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Visiting Rotarians None Guests Dave Sommers introduced his guest Phillip Lanier of DS Architecture. David Myers introduced his guest Ben Wolford of the Portager. Announcements - Curtis Stumpf provided information about Imagination Library, which is a literacy program designed to provide a book per month to children aged birth to 5 years.For more information, please reach out to Stacey Richardson or Curtis Stumpf.There is an organizational meeting tonight at 6:30pm at the Kent Public library.
- Kent City Schools announced an online reading program.For more information see Kelley Tremaine or Shawn Gordon.
- Rotary District 6630 4-Way Speech contest is being hosted this year at THRS.If you are interested in being an online judge, please reach out to Rachel Kerns or Will Underwood.
- Tom Hatch announced that the ILEP program is bringing in 22 educators in April.If you are interested in being a Friendship Family, please reach out to Tom.
- Carol Crimi reported that the community lunch last Saturday at Trinity Lutheran Church went very well. Approximately 15 Rotarians participated by helping serve approximately 60 meals to disadvantaged members of our community.The next meal is in October which will be coordinated by another individual. (Marcus Wright?)
- THRS student council is sponsoring a blood drive next Monday. Contact Tom Larkin for more details.
- If you are interested in being a corporate sponsor for the Rotareminder and our website please see president Randy Smith.
100th Anniversary moment(s) – Jim Myers More than 80 farmers of the district were entertained at a joint meeting of the Rotary, Kiwanis and the Chamber of Commerce at a banquet given at the Congregational Church Gymnasium on the evening of February 28, 1939. Moving pictures of the Sixth World Poultry Congress were shown by Merle Wagoner of the club. In as much as the Seventh World Poultry Congress was to be held in Cleveland in July the pictures were especially interesting to the farmers in attendance.
Portage County elected a Kent Rotarian to the Ohio General Assembly in Columbus when it named Griff Evans as its representative. He was reelected to three more terms.
There was but one death in the Kent Rotary in the year but a significant one. William W Reed, a charter member of the club, and Past Rotary President passed away March 30, 1939. Will Reed was a man of multitudinous activities and connected with so many civic enterprises it would be difficult to list them all and have the summary complete. He was founder and head of the W W Reed insurance company, past postmaster, and served as President of the Chamber of Commerce for eight consecutive years. it’s most appropriate that the chamber in recent years named its annual Kent Public Service Medal in his name, the W.W. Reed Medal. He was also instrumental in developing the University Heights residential area.
More moments in our history. Speaker Todd Kamenesh delivered a nice introduction to our speaker today – Kent City Manager, Dave Ruller, who has prepared remarks on how the pandemic has affected the city. To the surprise of no one, Dave stated that the city was not immune to the effects of the pandemic. Approximately 50% of the city’s workforce was either diagnosed or has COVID. Many businesses have been hurt with a number of pandemic-induced closures. For all of the bad, Dave believes the city is better for the experience. In a way, the city has become an ecosystem of sorts – provoking various departments to learn how to work differently by working smarter. A “unified command model” has led to better coordination of department duties, as well as developing a healthy reliance on each other. Words such as “collaboration”, “cooperation” and “leadership” served as a rallying cry to leave no stone unturned and to seek and invite creative solutions. As Dave opined…”it is open season on good ideas.” What’s Going on today….. - Uncle Matteo’s is preparing to open in the former Pizza Fire location.
- New multi-story development underway along Franklin Ave that will include apartments and some retail (bakery).
- Treno was a casualty, but a number of candidates to replace it are lining up.
- Many merchants in the Franklin Ave area have expressed desire to make that small block more pedestrian friendly with open air dining expansion into that section of the street.
- Barrios has expanded in the former Yogurt V shop.
- Wendy’s is doing a near complete redo, having also added the adjacent vacant lot for better ingress and egress.
- The North Water Street improvement will re-start once the weather turns.The city has also acquired some vacant buildings to make future development more palatable to a developer/investor.
- North Water Street Brewing Company is up and running.
- The River Merchant is back in business having learned how to modify its business model during the pandemic.
- The Bell Tower Brewing (Brew Pub) is going into the former RW Martin and Sons building and is scheduled for a late summer opening.
- The LN Gross building continues to expand its bottled water business by adding a shift.
- The UU Church is putting the finishing touches on its new Community Building with a scheduled opening sometime this spring.
- The bike trail in downtown will undergo some improvements by redesigning the connections near the Main Street bridge/dam.
- Davey Tree is gearing up to commence the expansion of its campus on what was previously known as Oak Knolls east.
George Joseph served as today’s response to our program Respectfully submitted, Brian K Bialik
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