03/26/15 Cynthi Fraley and Don Gerhardt
04/02/15 Don Overly and Raj Grandhi
04/09/15 Mitch Biederman and Jeff Senney
04/16/15 Ed Flohre and Shelley Fisher
If you cannot greet on the day assigned, contact Kitty and she will schedule a replacement.
03/19/15
Club President Vas Appalaneni opened the Centerville Rotary Club meeting at The Clubhouse at Yankee Trace by leading the Pledge of Allegiance. Harvey Smith gave the prayer, and Don Gerhardt led the singing of My Country Tis of Thee. The meeting was a Club Assembly, with updates and reports from committee leaders of on-going and future activities and projects.
The guest at the meeting was: our speaker for the day, Sabrina Grandhi, president of the Centerville Interact Club. Sabrina is the daughter of Centerville Rotary Club member Raj Grandhi. She is a senior at Centerville High School.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Club president Vas Appalaneni reminded club members that the Bruckner Shoes for Orphan Souls drive.that our Rotary District is participating in, needs members to bring in new shoes, socks, and/or checks to help buy such items. They can be dropped off at our club meetings during the month.
Club member Joyce Young said she had two $28 tickets for a jazz vocalist concert at 3 p.m. Sunday for sale,with the money offered to be split with Rotary.
It was announced by club member Gerry Eastabrooks that the upcoming Rotary Cocktail meeting will be at BJ's at Austin Landing from 5:30 to 7 p.m. April 21. The meeting is being hosted by the Centerville Rotary Club. The last meeting had about 40 members, 20 of them Rotary members and about 20 non-Rotary members.
Peachy distributed sheets for volunteers to sign up for Rebuilding Together Dayton, to take place from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. April 25 in the Westwood neighborhood of Dayton. You can also sign up on-line, he said. It includes such things as carpentry work, painting, and general clean-up, he said.
He also noted that there will be a Rotary Leadership program Saturday March 28 at the Greene County Career Center from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
District grant applications are due in April, and two of our club's local projects are Operation Warm and the Dictionary/Thesauri distribution to all third and fifth graders in Centerville Schools. If you have other project ideas, e-mail Peachy.
Club member Kim Senft-Paras, director of the Educational Foundation Committee, introduced the members of the committee, Don Stewart, John Laufersweiler, Cynthi Fraley, Ray Merz, and Ed Flohre. She also announced the committee's schedule for dealing with the Rotary scholarships.
The high school counselors are responsible for distributing applications to their student bodies at Alter and Centerville high schools. Deadline for application is March 25 for Centerville and March 30 for Alter. In April the board members will interview applicants and select winners.
Names of the winners will be submitted to the guidance counselors by May 1. Members of the committee will attend the respective high school award ceremonies. Alter Senior Awards Assembly will be at 8:30 a.m. May 15 in the Alter gym. The Centerville Senior Recognition Assembly is May 21 in the Centerville High School gym.
The scholarship recipients and their parents to our club meeting June 11.
Brad Thorp, investment manager for the foundation's fund, said they had an 8.07 percent increase on $77,859 last year, making a gain of $6,286, with an additional year-to-date gain of $1,517 in this year's 11 weeks.
Kim said it has been suggested by member John Laufersweiler that we follow up on the scholarship winners to see what they have done with their college careers to see if our money is being well spent.She said she will send out a letter they received from Grace Christian, in this regards.
Brad Thorp, who will be this club's next president said he attended the President-Elect Training Seminar (PETS) program in Columbus and was surprised by what he didn't know about Rotary. Just in our Southern Ohio District, there are 52-55 Rotary clubs, with more than 200 clubs in Ohio. The average size is 50 to 60 members, with as few as 5 and as many as 300, he said. The 2015-2016 Rotary theme will be: Be a Gift to the World. This year's theme is Light up Rotary. He said he feels lucky to see how well our club is keeping up with what Rotary expects in the way of using Social Media...Facebook, etc., and having local and international projects.
Ram Nunna spoke about the club's international project, one that the club will do on its own, with any help that the Centerville Interact Club wishes to contribute. Last year's project was with the Dayton Rotary Club, with $500 donated towards their water project.
Ram said our club will be working with Design Outreach, which hopes to put 100 wells in five African countries. They are working to get eight water pumps, each costing $9,500, but can get a matching grant with the money in hand by June first. Our club is sponsoring two pumps for a total cost of $9,500 for the two pumps.
Kim said the Centerville Interact Club has been interested in being a part of the project. The pumps are made in Ohio, so it will be a benefit to all, he said.
HAPPY BUCKS:
No Happy Bucks were collected because of time restraints.
SPEAKER: Sabrina Grandhi, giving an update of the Centerville Interact Club's Eastmont Elementary School book delivery program.
Sabrina gave a very professional visual presentation, explaining how the club, which now numbers 25 members, up from an initial five members, developed their idea to collect books for the students at the elementary school, just east of Dayton. On the screen she first showed a quote from Margaret Fuller: Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.
While most Centerville students own lots of books of their own, many students at Eastmont , which has a high population of students living below the poverty line, don't even own one book, they discovered. They started with discussions of a number of ideas, but then narrowed them to what they could do with the resources they have and actually bring to fruition, making an impact with their project. They believe education is the leading factor in improving one's life, and that books are the way to educate a person about his own life and learn about the world and experiences he might not otherwise know about.
Sabrina said the group set up 200 collection boxes in each of the school's advisories.They also advertised the project on the Centerville News Network, and came up with more than 3,000 books for various reading levels. They traveled to Eastmont and not only delivered the books first-hand, but also read to groups of students and explained any words they did not understand during the process. All of the students promised to never stop reading, she said, reminding the Rotarians that "books transcend age."
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