President’s letter, April 11, 2020
Summary of our last meeting. Lemons to Lemonade/ Growing as Rotarians. Thank you to those who attended.
Amazing! We had the very best turnout of the year at this meeting! We had a group of Rotarians from St Martin who had been busy virtually traveling the world by visiting Rotary Clubs. It was wonderful to share ideas with them. They are a young club like ours looking for ways to connect during this pandemic. We also had a few PB Rotaractors (Derren and Erika) and Carlos and Fernanda checking in from Mexico. It was a fun and very international meeting.
Staying connected - We talked a bit about continuing Zoom meetings regularly every Wednesday night for the time being but we are looking forward to the day when we can resume our Leucadia Pizza meetings. Dave and Loretta shared their Battle Buddies talk electronically – excellent! Our St Martin visitors loved the idea and were taking it back to their island. When we started Battle Buddies, I was thinking I wanted to call it something less…war-like, but now that we are tackling a pandemic, it seems quite appropriate. Thank you, Derek, for the great, prescient idea!
Attracting new Rotarians - Because of new Zoom security concerns, we cannot put our meeting link on Facebook and Meetup. However, we can advertise that we are a great club with weekly Zoom meetings. We can steer people to our message board on Facebook. Then, give out the link individually if they message us. Also, please share your link that I will send on Tuesdays with anyone you know personally who is interested in joining us. We want to continue to attract new members!
Great Grant Proposals! –After discussion at the last meeting, here is a summary of what the board approved.
District COVID grant: $500 for food to those who need it most – We are getting food to 2 orphanages and 40 families living isolated with HIV in Mexico. Evidently there are no government agencies in Mexico that can help these people and the pandemic has made getting food almost impossible. Under the best of circumstances, getting donated food to them would be challenging because of crime in these areas of TJ. But Fernanda has the connections in Mexico to get much needed food to the right people and get us documentation that it’s been delivered. We would be working with a Rotarian from the Tijuana Oeste Rotary Club who can give us the bulk items (beans, rice, cooking oil, etc.) at the best prices and is familiar with their situation as he donates regularly to them. He will provide a detailed description of the food donated and receipts. Fernanda can provide photos of the delivered food. I will submit the grant ASAP.
2020-2021 District grants. Normally, we would apply for these grants in August, have them approved in September and get the matching funds shortly after that. We have the opportunity to give money now.
- Feeding San Diego is offering a ‘double your impact’ matching gift for any donation. Our $500 donation now will be doubled to $1000 donation to Feeding SD.
- Community Resource Center is an organization supporting victims of domestic violence. As you know domestic violence has dramatically increased with ‘stay at home’ orders. Without organizations like this, the victims often have nowhere to go. The center helps them with legal issues, housing, food, childcare and job skills. Several other clubs have already donated to CRC in COVID grants. We will donate $500.
- Front Line Foods is an ingenious idea to feed the frontline workers of the COVID epidemic with healthy food from local vendors. 100% of the donated money goes directly to restaurants serving hospital workers. This is sort of what we did for Leucadia Pizza and Sharp ER – it helps local businesses and supports people who are working hard right now. We will donate $500.
- Fernanda will get $500 to pay local workers in Mexico making cloth face masks. These masks can be made by the maquiladoras quickly and inexpensively. For $500 we could keep people employed, get 500 masks out to health care workers, first responders, people at risk and others that are necessary workers.
So, in total, that would make $2500 out of our Foundation account for COVID grants now. However, we should be reimbursed $1250 with matching funds by the fall. That will probably only be about 1/3-1/4 or our district matching grant budget for next year. It will leave room for more district grant proposals later. Please take a look at this site:
CNN's Great Giving Guide, a resource for those who want to give during the coronavirus crisis. The guide features several areas of interest and dozens of vetted organizations. We can do a lot more -so send me your ideas.
Ideas for volunteering for Rotarians at Work Day April 25. What can we do while social distancing?
I’d like to propose that we each give or separately, then post photos and videos on website, twitter and Facebook on April 25: #SDCoastalRotarytogetherapart. We could promote our club while encouraging others to volunteer for the community safely. Here are some ideas:
- Feeding San Diego – they are not taking volunteers but you can register and they will connect you with other food organizations that need volunteers.. Here’s the link: https://feedingsandiego.org/coronavirus-volunteer
- San Diego Food Bank - sandiegofoodbank.org or 858-863-5125 or jbode@sandiegofoodbank.org
- SD Blood Bank blood donation – the US is suffering a severe blood shortage right now. You can make an appointment to donate safely. Also, there is a dire need for plasma from anyone who is fully recovered from COVID 19. They are trying to make more antibodies to help those who have weakened immune systems. If you have had the virus and are now fully recovered, contact them. https://www.mysdbb.org/#/ScheduleAppointment
- Be a virtual volunteer at the Library of Congress - https://loc.gov/visit/volunteer/
- Help Leucadia Pizza – We all want Leucadia to stick around so that we have a good place to hold our meetings. Donate a meal to a neighbor, first responder, friend or yourself from Leucadia while we are in quarantine.
