Rotaryminder
Kent Ohio Rotary
July 9, 2024
Today’s meeting was called to order by President Rachel. This was her first meeting as our newly-installed president.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Dominique Bollenbacher congratulated Dennis Campbell and Ann Moneypenny on the success of the Heritage Festival.
Larry Lohman announced that July 16th is the last day to register for our annual Guardians Game to End Polio to be held FRIDAY, AUGUST 2ND, 2024. Please see attached flyer for QR CODE or visit
Rotarydistrict6630.org to register today!
Sabrina Christian-Bennett announced the Habitat for Humanity of Portage County’s Beer Pairing event is almost sold out. There will be an amazing chef pairing food with North Water Brewing Company’s beer. The tickets are almost sold out. You can still purchase them on their website.
Sabrina also announced that Ann Womer-Benjamin’s husband, David, unexpectedly passed away. Ann is the mayor of Aurora.
HAPPY BUCKS
Lots of people happy, including Nelson Burns who was excited to hear the speaker because he has been touched by adoption.
PROGRAM
The speaker was Jackie Smigel, the Executive Director of Open Arms Adoptions.
Open Arms Adoptions is a full-service adoption agency. They provide training, home studies and other services for pregnant mothers and adoptive families.
The children that come through their agency are either through private adoption or legally available foster children. They focus on reuniting sibling groups, placing medically impacted children, and facilitating private adoptions.
They meet with approximately 72 women last year, however they only did approximately 19 private adoptions. The goal of Open Arms Adoptions is NOT to convince women to give their babies up for adoption, but to counsel them through the process to see if it is right for them.
It costs approximately $35,000 for a private adoption. The main reason that fee is so high is because of the insurance the agency must maintain.
There are approximately 3300 available children in Ohio to be adopted and 117,000 in the USA. To put things in perspective, there wouldn't be enough room at the OSU stadium for these children to fit.
Most people want to adopt babies under-5 years old, so the main need for adoption is for children older than 5. The oldest child they've facilitated the adoption for was 16.
Today’s responder was Roberta O'Keefe
Respectfully submitted,
Kaleena Gharky
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