Today was a ZOOM meeting and again there were about 40 of us on line. After 15 minutes of talking amongst ourselves our Greeter and President Amir Famili, opened the meeting at 7:45 A.M P-E Ralph Witcher gave a very nice invocation.
GUESTS ON LINE:
PDG Carolyn Johnson. Yarmouth (Maine) RC; PDG Frank Roman, Harleysville RC; PDG Cindy Hornaman, Emmaus RC; DGE Janet Kolepp, Bethlehem Morningstar RC; DGN Bob Hobaugh, Kutztown RC: Dave Dries, Spring Twsp RC; James Gangaro, NWL H.S. Junior: and Nicholas Millward, Peace Scholar candidate.
Secretary John Scott began the meeting by having the members recite The Pledge of Allegiance to the U.S. Flag. Then he led us in reciting the Four Way Test.
Pres. Amir thanks all “first responders” and other Essential Workers for what they do and asks all to pray for them.
P-E Ralph read aloud the names of members with June Birthdays. By popular demand we asked him to alone sing Happy Birthday. Zoom group singing is not that good.
Ralph also read aloud the dates of members joining Rotary, and their years served.
SNACK PACKS:
The 72 snackpacks that Gail Micca assembled were delivered to LCCC this week along with six cases of cheetos snacks.
Gene packs our snackpacks into a larger clear bag with several other items and delivers them to students on both the Schnecksville and Allentown campuses. They are very appreciative of our donations.
On Tuesday June 2nd, 144 snackpacks were delivered to OMS along with cases of pretzels and cereal for the Parkland drive through. Gail thanks Lori Peters and Jude Sandt for their hard work.
Gail needs Rotarians to help distribute snackpacks and cereal on Tuesday, June 23rd as Parkland C.A.R.E.S. Food Pantry holds their drive through event along with Rotary and other community supporters at Kernsville Elementary School. Please reach out to Gail if you’d like to help - gailmicca@gmail.com
Gail announced that we have received a $1,500 grant for the O.M.S. from The Rotary Foundation’s Disaster Relief program.
LOWHILL FOOD PANTRY:
This is one of our many hunger projects that needs our support regularly.
HELP OUR TEMPTING TASTES FRIENDS:;
Our leaders have agreed to publically ask members and friends to support the Restaurants and food suppliers that have supported us in the past. Using Facebook, our weekly A-W Bulletin, and by buying gift cards and food from them.
Restaurants and providers are now hungry for our support. Please consider ordering from them when you are looking for a break from your own cooking! You can also support them with the purchase of gift cards, for yourself or others. Our Food Partner for this week is the Truffle Bar See separate article.
MORNING MEETINGS;
President Amir Famili has suspended all AWRC face-to-face meetings until further notice. ZOOM meetings are now scheduled for each Wednesday at 7:30 A.M.
THURSDAY EVENING SCHEDULE:
TOMORROW, June 4th at 5:30 P.M. we will hold a ZOOM meeting. Just show up and smile with a drink in your hand optional. The program will be Fundraising Chair, Len Salines with the latest plan.
VIRTUSL RI 2020 CONVENTION:
DG Herb Klotz noted that RI will be conducting the planned Honolulu Convention virtually starting June 20th. The speakers will be amazing, and there is no cost to participate.
NEW D7430 CLUBS BEING CHARTERED:
DG Herb Klotz announced that we will be virtually chartering two new district Rotary clubs:
Montgo-New Britain on June 15 at 5:30 P.M.
Lehigh Valley Passport club on June 16 at 6:30 P.M.
NEXT MORNING MEETING:
Wednesday June 10 starting at 7:30 a.m. We will use ZOOM to meet together with appropriate distancing. Our program will be
Liesel Gross, CEO of Lehigh County Authority, Ebbs & Flows: Retrospective on regional water & sewer service challenges.
HAPPY DOLLARS and MEMBER NEWS:
Pres. Amir conducted this part and kept score on who owes how much money. BTW it is $2 for ZOOM happiness.
Halyna Stegura shows us her happy scene of Aruba. Daughter Christine, working for the U.S. State Dept. in Togo, will move to Singapore in the Fall.
