Greetings, I hope everyone is staying healthy and keeping cool during our mid-summer heatwave. I understand many people are enjoying a vacation now-even if it is a "staycation". But that doesn't mean the club is quiet now as many projects are being formulated and ready to implement:
Taste & Tunes Dessert Edition 2020 is up and running. Please Check ClubRunner for forms to download to be a Sponsor and a form to use in recruiting your favorite bakery or restaurant to provide their signature dessert for our on-line auction. As I said, this year we really need 100% club participation. The sweet success of our effort will reap big dividends by helping Northeast Community Center stock their pantry AND theBethlehem Rotary Foundation's philanthropic grants.
The Bethlehem Rotary Foundation is now accepting grant requests for 2020. See the Downloads section of ClubRunner for Guidelines and Forms. Thank you to Cindy Glick for leading the review team.
The newly formed Interact Committee will be having their next meeting Thursday at 4pm with the Liberty H.S. Interact Club via ZOOM. If you are interested in learning more about the committee contact Maria Dietrich.
Mark your calendar for Saturday August 15 starting at 8am the Centennial Park Committee will be doing our annual cleanup at our Park on Sand Island. Minimal weeding, with an emphasis on trimming plants and tree pruning. As always, the club will provide tools and I will provide some cool new battery operated trimmers to make the job fun and easy! Stay tuned for details.
And if you have not registered, go to the District 7430 website and sign up for the ZOOM link to participate in Monday night's District Virtual Changeover Celebration. DG Herb will be reviewing the 2019-20 year accomplishments and DG Janet shares the Rotary Opens Opportunities coming in 2020-21. Hope to see you there!
At last week's meeting we had an update from our District 7430 Rotaplast Committee Co-chair Darlene Scott. She presented a very informative background of the founding of Rotaplast in 1992 by Dr. Angelo Capozzi of San Fransisco and our District's own Anne Brent raising $15K for the first D7430 mission to Peru. Rotary sends teams of medical experts and Rotarians around the world to perform cleft lip and palate surgeries.
The September 2019 D7430 12-day mission to Guatemala required a team of 16 medical staff and 10 non-medical volunteers. Through a first-come, first-served process, an amazing 114 surgeries were performed on children who had cleft lip or cleft palates. This is truly a life changing surgery and all of the children received a hand made quilt as a remembrance of the time their lives changed. Planning is under way for a 2021 mission. Already members have personally raised $25K and another $75K plus will be needed to fund this extraordinary program. For more information, contact Co-Chairs Darlene Scott dscott@cwmeter.com or Susan Burnett burnetts@rcn.com of the D7430 Rotaplast Committee.
This week will be another Small Business Forum style meeting. Andy Scott of the Scott Car Dealerships will give us insight on the difficulties of operating car dealerships and service departments during the pandemic. And Paula Johnson from Northeast Community Center (our Taste & Tunes Dessert Edition beneficiary) will tell us how the pandemic completely changed their "way of doing business" and how they have stepped up to fill a very urgent need in our community.
