Today was a Zoom meeting with 34 people on line. After some conversations President Ralph Witcher opened the meeting at 7:30 A.M.
GUESTS ON LINE:
Ellen O’Connell, Mother of the student of the month; Jude Sandt,-- AW member - Assistant Principal at Parkland’s Springhouse Middle School and Capt. Nick Millward, Rotary Peace Fellowship winner calling in from Japan.
Pres. Ralph gave a very nice invocation. Then he led us in the Pledge of allegiance to the Flag of the U.S.
STUDENT OF THE MONTH:
Rev. Jeffrey Kistler introduced our Student of the month for December, JULIANNE DEE. Jeff gave her qualifications and the award certificate and Amazon gift card will be delivered. See separate article.
Julianne was joined at our Zoom meeting by her mother, Ellen O’Connell, and by Jude Sandt, now Assistant Principal at Parkland’s Springhouse Middle School.
Julianne thanked AW Rotarians for the award and for Lori Peters and the Parkland Interact club.. Then Jude Sandt thanked Julianne for her
work as an Interactor, and wished her well as she pursues a career in the medical field. BTW Julianne’s sister received this award from AW Rotarians four years ago.
CONFESSION:
Pres. Ralph confessed that the world needs more Rotarians.
THE FOUR-WAY TEST EXAMPLE:
Pres. Ralph played the musical rendition video of the 4 Way Test.
Marlene Heller asked for volunteers to tell about a recent application of the 4 Way Test in their life.
Pres. Ralph told us how his Aunt living alone in Atlanta had to wait two weeks for her car. Ralph drove her car to Atlanta and then flew back home. This is a great example of Rotarians doing good in the world.
Ralph offers to help any of our members if he can.
NEW MEMBER MEETING:
Membership Chair, Tom Friday said on December 7th at Noon there will be a virtual meeting for all newer members in our district. PLEASE REGISTER TO ATTEND.
CELEBRATION DATES:
Pres. Ralph displayed the list of December members and their celebration dates.
HOLIDAY GIVING ACTIONS:
Message from Gail Micca -- “We have some nice opportunities to give during this season. Let me know how you would like to help:
1 - Barb Kistler will be collecting gift cards to be distributed through food pantries. You can simply purchase some giftcards and mail them to her. If you would like to put the card into a holiday greeting card with good wishes/sentiment and include that this is from the Allentown-West Rotary Club, that would be nice too.
You can email Barb or call her for more information:
Mail giftcards to; Barb Kistler, 6086 Ridge Road, New Tripoli, PA 18066.”
2 - Gail Micca will be organizing a Holiday Family Fun Giftbag to be distributed at the Parkland C.A.R.E.S. Food Pantry Drive Through Delivery Saturday, December 12th.
We will be providing 20 complete Holiday bags which will include:
Blanket, Sugar cookie box mix, frosting and popcorn. All the essentials for a family fun night! Approximate value of each bag is $20-25
Ways to get involved with this fun project:
1 - sign up to create some bags with your family and purchase the items on your own
2 - make a donation towards the purchase of these items
3 - Help Gail stuff the bags and make holiday cards to include
4 - come to the pantry delivery on December 12 and hand them out.
Let Gail know how you would like to help.
Both of these projects require a speedy confirmation and
I look forward to your response.
Thanks so much in advance of your generous support.
NO 2020 HOLIDAY PARTY:
Pres. Ralph advised that there will be no in-person Holiday Party, unfortunately. Perhaps members might send the usual party cost to Barbara or Gail for gifts to others.
KINGDOM LIFE FOOD CENTER:
Pres. Ralph reports that he and 3 other AW members on Saturday, Nov. 21st helped distribute food to over 400 families. Many thanks go to Pastor Jean Masiko for her hard work.
Jean Masiko e-mailed the Kingdom Life Food Bank December Giveaway date. Because we're all going to be busy over the next few weeks, Jean thought we should start letting everyone know.