Dennis Houser had a very colorful background today.
Ralph and Pat Witcher will have their baby granddaughter again for 2 weeks. Ralph also is happy to learn that son, Seth, will perform in Philadelphia and be on Channel 17 TV.
BTW, Ralph made a pitch to change “Happy Dollars” to “Happy Hollers.” It did not pass. Amir is keeping score.
Bob Hobaugh is happy that their daughter in Raleigh, North Carolina so far has avoided the riot destruction.
Katrina Sundstrom is happy to report that their son received Two end-of-year awards.
Katrina also is happy that Parkland C.A.R.E.S. has received a $25,000 grant for snack packs.
Bill Palmer is very happy to have received a haircut last Monday, thanks to granddaughter Arista.
PROGRAM:
DG Herb Klotz introduced PDG Carolyn Johnson from Yarmouth Maine Rotary to discuss a Guatemala Literacy Project.
Carolyn Johnson served as District Governor for D7780, clubs in western ME and coastal NH. Carolyn is Vice-chair of the Literacy Rotary Action Group, an advisor to the Rotary Foundation’s Water Sanitation & Hygiene In Schools programs, and is a Coordinator for the Rotary Foundation’s Basic Education & Literacy Cadre. She is Rotary Coordinator for Zone 32. In 2008, Carolyn was honored to receive Rotary’s Service Above Self Award.
Carolyn is an educator with more than 30 years experience as a teacher, administrator and consultant. She was selected as a Maine Distinguished Educator, where she supported schools to create student assistance teams and anti-bullying programs. She is the founder and past director of the The Culture of Reading Program (CORP) .providing professional development and resources in literacy education for schools in rural Guatemala.
CORP began as a component of the Guatemala Literacy Project. Beginning in 2007 with one school, CORP now supports 90+ primary schools, 900+ teachers and more than 24,000 students. Carolyn is on the board of Safe Passage, which provides education programs to support children and their families living in the neighborhood of the Guatemala City Dump.
Carolyn and her husband, PDG Peter Johnson, live in Yarmouth, Maine.
Carolyn began by thanking us for inviting her to tell this story. She said our members’ exuberance was wonderful.
Carolyn said that this GLP got started while she attended the annual RI Convention in Chicago in 2005. Fifteen years later she still is involved. Guatemala Literacy Project (GLP) is a network of individual Rotarians, Rotary Clubs and Districts, and COED with a common interest in improving education for underserved students in Guatemala.
Carolyn noted that 33% of the population cannot read or write. She showed a series of slides beginning with three generations of Guatemalan ladies. Grandma cannot read or write and speaks very little Spanish. Mom has about a 4th grade education. Daughter is a High School graduate with computer skills and earns 4 times what her Father earns.
She said these training centers mostly are up and down the Pan-American Highway in Guatemala.
Text books for Middle Schools is where they started. The need was to get them to the kids at a low cost.
It is critical to have the families of the students involved. For the elementary and middle schools they implemented a 5 year plan. Each student’s family paid in $4 a year. In the 5th year there was enough money in the schools bank account to buy new books and sustain the project.
Next they went for computer Centers, also on a revenue sustaining plan. They started by training some Teachers in using computers. And the revenue sharing takes 7 years to replace a computer. They have about 50 computer labs operating right now. And 26 have been renewed by now.
Still right now a big problem is that kids cannot read. The kids need to start in first grade. Carolyn went to Guatemala to start the program. They got a set of 36 quality books to each Teacher to use. But Teachers change assignments each year, so they got the parents involved.
When Teachers first were given storybooks to read to the elementary kids, the teachers did not have any experience with “picture” books.
Rotarians travel there each February for a week’s visit and bring supplies. Grants usually pay for the books they deliver.
The program now is completely self-sufficient. But they always need money. Programs in 2020:
• 50,000+ students
• 210 textbook schools
• 53 computer centers
• 95 primary literacy programs
• 730 scholarships
Rotarian Involvement:
608 Rotary Clubs worldwide
608 Rotary Clubs, 80 Districts
8 Countries 20 + Years
Carolyn Johnson -- cfj2@icloud.com
CLOSING:
Pres. Amir led us in the saying “One profits most who serves
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