Allentown West Rotary
Meeting, Notes -- March 20, 2019
Our Greeter today was Gary Heller, and he did a marvelous job.
President Jeanne Shipe rang the bell at 7:30 A.M. to open the meeting and welcomed all to AWRC. Then Gary Heller gave a very nice invocation
Pres. Jeanne began the meeting having the members recite the 4 Way test, followed with our saying the Pledge of Allegiance to the U.S. Flag.
GUESTS:
Dave Dries, Pres. Spring Twsp RC; and Hal Warner is back.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
DISTRICT CONFERENCE 2019:
DGE Herb Klotz has explained that the conference offers a single day option for Saturday. Herb said that the more AW Rotarians that go, the better it will be for us to help plan and run the 2020 District Conference -- His.
OTHER PLANS:
May 5 will be a DESTINATION meeting at LCCC and scholarships will be awarded.
May 15th will be an Open House Mixer meeting here at Luther Crest.
DINING OUT:
March 28, Thursday, at Gio's Italian Grill, 6465 Village Lane, Macungie, (Route 100) at 6 P.M.
April 28, Sunday TT5 at the Holiday Inn 4 to 7 P.M.
TT5 --
YOU ARE INVITED:
Please join Gwenn Carr and Gary Englehardt for a great afternoon of friendship, food and fun. Bring a great gift to the Carr-Englehardt residence from 4-7PM on Sunday, March 24th. We need about 150 items for the Tempting Tastes 5 auction and we currently have about 30 items. Gift cards and baskets of goodies are especially appreciated as they bring exceptional value to our auction.
Please let Gwenn know by March 20th if you will attend. Their address is 138 Deer Run Road, Kutztown, PA.
Also, please let Gwenn know if you need an Auction request document or any other marketing material.
We've NETTED over $125K dollars over the lifetime of Tempting Tastes. Help us make this year's event the best one yet.
Our TT5 website is www.temptingtastes.net where there is more information. Our Facebook page is Rotary Tempting Tastes. Please visit and "like" our age.
TT5 -- GWENN SAYS IT’S TIME TO BUY YOUR TICKETS.
TT5 AUCTION ITEM PREVIEW: See separate article.
FOUNDATION GALA IS SATURDAY MARCH 23rd:
The annual D7430 Foundation Gala will be held on Saturday March 23rd at the Pottstown Brookside CC. It is a costume event for those who wish to do so. We donated a basket of food items for the auction that evening.
THURSDAY EVENING MEETING
The next one is on March 28th at Gio’s Italian Grill in Macungie at 6:00 P.M.
RLI MARCH 30th:
Rotary Leadership Institute training is on March 30th at the Radisson in King of Prussia. Give it a try, if you have not done it yet. Your registration fee will be reimbursed to you afterwards.
ENGINEERS WITHOUT BORDERS FUNDRAISER:
Is at DeSales University on Sunday April 7th from 4 to 7 PM.
NEXT MEETING IS AT PARKLAND H.S. March 27th --
DO NOT COME TO LUTHER CREST !
Our Greeter will be Joe Goll and our program will be with PHS Interact students, and we will honor a Student of the Month.
Pres. Jeanne introduced our Sgt-at-Arms, Mitch Huston who conducted the drawings and collected Happy Dollars.
The door prize rum cake donated by Gary Heller was won by Geoff Legg.
The $97 pot of the 50:50 was NOT won by Len Salines’ ticket being drawn followed by a white marble. Four marbles will be around for next time.
HAPPY DOLLARS:
Hal Warner is happy to be back.
Geoff Legg is happy to have met PDG Sullivan while in Bermuda who remembers Yvette & Bill Palmer being at his district conference there.
Gwenn Carr happily reports that one granddaughter just performed in a ballet, and the other was in the Pine Box Derby Race.
Amir Famili notes that this evening is the beginning of Spring, and it is the beginning of the Persian New Year. Also he is going to Iraq for 10 days.
Jeanne Shipe donated $5 in celebration of serving in Rotary for 5 years as of today.
Bill Palmer is just plain happy that Spring is here and it soon will be warmer outside.
PROGRAM:
Our program today was about the Lehigh Valley Community Foundation. Mike Stershic is a former member of its Board of Directors, and he gave a short history and then introduced Dr. Christopher Borick of Muhlenberg College. Chris is a Lehigh Valley Community Foundation Lötter Fellow and Director of Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion.
Chris distributed copies of his report “Reaction on the Community Foundation’s 50th Anniversary Spark Grants and the Continuing Needs in the Lehigh Valley. Then he reviewed the highlights.
The article begins “Much has changed in the Lehigh Valley since the Lehigh Valley Community Foundation (LVCF) was founded in 1967 under its original name of the Bethlehem Area Foundation. In the half century since LVCF began its operations, the region has seen its population grow by nearly a quarter of a million people, its suburban areas boom and its urban areas struggle before experiencing a renaissance in the 21st Century.”
To mark its 50th year of operation, the Lehigh Valley Community Foundation sought to target a number of the most pressing issues related to the quality of life in the area through the establishment of its Spark grants initiative. Under this initiative, LVCF identified the following issue areas as the structural formation of the application and award process:
1 Mental and Behavioral Health
2 Cultural Enrichment
3 Food and Housing Access
4 Environment and Sustainability
5 Human Trafficking
6 Veterans Affairs
1. With growing challenges in the range and intensity of mental illness in the Lehigh Valley, there was no shortage of programs in need of support. Thus, the Spark grants targeted a range of aspects of this challenging issue.
2. Quality of life in a region is often associated with fundamental economic, environmental and health factors. While measures such as median income and life expectancy may indicate important information about the condition of a community, these metrics cannot fully capture the vibrancy of life in an area. that’s because quality of life in a community rests not only on how long its residents live but also on how they live. This is where access to the arts is crucial. When the arts are fully integrated into a region, the lives of citizens are enriched for the arts bring individuals together and foster community. As novelist Marcel Proust said, “Only through art can we get outside of ourselves and know another’s view of the universe.”
3. Food and Housing are the basics of life and in the Lehigh Valley, not always as available as one might commonly believe. Food and housing are daily challenges for thousands of individuals living in Northampton and Lehigh counties and the struggles to secure these essentials consume much of the time and export of many local residents.
4. As the Lehigh Valley’s population has grown so have the demands on its natural resources. The Census Bureau reported that Lehigh and Northampton counties have grown by 4.66% and 1.83%, respectively between 2010 and 2017.
Increased demand for water resources, commercial and residential land development, air quality impairment and an array of legacy environmental concerns are among the environmental and sustainability challenges that face the Lehigh Valley as it moves deeper into the 21st century.
5. The term “human trafficking” is not one that is readily understood by most individuals. Despite being used more regularly in media coverage, human trafficking remains a largely undefined concept for many Americans. However, if one was to break out the various components of human trafficking for individuals, there is often strong recognition that this issue is a major challenge facing the nation and the residents of the Lehigh Valley.
6. _“Thank you for your service.” In the United States, this expression has become a ubiquitous statement of appreciation provided by the public to the women and men that served the nation in the armed services. While this expression is certainly a way for individuals to offer their thanks for the sacrifices made by veterans, it raises questions about how the society as a whole supports service men and women after their time in the military has been completed. With the United States
engaged in prolonged military actions in Afghanistan and the broader “War on Terror,” a generation of veterans is dealing with the effects of engaging in armed conflict.
The foregoing are excerpts from Chris’ article to provide some insight to his work.
CLOSING:
We closed our meeting by reciting the saying “One profits most who serves best.”
.jpg)
.jpg)
