Rotary Meeting Highlights 4-14-21
For those unable to attend today’s meeting, we had a lot of good information disbursed. There was a total of 23 people on the Zoom.
President Goggin started the meeting with a prayer by our Chaplain, the Pledge and the Rotary Four-Way Test. He then introduced our guest speakers, Jim and Lori Wotowiec.
Terri reported that we had three students represent our club at the District Four-Way Speech contest. They were Beatrice Shackelford from Westside Christian Academy, Stephanie Nivellini from Westlake High School, and Angelica Jameson from Bay High. There were 26 participants in all, and Angelica made it to the final round and received an honorable mention monetary award. Congratulations to all three of students, they all did a great job.
Ray reminded the Club that any requests for District grants must be submitted by May 15th.
Kevin K. gave an update on the Shoebox program. We have heard from a few of the clubs, and it appears due to the pandemic, many clubs will be able to participate at the level they have in the past. He still expects we will have between 400-500 boxes this year. Andrew made a video presentation on Shoebox to the Baldwin Wallace Rotaract club. They expressed an interest in participating.
Joe K. reported that we are now up to 35 artists for the Art Festival. The next Chairman’s meeting will be April 29th at 6:00 pm via Webex. The committee may continue the meeting after 7 at the Elks Club.
Kiwanis is holding their Pancake Breakfast just before the Art Festival on the grounds. The breakfast has been moved to 9 am rather than the traditional 8 am start to keep people on the grounds for the Festival. There will be cross marketing by both organizations to promote both events.
Ray reported that we received a thank you note from Patty Hanrahan and Ames house recognizing our donation to the Hospice of the Western Reserve.
Our speakers, Jim and Lori Wotowiec, returned to our club to update us on their Star Camp. After having to cancel last year’s camp due to Covid, they are very excited to hold the camps once again. The dates are August 2-13 and the camps will be held in Independence. This year they added a fourth camp for students who have aged out of the normal programs. There will be the pre-school camp for ages 3-5, the school aged camp for ages 6-13, the high school camp for students 13-22, and the new adult camp for those over 22. Lori added that many students who have aged out still participate as volunteers in the other camps. Star has 25 staff members and 15 interns helping run the camps. They award between $11,500 and $12,000 in scholarships each year. They are proud that they have never turned away a student because of financial hardship. The Westlake-Bay Village Rotary Club is proud to have sponsored the event since shortly after it’s inception. For more information, visit starcampsummer.org.
We had time for our happy thoughts and the meeting adjourned at 8:28.