Our 9th annual Taste & Tunes was officially unveiled last week. This years chair Dee Dee Foran notes that it will be on Sunday October 3, 2021 from 2-5pm at Illick's Mill with catered food, bar, music, dessert tastings and a short program following. An on-line auction will take place October 3-10 with items provided by our members, business partners, and other organizations. This year the event will equally benefit survivors of human-trafficking in the LV and our Bethlehem Rotary Foundation. How can you help? Go to our website and click the Taste & Tunes image on the home page.  Then click the links to open Google ONLINE forms (preferred) that enable you to become a sponsor and/or to donate an item for the auction. Links are also available to download print versions of the Sponsor and Auction forms.  Remember, that we need 100% participation from everyone to make this event successful.

This year Bethlehem Rotary WILL make a bigger impact on our community thanks to you!

 

StoveTeam International provided an eye opening video to a global problem we do not hear about-open flame cooking in homes. Smoke from indoor cooking fires is the leading cause of death for women and for children under 5 in developing countries. Women and girls spend 20 hours a week collecting fuel (wood). The open fires in their homes make their homes, clothing (and lungs) black.  Children sadly get burned from being too close to the fire. To the people in the homes it is equivalent to smoking 3 packs of cigarettes a day. 

 

Enter Rotarian Nancy Hughes from Oregon, who after seeing what was happening while serving on a mission team in Guatemala, founded StoveTeam.   With some research and help, they developed clean, economical stoves that are built locally in Central America where they are improving the lives of residents there. The stoves lower CO2 emissions, improve health, reduce deforestation, and provide economic opportunities for those building stoves locally. It's estimated that 20 million stoves are needed in the region to end this danger. But keep in mind about 4 billion people worldwide cook in open stoves. It is a major project that has just begun and partners are needed to get the program started in other countries. Just look at the cover photo of the June 2021 Rotary Magazine of the family in China to get an idea of what "open cooking" looks like.

 

A question raised after the video: Why are governments not doing more to prevent this and why do we not hear more of this? Answer: It's true that this is basically still an unknown issue. StoveTeam's belief is that this is because open-fire cooking is a "semi-chosen" behavior, rather than a disease like malaria or AIDS, so it requires a more complicated and nuanced conversation. StoveTeam is one of just a few organizations working to raise awareness about open-fire cooking, and elevate its status to that of other worldwide issues we all know about. The US government does allocate money each year to pay for cookstoves, but it is funneled through the Clean Cooking Alliance, which is currently focusing on liquefied petroleum gas stoves in Africa. To learn more about this amazing organization, go to our website and watch the videos and build your knowledge on the cookstoves.

 

Please keep these dates in mind (and on your calendars):

 

 

I hope you can attend our weekly meeting this Wednesday.  A good friend of Bethlehem Rotary Club, Billy Staples from BEST Inc. will share with us details of a new mentoring program at BASD (with help from our own Maria Dietrich) and the scholarship program we participate in. As you know, Billy is very passionate about the organization, and I know with his energy we will "get the scoop" and hopefully a BASD student can join him to give even more insight about the program.