President Brian Hayes welcomed everyone to the Centerville Rotary Club and led the Pledge of Allegiance. PDG Harvey Smith provided the prayer.
President Brian Hayes welcomed visitors Kari Traux from the Centerville-Washington Park District and Rotary wives, Elaine King and Debbie Preston.
Our thought of the moment comes from Statesman, Winston Churchill who said “We are all worms, but I do believe I am a glow-worm.”
Today Our speaker will be Kelley Camm from 4Paws for Ability and she will receive a proper introduction here in a few moments.
Dick Hoback announced for the 50th anniversary, he is developing a list of exchange students the club has hosted. If anyone was involved with the program and has contact information on any, please send contact information to Dick. He shared a list of these exchange students:
1972 Humberto Pancho Velez - Mexico
1973 Luz Helena Jarqmillo - Columbia
1974 Johmy Hall - Sweden
1976 Vickie Truque - Costa Rica
1977 Patty Galvez - Mexico
1978 Per Lundahl - Sweden
1979 Monica Gomez - Columbia
1980 Ari Veircoula - Finland
1980 Manuel Roman - Ecuador
1981 Gidia - ?
1982 Stephan Ulrich - Germany
1983 Michelle Terrell - New Zealand
1984 Akiko Kawahari - Japan
1985 Carilis Ramerez - Mexico
1987 Sabastian - Germany
1989 Akiko - Japan
1999 Norberto Vargas Ballestero - Cosa Rica
2008 Annea Hapciu - Croatia
2010 Edward Azuar (Du) - Brazil
2016 (Mat’o) Martin Pelvic - Slavokia
2017 Saloni Bagwani - India
2019 Rodrigo Tinajeros - Peru
2020 Yok Chinpathirankul - Thailand
Boyd Preston announced the Seed Dispersal Service project was postponed due to rain, but is rescheduled for April 5, 10 am at the McEwen entrance to Grant Park. Sign up sheet is available for those who want to help.
Sofie Ameloot reminded we are still collecting toys and feminine hygiene products for Artemis. You can drop them off at Crissy's office through the 15th of April. Address 689 Miamisburg Centerville Rd. Centerville. You can also drop items in a bin at Sofie’s place but she will be leaving on vacation March 24th through April 2nd. Sofie’s house: 1020 Treeside Ct., Centerville
Ron Hollenbeck shared the 50th Anniversary tidbit today about Water and Sanitation.
The Africa global grant was approved to install 20 LifePumps in Malawi (a republic of 18 million people in southeast Africa. 10 need new boreholes, and some will be replacing defunct pumps. Budget is $310,000. Our District 6670 collaborated with southeast Ohio District 6690.
Led by Dr. Beatrice Chisenga - a Malawi resident who is also a Rotarian. She helped get the global grant approved and the first one was just installed on 3/11/22 in community of Dzioya!
Ron then shared a couple of short videos (click below):
This quarter we are collecting Recovery Bucks to help relief efforts in Kentucky where they had all of that devastation from tornadoes.
Our Sergeant of Arms today was Brian Hayes
Generous Rotarians gave Recovery Bucks for:
- Mark Febus was happy.
- Ginger Clark for having Kari here and Milo (her favorite canine co-worker)
- Adam Manning for CHS Boys basketball team making it to the state championship game.
- Brad Huffman shared the Golf Outing social media post and how you can share it to generate interest. We also have Instagram and LinkedIn. Share, like, and share again!
- Gerry Eastabrooks was happy.
- Ron Hollenbeck was happy and glad to see Debbie and Elaine here and the dog, noting they got a dog from 4Paws and his wife is very much in love with it. They have a policy where if the dog doesn’t work out, it can be returned. Ron fears his wife would return him before the dog ;-)
- Mike Norton-Smith was happy.
- Uriah Anderson had a 4Paws dog named Bridgette, a Newfoundland who was wonderful and is now with a family in Columbus.
- Arnie Biondo was happy Brad showed how to use Facebook, and not him.
- Jim Harris was happy his son and daughter-in-law were coming in tonight from Montreal.
- Don Overly was happy to see everyone.
- Dick Hoback announced yesterday was his 82nd birthday. Happy Birthday, Dick!
- Crissy Allums was happy her niece is visiting from the Philippines.
- Brad Thorp was happy.
- Scott Kujawa attended the OH Fire Service Hall of Fame & Fire Awards where the Washington Township Fire Department was named the 2021-22 Ohio Fire Department of the year! Congrats!
