President Frank Perez welcomed everyone to the Centerville Rotary Club and led the group in the Pledge of Allegiance. Ray Merz shared a prayer with the group.

Our visitors today were Kelly Lehman, Sue Taylor, and John Lyman representing the Dayton Rotary Club Peace Committee.

President Frank gave these updates:

• Sign ups for the Leadership Celebration are on the tables. The event will be on June 24, beginning at 6 pm at Yankee Trace. Please fill in your RSVP and meal choice for you and your guest if you are bringing someone.
• I received a nice email from Frank Scott, District Rotary Foundation Chair, to thank us for our Annual Fund support. Currently our giving stands at $262 per member which greatly exceeds the Rotary goal of $100 per member. It also currently puts us number one in the district.
• Americana Festival Parade is on for this year. We will check with Lee about riding on the fire truck. No booths this year. Frank reminded Brian that the president is to ride on the fire truck. Brian thinks Frank should too, since there was no parade last year.

Chuck King reminded all to sign the meeting attendance sheet for the meeting at the front of the room.

Our Happy Bucks recipient this quarter is Luke5 Ministries.

Pat Beckel was our Sergeant-at-Arms. He announced the new Party in the Park monthly events will start a week from tomorrow. The event is held at Stubbs Park is family friendly and hosted by the City of Centerville, For more info, visit HERE

Although this year’s Americana Festival won’t include craft booths, the Heart of Centerville businesses can set up booths at Benham’s Grove. It want a booth for your business, even if not a member of the Heart of Centerville, let Pat know. The cost is $25. There will be more food opportunities in place of the arts and crafts booths.

Dale Berry announced on Aug 8 the Fire Department’s Ice Cream Social is returning. It will be held at RecPlex this year, where there is more space. It is a FREE community event and will be called Cruise in for Ice Cream.

Happy Bucks:

• Arnie Biondo thanked our guests for coming, noting he invited Carolyn Rice, but when she couldn’t be here, she sent 3 people to take her place.
• Brian Hayes is proud his grandson is walking now and working on words - enthusiastically says “Pops!” whenever Brian comes in the room.
• Ron Hollenbeck gave gratitude for Pat’s determination to make it here today even though he had car problems, which he described in detail to his table.
• Chuck King announced if anyone need cicadas, he can help out as his yard is full.
• Mark Balsan was just happy.
• Brad Huffman had a successful driving trip to Arizona to pick up a new RV, made it back safely and then sold the old RV quickly.
• Jim Harris was happy.
• Tom Broadwell was happy to share some estate planning guidance:

• Carol Kennard was happy to be traveling to PA this weekend to celebrate her father’s 90th birthday, nieces high school graduation and to get long awaited family hugs.
• Gerry Eastabrooks was just happy.
• Elda Gotos-Gay was just happy.
• John Lyman thanked the club for welcoming them and said they were happy to be at our meeting.
• Carol Sue Galloway was happy to announce her building is on schedule to open August 1.
• Pat Beckel was happy to go before governing boards and see fellow Rotarian. Dick Hoback is on the Board of Architectural Review, and does a great job keeping the charm in our city.

Our speaker today way Kevin Kelly from the Dayton International Peace Museum.

Arnie Biondo introduced our speaker, Kevin Kelly who is a graduate of Ohio University, has lived on both coasts, and has been at the museum for 5 years.

Kevin noted COVID gave them a chance to reevaluate what they do and said it has been difficult in the peace world recently. He shared many programs they have at the Peace Museum, which have been mostly virtual over the past 16 months.

• Building Peace Series - speaker and dialogue
• MLK Dialogues - take speech or writing of MLK, focus on that and bridge to something happening today.
• Book Club - Cast, this month’s book; how society has divided people into categories
• Discussions at museum on various topics such as opioid addictions, Women Strong Art exhibit chaired by Bing Davis and his wife, Audrey
• Yoga Wednesday nights free; live and virtual now.

Kevin is the only employee, but he has lots of assistance from volunteers. Other activities they are involved with include:

• School groups visits where they are asked to present specific topics
• Hot Soups and Cool Soups where you get to try 30-40 different kinds
• Video how religion can have positive effect on poverty in Dayton
• Exhibit space in their building which is an old Victorian home
• African drumming session for kids
• Summer camp for kids 1 week, provide scholarships, kids from all over Dayton learn compassion, kindness, friendship, and making better food choices. During COVID they developed a virtual Peace Camp video production. The Head Start program asked to run it nationwide and in the first week, it had 100,000 views.

They developed an exhibit on The Oregon District shooting and also produced book sharing stories from that night called Facing Gun Violence: It’s Always Close to Home for Someone. The book is available on Amazon. They also produced an NPR program and short film with actors retelling their stories. The only public ceremony held at that time was orchestrated by the Dayton Peace Museum and Mike Turner attended, along with a handful of family members affected by the shooting.

Moms Demand Action group created a Mother’s Dream Quilt program where each quilt square is made using material from young people who were killed by gun violence.

The Dayton International Peace Museum organization started with The Dayton Peace Accords and has a collection of documents, photos, etc. from that event. A new interactive exhibit is available on their website now. Bosnian students visit every year, whose parents suffered in the war.

Kevin told of a partnership with a new organization called It’s Time 2 developed by Dr. Ceccareli aimed at raising awareness on topics such as teen suicide, and develop a dialogue to help solve these issues.

There is also now a Make Your Peace podcast and they recently completed a Teen summit on bullying and teen suicide on Facebook Live.

Kevin noted they have outgrown their current building and are working with the Dayton Foundation to create their first endowment. They are now in the process of moving into space on the ground floor of 10 Ludlow just off Courthouse Square. It will include:

• coffee bar
• Full size classroom
• Exhibit space
• Giant video screen with exhibits
• Peace Builder interactive exhibit - highlighting people from Dayton who are building peace such as Ted Studebaker, Sister Dorothy Stang, with a touch screen to learn more about them.
• Interactive stage; seating for 150

Plans are for a noon ribbon cutting on 9.21.21 with a soft opening in October. Will have music and an MLK Color photo exhibit and guest speaker.

Kevin noted they could use more Board members, specifically with accounting, legal, social entrepreneurial business skills.

More information can be found on social media or their website daytonpeacemuseum.org

President Frank Perez thanked our speaker, led us in reciting of the 4 Way Test and wished all a great week.