From Kingdom Life Director: The holidays are here and we’re all preparing and planning already. Our final food bank for 2020 will be Saturday, December 12. Please come early by 7:30AM to help set up.
We know how busy things can get at this time. Please reserve the morning of the 12th to help those that need food for the holidays.
ENGINEERS WITHOUT BORDERS (E.W.B.)
ONLINE AUCTION IS NOW:
Gary Englehardt said go to EWB.LVP.org to have fun with the auction now thru Sunday.
YOUR SERVICE OPPORTUNITIES:
Please take a look at this new section on the left side of this bulletin.
STATUS OF MORNING MEETINGS;
The AWRC B.O.D. has suspended all AWRC face-to-face meetings until further notice. Zoom meetings are now scheduled for each Wednesday at 7:30 A.M.
NEXT MORNING MEETING:
Wednesday December 9th starting at 7:30 a.m. We will use Zoom to meet. Our program will be…………………TBD
STATUS OF THURSDAY EVENING MEETING:
No Thursday evening meetings are planned for December.
HAPPY DOLLARS and MEMBER NEWS:
Always happy, Ernie Boll was online from Arizona starting at 5:15 a.m. local time.
Jeff and Barbara Kistler reported that it currently is snowing in New Tripoli. As others came online this was confirmed. And we compared PA weather to AZ weather. Hmmmmmmmm.
Gail Micca so far has removed over 50 unwanted trees from their property.
When our S.O.M. came on we found out that Julianne also is known as “J.J.”
Gwenn Carr is mailing four gift cards to Barbara Kistler for the Holiday gift program.
Amir Famili is fully recovered from his rehab. He awaits a 2021 model for his knee replacement.
Jude Sandt is getting a new yard fence tomorrow. His wife, the dog and Jude are very happy.
Amir recognized our S.O.M.’s Mother, Ellen, as a former co-worker at Air Products. Then Herb Klotz and Diana Dunn also agreed.
Michael Dennis was online, a.k.a. Mike Gschwendtner.
Tom Friday is happy to learn that the U.K. has approved the Pfizer vaccine for immediate use.
Nick Millward reported that the author of the recent book club selection “The Green Eyed Llama” will be interview by him tomorrow. Also there is a movie coming and the Director may be donating a percent of the ticket sales to Mongolian Relief.
Katrina Sundstrom is happy that the family actually got out and played golf last Saturday.
Bill Palmer is happy that his 25 year old Grandson Christopher who has tested positive for covid19 is doing very well.
PROGRAM:
Pres. Ralph Witcher introduced Chelsea Karp, VOL COORD at Jewish Family Service discussing “Coats & Cocoa in the year of COVID” She has been in this position since 2017.
Chelsea has a degree in theater from the University of Southern California and her previous work experience includes event planner, catering manager and education administration. She is the mother of two teenagers.
In response to many calls from clients within the community concerning the growing need for coats for children, the Jewish Family Service Organization decided to pool their resources together to help the children in the Allentown community by collecting new winter coats with tags for children (sizes 2T-18).
The feedback from the children in the community has been absolutely wonderful. Chelsea Karp visit's our club to share the Coats & Cocoa project vision and community impact.
Chelsea thanked us for the invitation. She said that two ongoing efforts are a Food Pantry and Day Programs. They serve postal area 18104.
Chelsea now is their Grant Manager and serves as the Fundraiser of high quality coats for children in families of need. The Coats and Cocoa program solicits new coat donations in children’s sizes, including teenagers.
Qualified families make appointment to come to the Food Pantry where they have a cart and choose the food items they would use. The Pantry serves about 120 households each month. They also are given a choice of two coats to choose one from for each child approved. They keep detailed records to identify needs.
So far they have received 75 new coats and have given 50 of them away. A week before yesterday’s “Giving Tuesday” they sent an e-mail asking for donations. They received $400 in cash plus 17 new coats. These are “The Gift of Warmth.”
Gail Micca will work with Chelsea to determine how AW Rotarians can be of help.
CLOSING:
Pres Ralph led us in the saying “One profits most who serves best.”
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