President Frank Perez welcomed everyone in person and on Zoom to the hybrid meeting of the Centerville Rotary Club.
Frank Perez led the Pledge of Allegiance and Harvey Smith led us in a prayer.
Frank Perez provided these updates:
- Trilogy was held last night, and we had several members on the zoom presentation. It was a great meeting and very informative.
- The Foundation & giving - More from Frank Scott next week
- Membership & engagement - Share Rotary with others
- Branding & social media – We now have a Social Media Chairperson, Rebecca Quinones
- The Board has been doing some outreach calls to members we haven’t seen for a while. Keeping our members engaged and connected is very important, especially now. It really needs to be a team effort. If you have friends you haven’t seen for a while, give them a call or send them an email. The people here today and on zoom are our most effective ambassadors for keeping our club strong.
Sofie Ameloot announced this is the last week for Operation Warm donations. We set a goal of $7,000 and we're at about $3,800 now so give generously if you can!
Sofie also announced a new service project opportunity - putting shelves together at the Park District Headquarters for storage of our pancake supplies. We need 3-4 people on Oct 6, starting at 2 pm. Please email Sofie if you can help. Arnie Biondo noted the project is assembly, not build.
Our Happy Dollars for this quarter are going to Project Warm – please be generous with your Happy Dollars for this good cause. You can send your check to the club mailbox: Centerville Rotary Club, PO Box 41431, Centerville, OH 45458
Boyd Preston served as Sergeant at Arms today and started by raffling off more of Elda Gotos-Gay’s delicious almond guava butter pound cakes at $40 each. Lee Hieronymus, Arnie Biondo, and Harvey Smith couldn’t resist this treat!
Boyd Preston donated for a coat, and to apologize for being tough on the Cleveland Browns fans last week. He apologized and announced he will pay $10 for every Browns win this season.
Frank Perez donated for 5 coats in support of the Browns, and to announce his son is engaged!
Wayne Davis donated a coat.
Ron Hollenbeck donated 10 coats and announced the water pump project is going well, and his wife delivered another 6 yds topsoil for him to spread.
Jeff Senney donated a coat and shared he got good news on his recovering knee good news - the doctor said it looks excellent!
Dick Hoback donated 2 coats since he missed last week while enjoying Norris Lake.
Chuck King donated 1 coat in celebration of the great weather.
Joyce Young donated 5 coats for her upcoming birthday.
Carol Kennard donated a coat in celebration of Rebecca Quinones taking on the social media director position for the club!
Elda Gotos-Gay donated $70 for her brother’s 70th birthday, and also to celebrate her cousin’s great granddaughter born on the same day!
Brian Hayes donated 4 coats
Sofie Ameloot donated a coat for being happy
Don Stewart is happy for Cleveland Browns
Jim Harris donated 2 coats as the Reds seem to be getting better, enjoying a successful short run of victories
Kim Senft-Paras gave 5 coats as she is happy to be going to see her daughter Kelsey; helping moving her daughter from Philly to Denver for new job;
Brad Huffman - 2 coats for fun at the Springboro Rotary golf outing where he got good information for our golf outing next spring.
Our speaker for today is Liz Fultz, Director of the Washington-Centerville Public Library
Arnie Biondo introduced Liz Fultz, who took over as the new library director when Kim Senft-Paras retired. Liz has degrees from Moorhead State and the University of Kentucky and first started working at the Washington-Centerville Public Library in 1996.
Liz noted she started as the library director in 2019 and in the first week on the job, was deeply involved in negotiations regarding local government funding for libraries. After many long meetings, they were able to maintain the same 30 percent funding as before.
Last fall they were busy with new staff initiatives, working on the strategic plan and strengthening services, and then COVID hit and everything came to a grinding halt.
Both libraries closed but staff immediately started looking for new ways to provide services.
They found people still turned to the library during the quarantine. Library services saw huge increases:
- over 148,517 digital signed out
- Curbside pickup - 5315
- Virtual program - 2551 participants
- Questions answered by staff 8045 - through email and live chat
Some programs that have been very successful include:
- Miss Becky’s virtual story time
- Digital Escape room - theme-based challenge to solve problems/riddles to “escape”. More than 20,000 people participated around the world including a Las Vegas teacher and family from England. A second one is coming soon.
- Book Discussion
- Trivia nights
- Watch parties
Liz said they continue to stay positive and look for silver linings - one being the online trivia program has attracted many more people than those that can attend in person.
Digital content has grown 25% in 2020; usage is nearly same as book circulation.
Many are accessing Acorn TV - access to tv shows that can be streamed for free with your library card. Liz shared several comments from library users and noted people have an emotional connection to the library.
Once home became school, they worked hard to develop educator support - lesson plans and homework help for teachers and home school; staff created videos that are used for Centerville School’s teacher professional development.
- Help Now is a new live online tutoring with interactive white board; homework help after school hours.
- Free WiFi to remove digital divide; accessible outside building and also loan WiFi hotspots,
- Virtual summer reading club - studies show kids who read over summer help combat summer slide;1200 registered this summer, and 400 completed all challenges.
- Fall reading program - have just starting registration
Woodbourne Library opened back up on June 22 and had 700 visitors that day. Centerville Library parking lot project started earlier because of closure which minimized disruption. They were able to make improvements to parking flow and reopened August 17.
Liz shared the safety measures put in place at both libraries:
Quarantine materials after returned to library
Regular disinfecting of high-touch surfaces
Plexiglas dividers for better separation between staff and patrons
Daily staff health assessments
They were able to receive $53,000 in Cares Act funding which covered costs of safety improvements including new water bottle refill stations.
Many other libraries delayed reopening, but WCPL felt being open was important for the community. They implemented a hiring freeze and furloughed certain positions to keep costs downs, but are now starting to bring some staff back while being prepared for extended absences; So far only one staff has tested positive, but it was not traced to library.
Liz said they are looking forward to expanding operating hours again, and they are prepared to see what future brings.
Frank Perez thanked Liz for the great information, noted our speaker next week will be Frank Scott to provide information about the Polio Plus program.
Everyone have a great week, stay safe and healthy – Thanks