunger, homelessness, literacy, and mental health, it is imperative that we delve deeper into the root causes of these issues. Our committees should serve as platforms for identifying these key issues, strategic planning, fostering collaboration, engaging community, and maximizing the potential of grants to enact lasting change.
We will be looking forward to a busy April planning and executing the Taste of Shoreview event, a fundraiser that will support the Slice of Shoreview event during summer. Please help Ken Hola by volunteering to help him conduct this event.
A heartfelt thank you to each of you for your unwavering efforts.
We have many events coming up and it looks like the weather will cooperate after such an odd winter. I am in Florida but I somehow have twin cities local programming here and I was blown away by the weather back home. Some days our Florida weather was only a few degrees different from Minnesota.
I attend the rotary here all winter. Visiting other Rotaries is a real benefit of membership that we don’t promote enough. I was on a river cruise once and on our stop in Bulgaria a hotel had a notice that the Rotary was meeting the next afternoon. How interesting that would have been if we were there the following day and if someone in the group spoke English.Always check to see when the Rotary meets if you are traveling. The Rotarians are always helpful with restaurant suggestions, etc and you might even get an idea of something they do that we can use back home.
Coming up is a tour of Northern Soda on Wednesday April 3 and the new ( for us) is Taste of Shoreview on April 23. Please send me suggestions of places you would like to tour or a business that can come to our meeting for a ‘Business Minute’ talk.
The new Pollinator Garden in McCollough Park has garnered a lot of favorable publicity for your club, including the cover photo of the Shoreview Community Foundation’s Annual Report (full disclosure - the Rotarian pictured is me).The next activity is the planting of 45 new plants at 3:00 PM this coming Tuesday, June 6th. We had a lot of fun at the initial planting - hope many hands will make short work!
Our speaker today was Sreeni Checka from the India Association of Minnesota. The vision of this group is to serve as the primary point of contact in Minnesota for advancing the cultural, charitable, academic, political, social, and professional interests of the Asian Indian community. They were founded in 1973, therefore the group is currently celebrating it's 50th year. There are now over 50,000 Asian Indians living and working in Minnesota. They sponsor many cultural events each year, the biggest of which is India Fest in August at the state capitol. Sreeni and several others from IAM who were also participating in today's meeting spoke about several other significant initiatives this organization has recently undertaken. During the first year of the Covid Pandemic, IAM raised over $120,000 for protective equipment and food, focusing on needs within both MN and India. The Maple Grove Rotary Club was involved in this initiative and Sreeni spoke to the possibilities for future joint projects between our organizations.
When District Governor Dayle Quigley visited our club last fall, she mentioned a large impactful project that was done by the Rotary Club of Banjara Hills, Hyderabad India. Our incoming RI President (2024-5) Stephanie Urchik visited the hospital which was built for hospice care, and remarked, “It is the work of the angels”. Today we learned more about this remarkable project from Banjara Hills Rotarian Dr. M. Subrahmanyam who joined us via Zoom. Dr. Subrahmanyam currently leads the Department of Anesthesiology for Rainbow Hospitals Group in Hyderabad, following stints in the UK and at the University of Michigan. Sparsh Palliative Care Services was founded in 2014. It provides hospice and palliative care support to patients at end of life. These services are non-existent in most parts of India due to various cultural and economic reasons. One primary cultural issue is that families don't accept or talk about death to patients who are facing the end, and instead, spend far too much money on unnecessary treatment such as being hooked to a ventilator. The Sparsh facility has a staff of 79 and all services are free to patients. It is managed through a trust with several Rotarian physicians, including Dr. Subrahmanyam, serving as trustees. This trust has a platinum rating with the agency that monitors the health of non-profit organizations. Most of the fundraising support for Sparsh comes from generous donors in the U.S.
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