- Dale Berry noted Scott also received the Cliff Jones Center for Public Safety Excellence Ambassador of the Year award, recognizing an individual who goes above and beyond in the support of accreditation, credentialing, and professional development. Wow!
- Frank Perez celebrated his last day being 61. Happy Birthday, Frank!
- Carol Kennard apologized for a couple of not quite truths last week - she doesn’t leave on Spring Break until Friday so was at Rotary this week. Chuck graciously agreed to cover for her next week. And she had hoped for warm weather for the seed dispersal service project this week that had to be canceled due to rain.
- Wayne Davis gave congratulations to the CHS Bowling team state champs, and the CHS Basketball team’s winning streak, and the WTFD
- Don Stewart gave thanks to Ron for his work with the water pumps.
- Bill Menker was just happy.
- Chuck King gave for his 6 year anniversary as a Rotarian, and was glad for the guest speaker and everyone who brought their wives to the meeting today.
- Sofie Ameloot was happy to be going to Gettysburg and Philadelphia for spring break.
- Boyd Preston was happy for his wife Debbie being here today, and noted our Club has proud history of 5 district governors, but not recently (hinting at Ron Hollenbeck.)
- Harvey Smith noted he had a wonderful afternoon with his granddaughter yesterday in Columbus.
- Lee Hieronymus was happy to be a thorn between two lovely roses. recognized Dick for 50 years in practice before retiring, and said he was on the selection committee for hiring the current Fire Chief so he’s taking some credit for the department’s awards!
- Kim Senft-Paras sent in $20 as she is thankful the Board voted to donate $100 toward the Youth Peace Advocacy Service day April 23.
Our speakers today were Kelley Camm, Development Director for 4 Paws for Ability, and Kari Traux, Trainer for 4 Paws, and Milo, a pup in training.
Kelly noted Milo passed advance training and will go back to 4Paws in May to be trained as a mobility dog. Sometimes dogs don’t pass the advance training for one reason or another, and then are available for placement in a home, such as Ron’s.
Kelly said 4 Paws is a non-profit organization that has been in business for 24 years, with headquarters in Xenia. They have placed over 1600 service dogs throughout the U.S., Australia, Canada, Germany, Mexico, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Spain, and Switzerland, mostly with children.
The mission of 4 Paws is:
Enriching the lives of people with disabilities by placing life changing service dogs worldwide.
4 Paws Goals include:
- To provide everyone defined as “disabled” by the ADA with access to a qualified service dog trained specifically for their needs, regardless of age, geographic location, and severity of disability.
- To increase public awareness of the laws regarding service animals and the value they provide their owners.
Kelly noted there are a variety of videos on the 4Paws for Ability YouTube channel. There are laws pertaining to service dogs, and unfortunately there are lots of “fake” dogs out there. They were able to stop Wal-Mart from selling service dog vests - can really hurt people who need service dogs.
Types of service dogs - to assist with autism, seizure assistance, FASD/DE (alcohol/drug fetal effects), hearing/ear, mobility assistance, diabetic alert (type 1), search and rescue, TPSD, TBI, Alzheimer’s assistance
Autism assistance includes behavior disruption (redirect), tracking (search & rescue training), calming/companionship (to keep from taking off), deep pressure input (weight helps calm), Tethering (keeps child from wandering in public),
Dogs are social magnets - nonverbal kids not always accepted in public, but now seen as a cool kid with the dog, Can encourage others to interact with the autistic child.
Search & rescue - scent trails are more identifying than finger prints.
Calming/companionship - gives extra feeling of security.
There is a fee for service although Veterans do not have to fundraise. Each family takes about 1-6 months to raise the required $17,000. It costs 4Paws 40,000-60,000 to train one dog and they have to incur costs whether the dog makes it through the training successfully.
Once fundraising is complete, the training starts. They attend 9-day classes in Xenia. New classes start every month, with graduations on Sundays.
For more information, follow 4 Paws for Ability on Facebook or visit the website:
They use mostly large dogs and it takes 10 months to train them so they are roughly 1.5 years old before being put in service. One dog will stay in service 8-10 years. Breeds used mostly include Golden doodle, Golden lab, Golden retriever. They check in on the dogs every year, checking vet records and making sure they are a healthy weight.
Kari shared she is a Recreation Supervisor at the Centerville-Washington Park District and a trainer for 4 Paws. Milo lives with her and goes to work so he can get used to kids and busy places. They do monthly check-ins at 4Paws. Kari recently placed at dog as a Seizure alert dog in NJ.
Next week our speaker will be Kelly Kempton from Hannah’s Treasure Chest.