Our Greeter today was Sue Weber and she did a marvelous job. President Dan Crane rang the bell at 7:30 A.M. to open the meeting.
Rev. Jeff Kistler gave a very nice invocation including special mention of AJ and Mike Henry, Dawn Costello ,George and Janet Ikeda, and Vern Fenstermaker.
And the assembled voices sang a good rendition of our National Anthem along with a sign language video. And we said the pledge of Allegiance.
President Dan says the word from the country is “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” Said the Dalai Lama.
GUESTS:
Steve LaPierre, Emmaus RC; and Marti, our Youth Exchange student from Argentina.
YOUTH EXCHANGE STUDENT’S REPORT:
Marti told us that she has been to New York City last week, is going to the District Conference in Lancaster this weekend, and then to the Prom the following week.
President Dan showed many slides of photographs from our last two meetings starting with snack packing at NWL, and then the April 19th offsite meeting with NWL Interactors. He showed pics of Tempting Tastes 3 and Dale Hostetter arranging the whiskey bottles.
Pictures of Ginny Sandoval, the TT3 auction items and Ihor Fedoriw and Ronnee Klotz followed. And there was a composite pic showing Bill Palmer enjoying the cruise ship.
Mitch Huston read a note from Cameron Smith, our April Student of the Month. He thanked us for the award and the gift card, and for being nice and intellectual people.
Dan gave some TT3 results from Gwenn Carr. The silent and live auctions plus the raffle baskets raised $12,936 this time; $9,489 last year. Also $5,510 was raised for scholarships and Camp Neidig.
SCHEDULE:
Dan continues to e-mail us an updated list of volunteer opportunities and future events.
May 12th is Our next THURSDAY EVENING event which is a Mixer at Whole Foods Market
Friday, May 5th are the special services for Mike Henry.
NOTE: A special Mike Henry Rotary Scholarship Fund has been established. Anyone wishing to donate may do so by sending Checks to the Keller Funeral Home made out to the AW Rotary Foundation.
May 6 Farm Fest at Ontelaunee Park. We need some volunteers to work a booth that day. Hours are from 10:30-6:30. If you can work the early set-up or a morning or afternoon shift please contact Ginny Sandoval.
May 13th, Saturday, we need volunteer “Angels| for the afternoon games at the Miracle League. Contact Barbara Kistler.
Dennis Houser on May 20th will lead a work group at the Rodale Cycling Center. Please sign up with Dennis.
May 28th, through the generosity of Jerry Frank, there are still 4 seats available for the Iron Pigs evening baseball game. The $70 per ticket funds will be donated to the AWRC foundation. Contact Dan PDQ.
AND, of course, you always can have your breakfast at our meetings sitting with Arch Klumph for a donation of $26.50 --- or more --- to the Rotary Foundation.
NEXT WEEK our Greeter will be Bill Weber and the program will be Marten J. Edwards, PhD Muhlenberg College about Tick Talk: Lyme Disease & His Research on Tick-borne Infections in the Lehigh Valley.
LUCK of the DRAW:
The door prize donated by Sue Weber from Bill’s wallet was won by
Chris Blechschmidt, Then Geoff Legg’s ticket was drawn and he selected a white marble and did not win the $28 pot of the 50:50.
FINES:
S-a-A in Training, Mitch Huston fined himself for no badge, and then Dan Crane for failing to display Arch Klumph this morning. And Mike Gschwendtner is leaving early.
HAPPY DOLLARS:
Chris Blechschmidt is happy to be hosting our special guest, Sulaiman Sengeh this week.
Sue Weber is happy that Mr. Sengeh is here, and that she and Bill, and Marti are heading for the D7430 annual Conference this weekend in Lancaster.
Ron Coleman presented checks from his recent commissions that gave $239 for snack packs.
Bill Palmer is happy that he and 5 other family members went cruising the Caribbean for 12 nights.
Jean Masiko is happy to have helped at the Parkland Resource Fair and to have heard many wonderful comments from parents of Snack Pack children.
Al Lewis is happy that his daughter and son-in-law attended TT3 and were impressed with the whole thing. And his daughter also attended the Thursday evening meeting on April 27th and enjoyed it too.
Herb Klotz is happy that TT3 and then the EWB fundraiser were both successes.
Mitch “Henny” Huston told a funny story about “warm worms.”
PROGRAM:
Herb Klotz introduced our guest speaker, Mr. Sulaiman Sengeh, principal of the Centennial School in Sierra Leone. He noted that through two Global grants, three District Grants, and Engineers Without Borders (EWB), a total of $95,000 of projects have been conducted for the school.
In April 2013 Mr. Sengeh became the Centennial School’s Principal after the students protested the poor learning conditions. Since then there have been many good changes. There have been great student improvements and Teacher training.
Mr. Sengeh thanks us for arranging this trip to the U.S., his first. He then gave some history starting with the original school being a good school. Then the Sierra Leone civil war changed everything. The site and the buildings were in great disrepair when in 2001 they went in and started over.
There was no electricity, no proper sanitation, and the only water source was a nearby river. Then in 2010 they partnered with Engineers Without Borders. Now the Teachers Work Room has lighting that lets them prepare lessons on site.
Because we supplied them a Printer, test sheets now are prepared on site, and are secure.
There now is a working P.A. system for addressing students, et al.
Student enrollment has increased.
The Library now has a variety of text books that are used by Teachers and students. And because it now has electricity and lighting, it is used after dark regularly.
They now have a solar powered pump and fresh water well on site. They have flushing toilets as well.
AW Rotary sent two Teachers to Sierra Leone to help train the school’s Teachers.
So what is the result in student performance due to these improvements? The first measurement is a required test for students to advance to the High School level. The results show that where but 10% to 20% of the students moved on in the past, the rate now is 95% and higher.
Similarly there is a test for West Africa students to move on to University education. In the past less than 1% passed it. Now the rate is 80% or more moving on.
One big problem is that they have improved so much that enrollment has increased from 1,100 up to 1,700 in the last few years. They must put 50 to 100 students in a classroom with a single teacher. They need to rebuild classrooms.
There now is a method set for us to continue to donate funds to the school via a special account through the AW Rotary Foundation.
CLOSING:
We closed the meeting by reciting the saying “One profits most who serves best.”
