We will also have an online component for those members of the club who can't join us in person. We will send more information about a virtual meeting space soon, but we are leaning toward using FaceBook Live for our virtual attendees. Our guest speaker at the meeting will be the Chief of the Bluffton Police Department, Stephanie Price. 

The Bluffton Rotary Club Service Projects Committee worked hard to bring a plan together and coordinated with area school counselors so that our club could safely host Happy Feet. It benefitted kids from MC Riley, Red Cedar and Bluffton Elementary Schools. The shoes were distributed via a car pool line so the families could stay in their cars. School volunteers acted as "runners" taking shoes from the display tables to the cars. 

 

We are so grateful to Kohls of Savannah for providing all the shoes. And we are especially thankful for all the hard work by Kohls Assistant Manager, Tracey Meredith, who went out of her way to give us shoes that matched the colors requested by the kids. Kohls also donated socks, hand sanitzer AND books some of which we gave away to local children and some we will use for the Rotary Club's Little Libraries. 

At our last meeting, Eric Skipper, Provost & Executive Vice Chancellor of USCB spoke about the university experience during Covid. Skipper shared some very interesting information with the club about the plan and future of higher education in light of Covid and what university and college administrators have learned about online/remote learning during the last year. The future of  higher education will definitely have an online component for remote learning and virtual classrooms. He shared a few facts and figures that were eye opening--he specifically mentioned ecommerce sales which have had a general growth of 10% over the last ten years, but during the first eight weeks of the pandemic ecommerce sales saw an 11% increase. We have a new normal for shopping online and product delievery by shipping rather than brick and mortar store fronts. He also spoke about the huge increases and decreases in wealth during the pandemic, and the great gap in wealth between white and black populations. Unfortunately, the K-shaped recovery is driving a deeper wedge into an already disparate economy. The hope and goal with more of an online and virtual learning system is that a more diverse population will have access to higher education. It is still true that a college education is a ticket up and out of poverty. A big thank you to Eric Skipper for meeting with us early in the morning and sharing some important information gleaned about the economy and higher education during Covid.

Meet our newest Rotarian! Lindsay Sutcliffe and her husband, Mike, welcomed their baby girl, Eleanor "Elle" Angel Sutcliffe on March 23. She was 6 pounds and 10 ounces and 19 inches long. 

The parents are over the moon and very thankful for Elle's safe arrival.

Welcome Elle!

We still need book donations for the two Little Free Libraries our club maintains. 

Please consider donating any children's or adult books so we can keep both little libraries fully stocked.