04/09/15 Mitch Biederman and Jeff Senney
04/16/15 Ed Flohre and Shelley Fisher
04/23/15 Phil Raynes and Mark Balsan
04/30/15 Harvey Smith and Dan Sortman
If you cannot greet on the day assigned, contact Kitty and she will schedule a replacement.
04/02/15
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 Peachy Metzner led the singing of God Bless America.
The guests at the meeting included: our speaker for the day, Bob Neff, the lead OSU Extension Montgomery County Master Gardener volunteer for the maintenance and reclamation of the Grotto gardens at the VA Medical Center. Member Jeff Senney brought his father, Walter Senney, whom he said plans to become a member of the club; Ryan Puckett, of Skylight Financial Group, returned as a guest of his co-worker Shelley Fisher; and club member Fred Weir brought his wife Celia.
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 Rotary District's Youth Exchange program needs help with hosting in-bound students. It has ten students in the exchange and thus far just three to 4 host families for the next school year. You can host a student for a full year or for just a few months, he said.
Vas also noted that the District Conference is April 17/18, to be held at the Hope Hotel and that you need to register if you plan to attend. Dr. Hoback said he plans to go and hopes to see some of his colleagues there. The golf outing is April 17, and the four-some only has to have two club members, so you can get others outside the club to be part of your four-some, he said.
Kim Senft-Paras said the club has received 18 applicants for the club's educational scholarships. The Educational Foundation Committee is busy working through the applications.
Peachy said just four people had signed up thus far to take part in 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 that there will be a Rotary Leadership program Nov. 14, and that anyone signing up for it might find him as one of the leaders of a training session they are in.
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 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 It should be a fun family affair, he said.
HAPPY BUCKS:
Happy Bucks were collected to help the New Hope supply pantry.
Erich Eggers gave in honor of his business being 25 years old, and Gary Kuntz gave $20 for his April first birthday, and the group also celebrated John Laufersweiler's March birthday by singing to him too.
SPEAKER: Robert D. Neff, lead OSU Extension Montgomery County Master Gardener volunteer for the maintenance and reclamation of the Grotto gardens at the VA Medical Center.
Club member Ron Hollenbeck introduced our speaker, noting that he is a U.S. Navy veteran with a bachelor's degree in business administration and a master's degree in logistic management. His professional career included cost analysis and program management in both government and private industry. His retirement career includes active participation on various non-profit boards, landscape gardening, reading (non-fiction) genealogy research, and membership in social organizations.
Mr. Neff presented a group of pictures of the Grotto and gardens, showing how they originally looked, how they looked when overgrown, and how they look now that they are being reclaimed with the help of the VA, the OSU Montgomery County extension of Master Gardener volunteers, and the American Veterans Heritage Center, along with donations from individuals and organizations.
The Hero's Garden was built last summer on a bank in the Grotto gardens. It is 26-foot-by-41-foot and features a Purple Heart design.
Neff said the historic Grotto and gardens were started in 1868 on a 25-acre site of a stone quarry. The stone for the chapel and other early buildings on the campus came from the site. The Chapel is the oldest building that still stands. It was built in 1868, he said..
Neff said Frank Mundt, a resident Civil War veteran, worked with 75 full-time resident gardeners to transform the 25 acres into magnificent gardens that became a destination point, said to outshine Central Park in New York. It had 600,000 visitors a year. Vines and native wildflowers were originally collected from nearby farms. The people came by train to the "Soldier's Home," staying at a hotel on the grounds just north of the Grotto and gardens. The Depot still exists, off to the right as you enter the medical center through the Anderson Gate from Gettysburg Ave.
Since 2012, the restoration of the gardens and Grotto to something like what the Civil War Veterans had built, has been underway, Neff said. Over the years the area had been neglected, become overgrown, and in some cases, as with the Grotto and buildings, deteriorated a great deal. Just before his second inauguration, Lincoln established a system for the asylum for disabled veterans. Louis B. Gunckel was instrumental in 1867 in getting The national asylum for disabled volunteer soldiers in Dayton, he said. It was called the Dayton Asylum. In 1873 it was renamed the National Disabled Soldiers Home. It was said that in 1868 Col. Edward Brown came to Dayton to become the first full-time director of the facility. When he arrived and asked to be taken to the Dayton Asylum, he was, and when he told them he was in charge of the asylum, he was confined as a mental patient..He had mistakenly been taken to the Wayne Avenue asylum for the mentally ill, Neff said. The name of the Soldier's Home was quickly changed from the Dayton Asylum, he said.
The more recent volunteers removed 20 old trees from around one of the lakes on the property and then decided they needed to plant new trees around the lake on the 12 acres they were re-doing.They invited people to donate trees and soon had 34 donated, so they stopped asking for tree donations, he said.. They got an urban regional forester to show them how to correctly plant the trees and got trees that were two inches in diameter to plant.
They plan to have a tall fountain that sprays 35 feet in the air installed to honor Lewis B. Gunckel in the lake that originally had such a tall fountain. They got the law firm of Coolidge Wall.to be a major sponsor for the fountain, as Gunckel was from the firm that became Coolidge Wall, Neff said.
Born in Germantown, Ohio, Gunckel introduced a bill that established a State of Ohio soldiers' home for returning veterans of the Civil War, and after his senate service was appointed as its manager by the governor. An interesting aside is that in 1860 he married Catharine Winters, a daughter of Valentine Winters, a prominent capitalist and banker of Dayton, who had a home that still exists in Bellbrook. They had four children. The Grotto had mineral springs, as did the Bellbrook area, which drew people to it because of the healing waters.
A limited edition poster that shows a compilation of views of the gardens over the years will be sold as a fund-raiser for the gardens by the Master Gardeners group, Neff said. It will have a 150 print limit, he said. The Louis B. Gunckel fountain will be dedicated on June 17, and on May 23 and May 24 during the Patriotic Freedom Fest, there will be tours of the Grotto, he said.
Donations for the Grotto Project can be made to the American Veterans Heritage Center, P.O. Box 1366, Fairborn, Ohio, 45324.(Designate for the Grotto Project). The AVHC is a tax deductible 501 (c) (3) non-profit charitable trust.
.
.jpg)
