President Arnie Biondo welcomed everyone to the Centerville Rotary Club and lead the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance. Ray Merz provided the prayer.
The quote today: "The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon (British Philanthropist )
President Biondo had the following announcements:
- Thanks to Chris, Mark, Boyd, and Jim for helping with the milkweed seed project.
- Thanks to Jackie & Harvey for being greeters today.
- Thanks to Dale Berry for stepping up to judge the Rotary District 4-Way Test speech contest
Brad Huffman gave Golf Outing updates:
- Time to get those sponsorships (Sofie is gone for a few weeks so we need to help) We currently have around $8,000.
- Goal is 80-120 golfers and to raise $17,000.
- Frank Perez said golfers are registering now and the link is on our website. If sponsorship level includes golfers, give the names to Frank instead of registering through the website or they will be double charged.
Crissy Allums said today is the last collection day for feminine hygiene donations for Ohio PETS, however you can still donate through the Amazon link.
Happy Bucks for this quarter go to support Florida Hurricane Relief. Our Sergeant at Arms this week was Pat Beckel.
Happy Bucks were given generously for:
- Pat Beckel announced the City is having a meeting Monday 5:30 pm at the Police station to provide an update on Uptown development. His kids competed in a local gymnastics meet and set personal records.
- Gina Smith was happy to remember what day it was!
- Carol Kennard was happy.
- Jim Stuart’s family is recovering from strep, and he shared a meaningful quote he stumbled upon: “A blade isn’t sharp until it goes through the flames.”
- Rand Oliver was happy.
- Harvey Smith was happy for sunshine today.
- Mark Febus was glad to be back.
- Jackie D’Aurora was happy to be here.
- Bob Sachs for hurricane relief.
- Elda Gotos-Gay said she tore her meniscus but is recovering.
- Dave Trout was happy to be at a table with other people.
- Crissy Allums was happy to see Elda.
- Scott Kujuwa was happy.
- Mike Wier announced he has been a Rotarian around 40 years and never goes to Rotary for the food, but today he was a happy Texan to have tacos for lunch!
- Dick Hoback had an apology dollar as he didn’t realize the milkweed seed project was outside and they were not prepared, so couldn’t stay and help.
- Don Stewart announced the CHS boys basketball team is on the path to win state championship. They play Saturday at the Cintas Center, and if they win, they will play at UD the following weekend. His nephew is on the team.
- Dale Berry was happy.
- Lisa Goris-May was happy to be here and that real estate dam broke last week!
- Chuck King is attending the All Ohio PETS in Columbus for a third time and hopes to get it right this time!
- Brian Hayes gave for his 7 year Rotary anniversary, 23 year work anniversary, and 27 wedding anniversary!
- Arnie Biondo for forgetting to introduce Raj Grandhi - welcome back!
- Raj Grandhi gave a hello to all and noted he was glad to be back.
- Ron Hollenbeck for FL hurricane relief and it was great to see Raj.
- Adam Manning for Raj, and he was happy with the lunch but made a mess with the rice!
- Sivaji Subramaniam for sitting at a special table, for International Women’s Day, and his 2nd granddaughter celebrating her 18th birthday.
- Ray Merz noted they have gone to Florida for the past 18 years and this year they had to go to Tampa, as the previous place was not available due to the hurricane.
Pat Beckel closed by announcing he is on the Americana committee, and was the only Rotarian with the rest being Optimists. He encouraged others to get involved.
Our speaker today was Kara Ware.
Sivaji Subramaniam introduced Kara, noting she was previously involved with the Centerville-Washington Diversity Council and worked at the former Hithergreen Center. She is now a National Health Coach working with conventional and functional medicine. She coaches families living with autism, sharing patient experiences with families so they don’t feel alone. She works with the Hope for Healing Program, specializing in autism.
Kara shared her son has wonderful qualities as a result of his autism. In 2005 when she first heard the word autism, she didn’t know anything about it. Today 1 in 42 boys have autism.
At a young age, her son had terrifying tantrums, screaming, banging his head, biting her and not letting go, stopped sleeping, stopped babbling, and stopped eye contact. He couldn’t follow directions or recognize his name. Was self injuring at age 2. She stopped going out in public as there were too many scenes that brought negative attention. He was in constant movement and would bolt easily.
They took him to a pediatrician who said it looked like autism. “Developmental disorder that affects how people interact with each other.” It’s not one diagnosis but a spectrum of diagnoses and they were told there was nothing they could do.
The doctor advised to take him home, try to keep him safe and begin financial planning to place him in an institution when he gets older. She asked why he is behaving as if he’s hurting and the Doctor said that’s just autism. But she wanted to know why and started looking.
Diagnosis at that time was based on examination of the child’s behaviors. They didn’t look at metabolic abnormalities which didn’t make sense to her. Kara said the research is starting to catch up. She believed if she could help him feel better, he would act better, and would be able to sleep and behave.
17 years later she now knows there are medical problems that contribute to autism.
Kara started traveling around the country to talk with physicians who were willing to look further. She found the Systems Biology Medical Model
www.ifn.org that studies core clinical balances.
Autism is not treatable but what is? She found bio markers that could be treated and found doctors who were finally looking beyond just the symptoms.
Kara’s son Zach entered 1st grade not talking and had an aide with him always. He jumped two academic grade levels once treated for abnormalities. By 5th grade, he was in a regular classroom, and played soccer on a team, able to participate without extra supervision.
At the 17 year anniversary of Kara’s refusal to do nothing, her son graduated from CHS with 3.2 GPA,
took his first solo driving trip to WV to visit his father, and had his first job interview.
Kara has been in the clinical setting now for 10 years helping families try to navigate this confusing medical journey. She has used pharmaceuticals selectively, but not for long term.
Kara warned that it’s not just kid's, but adult's disease state that is accelerating. She challenged us to get very curious about what is going on in the world.
Chemicals used every day can be harming our health. She talked about Nutrigenomics - the science interplay between the environment, genetic code and nutrition. Genetic variants can make us venerable to diseases but how we react can be modified by environment, stress, and nutrition.
Kara was recently a speaker on The Dandelion Effect podcast talking about healing autism. Hope for Healing is located in Texas, has a phased care approach that can be implemented across state lines.
Kara stated there is a lot more we can do for these children to help improve their quality of life. For more information visit: