March 17, 2020 Bulletin (Mar 17, 2020)

Report of the Kent Rotary Foundation

REPORT OF KENT ROTARY FOUNDATION

APRIL 16, 2020

At its regular bi-monthly meeting held on April 14, 2020, the Kent Rotary Foundation Board approved the following grant requests:

1. “Ready Set Grow” $1,000.00 (This organization teaches gardening skills to

children of the City of Kent Schools and helps to furnish fresh food to local pantries.)

2. Portage Medial Center Foundation $5,000.00. Grant monies will be funneled to the Kent Fire Department to acquire AED’s (Automated External Defibrillators)

The AED’s provided for in this grant shall be placed in community spaces or schools.

3. “Edible Kent” $1,400 -- This organization plants the community gardens near the

Farmer’s market and a garden at Kent Social Services. All that is grown if for

the benefit of the public and Kent Social Services.

4. “Great Trail Council” (Boy Scouts) $1,500 This grant will help maintain the three

area camps that for the benefit of local children.

Thanks for your support and generosity which made these grants possible.

The next meeting will be held June 9 from 5:30 - 7:00 p.m. at a place to be announced at a later date. Any member of the Rotary Club of Kent is welcome to attend meetings of the Foundation Board. We ask that any proposals be submitted no later than May 26.

Submitted by:

Carol Crimi, President Kent Rotary Foundation

President Roger's Digital Meeting Update

Our next Kent Rotary Digital Meeting is on Tuesday at 12:30pm and will feature a live presentation from Kent City Health Commissioner Joan Seidel. She will give us all the latest update of COVID-19 in Kent and Portage County. She will be able to take some questions, but the meeting is scheduled to end at 1:00pm. If you cannot attend, we will post the recorded meeting on our Facebook Page for your viewing convenience. For those attending, you can begin signing into the meeting at 12:15 on Tuesday. You will see a welcome PowerPoint scrolling to some soft music and I will call the meeting to order promptly at 12:30. I know some of our members got tangled up with the technology last week. These instructions may help everyone:

TO JOIN THE ROTARY ZOOM MEETING ON TUESDAY:

Click on this Link, or Copy & Paste this Link to your Internet Browser

https://zoom.us/j/5704543309 Meeting ID: 570 454 3309

You can than choose to join with audio or video

TO LISTEN TO THE AUDIO OF THE MEETING ON YOUR PHONE:

Dial: 1-929-205-6099

Enter Meeting Id: 570-454-3309 when prompted

NOTE: Use this identical sign-in information for every Tuesday at 12:30!

SURVEY

I want to thank those who have taken the time to respond to the survey (it’s not too late!) and giving your Rotary Club of Kent Officers feedback to help make these meetings productive for our members. We are all in uncharted waters, but we will remain afloat!

OPPORTUNITY TO SUPPORT

On another note, if anyone would like to contribute to help defray the cost of the Community Lunch foods Rotary sponsored and are being served (using safe distancing procedures) by Carol Crimi and her committee, the anticipated cost will be approximately 150. Any leftover food will be donated to Kent Social Services. If you would like to help defray this expense by chipping in $10- $15, that would be appreciated. Send your dollars to Carol at 2906 Windsor Court Stow 44224.

NEXT WEEK’S PROGRAM

Lastly, next week’s meeting will feature Michelle Hartman of Treno Restaurant presenting on the financial difficulties facing our downtown businesses, especially restaurants and bars, during this crisis.

As always, please contact any of us on the board with your needs, thoughts, and concerns.

Roger Sidoti

330-554-3592

Rotary Club of Kent eBulletin

Information in this eBulletin comes primarily from the Rotareminder, board meeting minutes, and stories submitted by members.

Since we cannot hold regular meetings, we hope to publish a weekly "Meet the Member" feature. We encourage you to submit a personal bio. Here is a sample template.

If you have any Rotary stories, events or speaker information to benefit the Club, please submit it to info.rotarykentohio.org@gmail.com. We will add it to the next appropriate eBulletin.

Kent Rotary President's Update

Kent Rotary Board meeting actions!

Last night the Rotary Board met via video conferencing to review our Club’s scheduled activities in light of the current directives from the State Governor’s office, the CDC, our local Health Department, Rotary District 6630, and the rapidly unfolding Covid-19 bio-crisis. A complete updated schedule of activities for March-April-May can be found at the end of this email, but here are some particulars:

1) Regular Tuesday Rotary Meetings are cancelled through the end of April. A decision on meetings in May will be made as circumstances unfold.

2) The annual Rotary Club Foundation Auction scheduled for May 8 is cancelled. The Auction committee and the Board will seek thoughts from all committees, especially the 100th Year Anniversary committee members, before any decision is made on rescheduling.

3) The new “First Friday” After Hours is cancelled for April. As with the regular meetings, a decision on future dates will be made based on unfolding circumstances.

4) All other activities that require people coming together physically are TBD (To Be Determined). An example: Carol Crimi has been in contact with those members who volunteered for the March 28 “Community Lunch” and will coordinate with them directly the reorganized effort to keep everyone safe.

5) The money raised through our “Bracket Buster” activity that has become a moot point, will be used, in combination with Club/Foundation dollars, to buy an AED as planned and donate to the Kent Fire Department for public placement.

We all realize we are in uncharted waters, but the resiliency of your Rotary Board was never more evident than during our video conferencing and their dedication to our club members. All we ask is that you stay connected in some way with members of the club. This will be easy for many of us through our normal friendships having been established through social media. An example is Chas Madonio, the “King of Facebook” and the interaction he, and I have almost every day. Some members stay connected via work, even with exercising “social distancing.” But many of our members do not use social media, so I will leave it up to you to figure out what member(s) you may want to stay connected with and how. David McKeen and the Membership Committee will be wrestling with this issue as time moves ahead.

Lastly, I promise to try and “reinvent” our Tuesday meetings digitally, but I’m not there yet! Any suggestions from our members would be greatly appreciated!

Stay safe; stay healthy.

Roger Sidoti
President

Here is the updated schedule of events as promised!

Kent Rotary: Scheduled Club Activities March-April-May (Worksheet) 3/19/20

March Elementary School Reading Dates CANCELLED
March 17 Regular Tuesday Meeting    CANCELLED
March 19 Rotary Board Meeting               VIDEO CONFERENCE
March 24 Regular Tuesday Meeting     CANCELLED
March 28 Community Lunch TBD
March 31 Regular Tuesday Meeting           CANCELLED
April 3 First Friday After Hours               CANCELLED
April 7 Regular Tuesday Meeting           CANCELLED
April 7   Rotary Foundation Board Meeti VIDEO CONFERENCE
April 11 District 4-Way Speech Contest   CANCELLED
April 14 Regular Tuesday Meeting       CANCELLED
April 16 Rotary Board Meeting    VIDEO CONFERENCE
April 21 Regular Tuesday Meeting            CANCELLED
April 24, 25 Rotary District 6630 Conferen CANCELLED
April 28 Regular Tuesday Meeting       CANCELLED
May 1 First Friday After Hours TBD
May 2 Kent Parks Playground Completion TBD
May 5 Regular Tuesday Meeting TBD
May 8 Kent Rotary Foundation Auction      CANCELLED

Meeting on March 10, 2020

Rotary Club of Kent meeting minutes

Rotareminder for the Rotary Club of Kent

Meeting on March 10, 2020

Greeting: President Roger Sidoti welcomed Rotarians and guests to the Rotary Club of Kent.

Opening:

The patriotic song of the day was God Bless America, played by David Dix.

President Roger led us in the Pledge of Allegiance and Sue Hetrick offered the invocation. David Dix led us in singing the KSU Fight song to cheer on the KSU basketball teams that are playing in the MAC tournament.

The Rotareminder author is Sue Hetrick, and Rachel Kerns will take photos.

Guests:

There were no visiting Rotarians.

Roger Sidoti introduced his guest, Gwen Rosenberg. Shawn Gordon’s guest was Ashley Hendrix. Jennifer Lennox was a guest of Sandy Reid.

Announcements:

President Roger commented on a Health Dept. memo regarding Covid-19. He noted that Rotary meetings will proceed as usual unless we are advised to make changes.

David Dix reminded us of the NCAA Watch Party on March 20^th at Rays. Half of the proceeds will go to United Way.

Shawn Gordon announced that all schools are covered for our literacy read in. She then made a plea that people don’t go to the hospital emergency rooms for the flu. Call the Health Dept. for advice.

Mary Beth Harper urged us to contribute to the bracket buster contest. Each bracket (men’s or women’s) costs $10. The proceeds will help fund AED equipment.

Stacey Richardson asked us to support the up-coming auction on May 8^th. Forms were distributed for sponsoring opportunities for the auction. A new item this year is a wine wall. Donors are needed for wine bottles.

Carol Crimi reminded us that we will be preparing and serving a dinner to those who are food insecure on March 28^th. Donations of food can be made by anyone who is not able to help at the dinner. See Carol for details.

President Roger passed around a note received from one of the contestants of our 4-way speech contest.

Will Underwood introduced the members of his District Speech Contest committee as follows: Shawn Gordon, Rachel Kerns, David Myers, Amanda Senn, Curt Stumpf, Nancy Whitehead. Pleas were made for help at the District contest, which will be held from 9am to 2pm on April 11^th. Also, donations are needed to help with costs of the event.

Program:

Stephanie Evans introduced Nicole Thomas of Children’s Advantage. Nicole is Director of Program Development and Director of Trauma Services at Children’s Advantage. The agency is a children’s mental health agency offering a wide range of services to children and their families. Services are offered in schools, in homes and at the agency. The agency has about 1700 clients.

Nicole thanked Rotary, especially the Rotary Foundation, for providing financial support for a new program called Getting Ahead. The program will serve families with a goal of helping families heal and become independent from services. Child care and incentives for program attendance are included. The program will run for 16 weeks and can serve 12 families at one time. Nicole talked about her career path and her passion for work with victims of trauma. She is excited about family-centered services designed to eradicate intergenerational trauma and poverty.

The family-based services will be offered in a building, newly renovated for the purpose of treating families. The agency was able to secure a capital grant to purchase and renovate the building. The building will be called the Family Center. Nicole said that the programs offered at the Family Center will keep families together. Children’s Advantage is partnering with other community agencies to offer resources to families.

Response:

Amanda Senn said she was impressed with the comments about intergenerational trauma and ways to end that cycle. She thanked Nicole for her presentation.

President Roger noted that the schools benefit from the work of Children’s Advantage staff.

We ended the meeting with the Four Way Test.

Respectfully submitted,

Sue Hetrick

Important Club documents: