Rotary's Theme for 2016-17
The GREETERS:
09/29/16 Matt Kuhn and Tracie Hoker
10/06/16 Jennifer Webb and Joyce Young
10/13/16 Mark Febus and Adam Manning
10/20/16 Ram Nunna and Bridget Herzog
10/27/16 Jennifer Webb and Mark Febus
If you cannot greet on the day assigned, contact Kitty and she will schedule a replacement.
The guests at the meeting included: Sarah Williams, Executive Director of Hannah's Treasure Chest, our speaker for the day; Doug Bockrath, a former member and now a prospective member again; Rick Hood, of Niles (Freemont), California, who joined us last year while visiting his grandchildren here; and Jeff Owens, president of the Fairfield Rotary, which has 60 members.
Pictured below in first picture is Rick Hood from California.
Say hello to past member and prospective future member again, Doug Bockrath
Greeters for the next meeting will be: Matt Kuhn and Tracie Hoker
The Centerville Rotary Club met at noon at the Clubhouse at Yankee Trace Golf Course. President Ron Hollenbeck led the Pledge of Allegiance, PDG Sivaji Subramaniam gave the prayer, and Ron led the singing of God Bless America.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Club president Ron Hollenbeck said the Dayton Rotary is having another golf outing on Saturday, Oct. 1. Anyone interested in participating from the club can get more information from Ron or the Dayton Rotary.
Ron said the Centerville High School Interact Club would like to have a banner with the 4-Way Test on it like the one we have been using and that he would look into getting one for them.
Ron said Woodland Lights is interested in getting some help with their lights and equipment, so anyone interested should check with them to see what they might need in terms of help.
Ron sent the signup sheet around for the Pancake Breakfast fund-raiser, so anyone still needing to sign up should do so soon.
Chuck King said the dictionaries and thesauri are in and that there will soon be need for boxing them and putting labels on them, and signing up for going to the schools to distribute them.
John Callandar said he would need help putting the big signs out for the Pancake Breakfast on Saturday, and got the needed volunteers, with Ron, Boyd, and Peachy among the lot.
Dan Johnson said that the next social outing for the club would be Tuesday, Oct. 18, from 5:30 TO 7 p.m. at Ollies. Spouses are welcome and especially new members too, he said.
Ron said two more people are scheduled to be inducted into the club in the next several weeks: Sara Mcgarvey next week, and Brandon Gross the week after that, when Mike Kelly, the district governor will also be here. He is from the Mason Deerfield Rotary.
Ron called Jennifer Webb, branch manager at Key Bank, to the front of the room to be inducted into the club.
PDG Harvey Smith conducted the induction, noting that Jennifer will not only be joining our club, but also the other 1.2 million members in 165 countries worldwide that are in Rotary. But before he did that PDG Sivaji Subramanium said he would like to say a few words, being the sponsor and mentor for Jennifer. He said he met her at Key Bank where she is the branch manager and found she had the community interests and volunteer service spirit that will be an asset to the club.
Jennifer said she lives in Middletown and has four children, with the oldest 10, and boys eight, two, and ten months old. She and her husband run youth baseball and basketball and she is the treasurer of the Madison (school district) Sports Club and the secretary of the Southwest Ohio Girls Fast Pitch Association. She and her husband believe in community involvement, especially in helping the youth of the community, she said.
Below is a picture of our newest inductee, Jennifer Webb.
HAPPY BUCKS:
Brian Hayes stood in for our MIA, Sgt-at-Arms Erich Eggers, and collected Happy Bucks for Operation Warm, using his best ministerial voice to make a plea for enough money to buy enough coats to meet our goal. It was said we need just 70 more coats to do that. The new winter coats cost $20, and will be distributed to students through Hannah's Treasure Chest, which is in touch with the local social agencies.
Rotarians gave generously last week and Erich, knowing he would be gone this week, gave for 10 coats then, matching the first 10 coat donations of club members.
Ram Nunna pledged to buy 10 coats last week and paid in cash for those ten coats this week.
Many of the members bought a coat or parts of a coat or half a coat. Even our guest Rick Hood bought a coat. Carol Kennard bought a coat, reminding people of the Centerville-Washington Foundation's Community Founders event next Thursday honoring Cecilia Elliott and Janet Thobaben, who have been friends for 50 years.
