Speaker - Steve Fine, Melanoma Education Foundation
Happy Thoughts
__________________________________________
Stories
Rotary Meeting Highlights 3-1-2023
In case you missed last week's meeting, here is a recap:
Terri reviewed old business:
Art Fest: next meeting is planned for March 16 at the Elks at 6:30 p.m. Joe Kraft provided a lists of 35 artists that have applied to date and Andrew shared that Cleveland Museum of Art will be serving as the “featured artists”
The 4 way speech contest is scheduled for 3/22/23 at 6:00 p.m. and district competition will be April 22, 2023.
Exchange Student: Brenda Wacker advised that Onyx would be traveling home to the US this week for further recovery from a spinal injury. She was very grateful to Rotary International for all their help and support. She also advised that Onyx will be adjusting to re-entry to the US and her family will help others with support for foreign exchange students.
Blankets and Binders: February 28 the Rotary had their activity to assemble binders for Connecting for Kids and add fringe to the blankets for Fostering for Hope. (foster children). It was a great social event working together and John Hannah enjoyed the team building.
East Palestine Rotary: Terri advised that the East Palestine Rotary has asked for donations for their local chapter in an effort to support the residents in East Palestine. Mary Beth advised that the donation committee voted to support a donation of $500.00. Terri called on board members present to make a motion supporting the donation to the East Palestine Rotary. Motion was made by Michael and seconded by Joe Hudak and the board members present voted to approve the $500.00 donation. Terri will follow up with Jim Strunk on payment.
Diaper Rush: Andrew reminded everyone of the 5th Wednesday diaper drop on March 29th after the morning Rotary meeting. Diapers maybe dropped off in advance at the Library and at Patty’s business, Micro Strategy on Detroit Road. The goal is to deliver over 2,000 diapers this month.
Rotary Brochures: Amy Kubacki advised that if there are more copies of brochures she could get them out in the cities to promote more members. Andrew had more copies made for further distribution.
Our Guest speaker was Nicholas Barille the superintendent of the Rocky River Waste Water Treatment Plant in Rocky River. Mr. Barille gave a presentation highlighting the treatment of sanitary waste, and other contaminants that enter into the waste system. The Rocky River Plant services Bay Village, Westlake, Rocky River, and Fairview Park and supports some 86,000 residents and other commercial businesses. The plant strictly focuses on the treatment of the waste it receives and does not cover the respective sanitary infrastructure systems in the cities it supports.
The waste treatment process involves a 24 hr seven day a week process and is regulated by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency. It extracts sludge from the water, burns off methane gases and dries out sludge and disposes of it via farms and landfills. The remaining cleansed waters are then discharged back into the lake. The plant can cleanse 15 to 45 million gallons of waste per day successfully and meet the EPA governmental clean water guidelines. Issues occur when large rain events cause a storm water surge and the sanitary systems breach their capacities in the suburbs. This causes an increase of Inflow and Infiltration (I in I) of sanitary waste to mix with clean water. As a result the treatment plant exceeds its capacity and is unable to address 45 to 128 million gallons of water in one day. The EPA is notified and the plant is forced to discharge the excessive waste-water into Lake Erie. This results in an increase in the e-coli bacteria content that flows into the lake and takes days to settle back to clean water safety standards.
Mr. Barille addressed questions and advised that the Rocky River plant is planning a large multi-million dollar project to address increased capacities and ways to bypass storm surcharges. He advised members to tell others not put pharmaceuticals and handy-wipes in sinks or sewers, to avoid major system back ups and delays in the filtration processing.
We had time for a happy buck and Terri left us with a service quote from Mohammed Ali “Service to others is the rent we pay for our room here on earth”.
________________________________________
Welcome Back Onyx!
Our outbound student, Onyx has returned safely from Ecuador. Her friend and families in Ecuador were sad to have her visit cut short and say goodbye. We look forward to hearing about her experiences in the future. A few farewell gatherings and a family reunion back in Ohio:
Thank you to all the Rotarians who helped make blankets for foster children last Tuesday evening. It was great to see fellow Rotarians outside of our morning meetings and share some stories!
The blankets were delivered to Fostering Hope on Saturday. The donation coordinator was thrilled and touched by the personalized blankets. She couldn't stop exclaiming how wonderful the names and short messages were on the blankets, and had to open up one of the blankets to take photos to share out.
To help give a perspective on the need for which we did a small part to help - they use about 200 journey bags with these blankets in an average month.
March 25 - The Village Project's biggest fundraiser at Emerald Event Center in Avon from 6-10 pm, entitled Nourish A Recipe For Hope. Our club is looking to be a sponsor which can include securing a table at the event. If you would like to be a sponsor and attend with a group from our club, let Andrew know. He sent emails with more details.
March Diaper Drop
For the month of March we will be collecting diapers for Providence House again. Please drop off any diaper donations to Patty Zinn's office or the Westlake Porter library.
Around the District
Donations for East Palestine
Our club has approved a donation to East Palestine Rotary Club. If you would like to personally contribute you can send a check to Jim made out to the Corely Foundation or directly to the East Palestine Rotary Club. The East Palestine Rotary Club is taking donations to help the residents of East Palestine after the train chemical disaster. For more information: https://rotarydistrict6650.org/?fbclid=IwAR3WNW5VnQJO1rAGPYPMYqZaHbNGjNG-wW_oLFKzS5JR3Pj1ga4hrc2b7vI
________________________________________
Speaker Update:
Thanks to all of your suggestions and our great speaker committee, we have nearly all dates scheduled through June. When you are talking to people about speaking at one of our meetings, be sure to let them know how far out we are booking. Thanks agai!
.png)
