04/02/15 Don Overly and Raj Grandhi
04/09/15 Mitch Biederman and Jeff Senney
04/16/15 Ed Flohre and Shelley Fisher
04/23/15 Phil Raynes and Mark Balsan
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. Ray Werz gave the prayer, and Mike Wier led the singing of My Country Tis of Thee.
The guests at the meeting included: our speaker for the day, the Honorable Judge Gregory F. Singer; Drew Huggins, VP/Mortgage Branch Manager at Commonwealth Bank & Trust Company; Kathie Thornburg, an Oakwood Rotary Club member, the guest of member Jeff Senney, who also brought his father, Walter Senney; Dotty Overly, wife of member Don Overly; and Bob Lamb of the Kettering Rotary Club.
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.
Vas said the club received a certificate thanking us for participating in the Dictionary project, and he mentioned receiving two requests for funding, one from Lindsay Duvall, whose son Damion Ryan, a 6th grader at Magsig Middle School, needs financial help to attend a grade school state championship in wrestling. Also a request was submitted for helping Kevin Warman, 50, get a new hearing aid that costs $3,500. He has all but $1,000 needed.
Peachy was not present to say anything more about Rebuilding Together Dayton, to take place from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. April 25 in the Westwood neighborhood of Dayton. You can sign up on-line. It includes such things as carpentry work, painting, etc. He noted at an earlier meeting 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.
Pat Beckel, president of Heart of Centerville, said this year's The Community Affair, presented by The Heart of Centerville and Washington Twp., will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. May 2 at Cross Pointe Center. It is a chance to bring together Centerville and Washington Twp. businesses and organizations with local residents and the public. The event offers free family fun with bouncy houses in the parking lo, food trucks,t and displays by the local stores outdoors. There will be outdoor booths for car dealers, lawn care, and other businesses not hurt by inclement weather. He said they are expecting 3,500 adult shoppers, with a goal of 5,000
HAPPY BUCKS:
Happy Bucks were collected to help the New Hope supply pantry.
SPEAKER: Judge Gregory F. Singer, General Division, Montgomery County Common Pleas Court
Club member Ron Hollenbeck introduced our speaker, noting that he has been a General Division Judge since 2005.
He serves as the Criminal Practice Committee Chair and serves on the Budget, Executive and Personnel Committees. He came to speak about the women's therapeutic court he runs, which received certification from the Ohio Supreme Court's Commission on Specialized Dockets. The specialized dockets help lower recidivism rates and help offenders become productive members of society, according to Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor.
Hollenbeck said Judge Singer received his B.A. from the University of Cincinnati and his law degree from the University of Dayton School of Law (1979). He was in private practice in the Dayton area and served for 15 years as an adjunct professor of law at the UD School of Law. He has been a partner in various law firms, including Legler &Singer; Hall, Tucker, Fullenkamp & Singer; and Singer, Tolliver & Epley. He serves on the Judicial Advisory Board for the MonDay Community Correctional Facility and on the Board of Trustees of the Ohio Common Pleas Judges Association. He is a member of the Ohio and Dayton Bar Associations and has been licensed to practice law in Ohio, Kentucky and the United States Supreme Court.
Judge Singer said the therapeutic court was an outgrowth of "efforts in our court to better address what's going on." The drug culture in our area has become a kind of epidemic, especially among fragile human beings who are often vulnerable. Whereas women used to make up only about five percent of the criminal element in the jails, that number has grown rapidly with drug crimes, Singer said. "A drug addicted person is their own victim of their own crime," he said. "It's their lives that are ruined." There are collateral consequences, but the victims are increasing, with 50 percent of the probationers now women. While men still carry the field when it comes to crime, women are a large part of the drug population now.
Singer said he and his wife realized the growing problem in 2007 when they were seeing a growth in human trafficking in Ohio. They found 80 percent is sex traffic, mostly involving girls rather than boys, with over 1,000 cases a year. Kids are growing up as victims of human trafficking, he said. They are often forced to do it for the money, even against her will, with money "much like the slave owner's whip."
Singer said they found that all trafficking women are addictive and that they may be co-addictive with alcohol as well as drugs. About 98 percent of the women in crime have been sexually abused, they found. Most often it happened between the age of three to seven. Often it is continually. It has made them angry and they carry a lot of anger and shame. "We try to address those things," he said. The court asks, "What happened to you?" Mental health and substance abuse disorders often go together, he said. The whole person has to be treated, physically, mentally, and for drug addiction. The jails are the largest mental health pharmacies, though mental health issues have not been dealt with adequately by society, he said. "We are taking care of our mental health issues in our criminal justice system."
Singer said Montgomery County had 284 deaths from drug overdoses last year.
Dealing with what goes on in a woman's background, especially as a child, and especially if it involved child molestation, affects their physical health and mental health. Because of the shame involved, the court tries to have women deputies and women involved in the pre-sentencing investigation and in the courtroom to get a fair picture of what has been going on. They also use therapy dogs to help calm the victims and help them deal with the shame and stress of the situation, and their lower self-esteem. They have a woman's group and church groups provide a lunch on Tuesdays so there is interaction with other women. They can't take monetary donations for the court, but items can be donated, like school supplies for those from 5 to 12, new-born baby clothes and supplies like soap, bus tokens, certificates for haircuts, professional clothes that work, etc.
The problems are in every zip code, he said. "It's right in your neighborhood."
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