Harvey bought a coat and Mark Balsan bought a coat and Ed Flohre. Mike Wier bought a sleeve. Other coat buyers included Bob Fry, Jim Hester, Dan Sortman, Rand Oliver with half a coat, and Jeff Senney with five coats, since he will be having surgery and may miss some meetings. Don Stewart bought a coat for Jeff getting better after the surgery. Doc Hoback bought a coat. Chuck King bought two and a half coats. Peachy bought five coats. A number of coat buyers may have been missed as the coat buying was swift and the voices often not loud enough to be heard. Sorry if some names don't appear.
SPEAKER: Sarah Williams, executive director of Hannah's Treasure Chest.
Boyd Preston introduced our speaker, but first he reminded the members that nine people have not picked up their Pancake Breakfast tickets yet. If you have not, try to pick them up or they might hunt you down.
Boyd said that Sarah is a local grad with a degree (Bachelor of Science in Urban Affairs ...2004) ...and has a certificate in Nonprofit Leadership and Management through the Nonprofit Leadership Alliance. While attending school full time, she also worked full time in the nonprofit sector for a variety of nonprofit organizations.
Sarah joined Hannah’s Treasure Chest in 2011 as the Community Relations Director, and in January 2012, she became a Co-Executive Director. She was promoted in June 2012 to Executive Director following the departure of the founder.
Sarah said she lives in Springboro and has three children, and a husband studying for his master's degree. She said this very day there are 40 Lexis-Nexis volunteers moving shelves and helping prepare for next week's open house to publicize the need for the Federal government to recognize diapers being a basic need for poor families seeking government help.
Sarah said Hannah's Treasure Chest is a non-profit that seeks to help children from needy families with clothing, toys, furniture, books, and other necessities. They work through social agencies and not directly with the family, she said. The program works in four counties: Montgomery, Greene, Warren, and Butler.
Volunteers are a great necessity for the program and she expressed her appreciation that the Centerville Rotary Club has included them in their all-club member project list and also has provided hundreds of needed coats over the past few years for the area children. The coats are all new and often of better quality than individually donated coats, she said.
The organization is housed in a 11,200 square-foot warehouse. Volunteers make up a large part of the help. They fix stuck zippers and rips in clothing and make sure everything is clean and worthy of wear. Things are sorted by size, gender and season. Car seats for children are washed and checked for expiration dates.
A core group of volunteers work for the organization but they are not scheduled, she said. Somehow that works out, she said. The people come and go. There are civic groups and garden clubs, library groups, who come and go as they need to. They have one big family lunch, she said, so every day they are together in some way. Every year they help more and more kids, she said.
They help 7,000 a year, with 5,300 of those kids being not duplicated, meaning they are served just once. A family can ask for help once every three months, or four times a year, she said. Grandparents and foster parents and refugee families have also been helped, she said. In one case referred by Catholic Services, a family of 10 children came with just the clothes they had on their backs. There was a mom, dad and grandma, and one of the kids was a 16-year-old boy. The toy ladies called the case worker to see what their needs were. They can be supplied with dishes, pots, glassware, linens, curtains, and things not within the usual children's supplies. The organization often gets things donated from garage sale remnants that help out here, she said.
Sarah said they have a volunteer named Ernie that they call the Toy Engineer, as he fixes and checks all toys for batteries and repairs. He has his own dedicated workshop desk, she said.
Next Tuesday is the Donut Drop in Day for Diaper Awareness, she said. The Federal government classifies diapers with cigarettes and alcohol as not a basic necessity, she said.
Some 350 agencies across the country are trying to make sure the "bottom" line is covered for those in need, and that diapers are seen as a necessity, she said. They often get open packs of disposable diapers donated, and they repack them, she said. They need to get to 150 diapers per child so they have at least 50 diapers per month, she said. Regular cloth diapers don't help as much, as many of the needy do not have washing machines and laundromats are not legally allowed to accept them.
First Watch and Bill's Donut Shop are providing the donuts for the day, she said. Guests will be able to tour the facility and see and feel what the organization is all about. It is located at 124 Westpark Road, Centerville. Donations are accepted Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. No appointments are necessary.
It was noted that $834 was collected for coats on this day.
The group ended the session by repeating Rotary's Four-Way Test together.