- Girl Scouts - Here is an easy one! The Girl Scout Cookie Program funds amazing experiences for the girls. Because of COVID19, many scouts have not been able to sell cookies. Here’s a way to buy your favorite cookies from home and have them shipped to your door or donate to first responders or others: Girl Scouts Cookie Care
- Fostering animals through SD Humane Society https://www.sdhumane.org/support-us/volunteer/foster/
- I know of other organizations too! Text me! It’s kitten and puppy season and no one to take care of them.
- Join or form your own neighborhood help program through Nextdoor https://nextdoor.com/
- wellness checks on seniors
- Grocery/ necessities ‘shop and drop’ program
- Dog walker program for those who cannot get out
- Host your own food drive by posting neighborhood signs to neighbors to drop off food in a box on your porch on the next walk around the block. Items most needed: peanut better, cereal, oatmeal, pasta and sauce, healthy snacks. Be sure to state where the food is going and when. This same idea could be used to provide clothes, shoes, toiletries, books, cloth masks to homeless shelters.
Next week, April 15- Lemons to Lemonade 3 –How do we adapt and grow professionally during this time?
How can our careers and businesses adapt to meet new demands and challenges presented? How do we pay the bills? Thankfully, Craig has generously offered to run this meeting so it should be really fun. We will try to get input from multiple members about the following COVID related professional problems:
- Financial challenges/planning
- Work from home challenges
- Small business challenges
- Using the new government business loans
- Advertising during a lock down
- Medical insurance when you loose your job
- Legal issues (bankruptcy, handling estates)
- Real estate investment (renting, landlord issues, mortgages)
- Other investments (stocks, bonds, materials)
- Education -teaching on- line
What businesses will thrive and which will completely change? Bring your thoughts?
Meeting April 22 - Lemons to Lemonade 4 – How do we grow personally during this time?
By this date, we will have been weeks into our quarantine. What have we learned?
Here’s some things to think about: Have you re-examined your priorities in life? How have you stayed healthy physically and emotionally? What has kept you sane? Or not? Have you experienced ‘decision fatigue’. How have you learned to stay in touch with family and friends? Have you taken up any new hobbies? What would be your recommendation to yourself or others in the future?
How about a 2 truths and a lie game: what did you do while in quarantine? Send me your answers!
While I would love everyone’s participation, I’m also looking for an exceptional, inspirational speaker. Please send me your ideas for speakers. Note this will be a Zoom meeting so speakers could be anywhere in the world as long as they are willing to join us.
Meeting April 29 – Lemons to Lemonade House Party!
This will be an experiment. We share a Leucadia Pizza takeout dinner and conversation online. Craig and Derek have offered to set this up. Yeah! Please send Craig and Derek your ideas.
In case you are a little concerned about takeout food, read this:
Coronavirus Fears Shouldn't Keep You From Ordering Takeout, Experts Say : Shots - Health News https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/04/08/822903487/how-safe-is-it-to-eat-take-out
May meetings. The response from the members: they want to hear from government officials, economists and bankers about recovery efforts during and after the pandemic. Fernanda has given me one contact – an international banker from the Netherlands that has good insight into the big picture. Fernanda also introduced me to an interesting organization finding rapid solutions to COVID19 problems: Burners Without Borders (
https://www.burnerswithoutborders.org). Also, an organization connecting people in unusual ways: Shared Stories. Please keep your ideas coming in. We can always return to our old schedule, but it seems with so much going on, we will want to hear more about how this pandemic is affecting us and how we can affect it.
Meetings - Just a reminder that I will send you a Zoom link to our Wednesday meeting the day before. Feel free to share that link with your friends and ask them to join us. Zoom meetings will start at 6pm with a 30 min social. Text or call if you can’t get in 619-985-2999. The formal meeting will start at 6:30pm. Please mute your feed during the meeting except for happy bucks or other open discussion. You can also use the chat, thumbs up or clap option for other quiet input during the meeting. The meeting will end at 7:30, but I’ll stick around if you want to talk. The meetings won’t be recorded.
Rotary Face Masks - I mentioned during the last meeting that a company is recycling the shirts from the cancelled Hawaiian Rotary International Conference to make face masks. An ingenious ‘lemons to lemonade’ story! Who needs to wear a Rotary pin when you can have ‘Rotary’ written right across your face in a colorful Hawaiian print? The masks are dual lined, washable, come in red and blue and cost $6.50 each. I got one in each color. They stress that these are not medical grade masks. For those of you interested in getting one to wear, here is a link:
https://2020alohashirts.com/product/rotary-face-mask/
