After a delicious lunch of salmon, once again accompanied by tunes by John Dale Smith, President Darwin called the meeting to order promptly at 12:30. The invocation was given by Al Yambor and was followed by “America, The Beautiful”. Tyler Parsons walked the microphone as guests were introduced. There were eight guests in attendance, and several have applied, or will apply, for membership in our club.
Pat Munshaw reported that Ed McRee has moved from the facility on Dobie Road to Island City Assisted Living in Eaton Rapids to be closer to family. The health of the club was reported to be good.
Kevin Schumacher announced that the prize for identifying the Rotary who wrote this week’s story is a paint can filled with M&M courtesy of Dave O’Leary. By process of elimination, since very few Rotarians had visited Alaska under the age of 10, the author of the story was revealed to be Linda Lynch. Manny Garcia received the M&M’s for correctly guessing the author from the pool of two Rotarians.
Bob Hoffman announced that the social media winner was Erik Larson.
President Darwin let us all know that there are still tickets available for East Lansing Rotary’s Celtic music fundraiser to support Weekend Survival Kits. The concert is March 25th, with tickets available from Cathy for $25 each.
John Dale Smith filled us in on the wonderful special music we were scheduled to have this week, Adam Krause, a vocalist from Haslett High School. Unfortunately, a close friend of his had died and Adam was unable to join us. Hopefully he will be able to join us at a later date.
President Darwin introduced our Chair of the Month and Day, Jenn Dubey. Jenn has recently completed a term on the Lansing Chamber Board of Directors. During her term, she learned a lot about the efforts of Chris Sell and his efforts in the area of talent attraction and retention in the Lansing area. As Jenn began to line up a month of programs, she knew that she wanted Chris to fill one of the spots. Her introduction left no doubt that she believes this is an important effort.
Chris told us a bit about his childhood growing up in the Lansing area, his time away from the area, and his realization when he moved back to the area with his wife that he really knew very little about the Lansing area. There was a time that life seemed to center in the suburbs. TV in the 70’s and 80’s depicted life in the suburbs. During Chris’s childhood in Williamston, his family rarely travelled farther west than Meridian Mall. Gradually, perceptions have changed. TV in the 90’s and 2000’s conveyed that if you were young, you needed to be in the city and as the cost of living has increased in major cities, the next tier of cities are starting to grow. Chris knows that Lansing needs to be part of that conversation.
The idea for Lansing 5:01 was born in 2013, but the organization did not begin to form until 2015. With support from LEAP, the Lansing Regional Chamber and the mayor, the first set of programs was launched in 2016. The events were targeted at interns who were in town for the summer working at an area employer. The idea was to provide a sense of place through events that were experiential and ‘hide the veggies in the pizza’. Since those first 3 events, more than 2000 people have attended a variety of events.
The organization has 4 areas of focus – placemaking, economic development, career education, and talent attraction and retention. Since the focus in on interns, most events are in the summer. They also conducted Capital Comeback on Wednesday night before Thanksgiving targeted at young people originally from this area who are currently working outside the area. Area employers participated to let attendees know about opportunities that exist in their organizations.
Lansing 5:01’s website, lansing501.com, has a lot of video content, including a wrap up of some of the events. There is also a blog that highlights places to go and things to do.
None of this would be possible without the involvement of Lansing 5:01’s employer partners. They are instrumental in getting interns involved in events.
As the future unfolds, Lansing 5:01 will look for additional ways to share our story with young people who are trying to figure out where they want to live. Interns have come from 44 universities, many states, and even a few from Scotland!
President Darwin presented Chris with a Rotary coin and explained that a donation to a clean water project in the Dominican Republic would be made in his name.
Next week, we will be back at the Lansing Center where our speaker will be John Collins, who will speak on "Perfection Under Pressure".
The meeting was adjourned a bit early at 1:25 p.m.
Linda Lynch's email is: llynch@trivalentgroup.com