At the May 30th morning meeting we'll hear from River Falls High School Juniors -- soon to be seniors -- Anika Hovland and Greyson Delander about their experiences at Camp RYLA last month.
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River Falls Rotary Burger Battle
We are excited to share that after a multiple-year hiatus, the River Falls Rotary Club is resurrecting the River Falls Rotary Burger Battle.
Here's a summary of the film from presenter/filmmaker Mike Wurm: “Stories from the water” doesn’t fit into a tidy film category. Five kids from town take a 2 year journey discovering the river and learning about the process of storytelling. Musicians from River Falls and western Wisconsin are a critical part of the storyline. The conservation theme is central: the issues and challenges facing the Kinni haven’t changed much through the years. Our 5 middle school producer/actors learn that the watershed is as important to protect as the river itself.
A children’s book from 1962, “The Fishing River”, is one of the driving forces behind the film.“Stories” has been in several film festivals.
Click Read More to learn about the filmmaker who is our presenter.
James "Louie" Filkins provided Rotary with an overview of the US Public Land Survey System and the role of the county surveyor. Louie's first slide showed us Mount Rushmore, which he said most people see as four presidents. A surveyor sees “three surveyors and another guy”. George Washington and Abraham Lincoln both worked as surveyors. Thomas Jefferson’s father was a land surveyor, and Thomas Jefferson created the land survey system that is used in the US except in Texas and in the territory of the original 13 colonies. In 1803 Jefferson undertook buying the area around New Orleans and wound up with Louisiana and the middle of America North America all the way up to Canada (2400 times what he planned to buy). Being a surveyor back in that day was very lucrative because the surveyors were often paid in land and they knew where the best land was since they had just surveyed it.
Kellie Burrows, Rob Howard, John Duntley, Kerry Reis, and Bill Fehrenbach from the Hudson Daybreak Rotary club told us about their trip as part of the Guatemala Stove Project. Those five and three others from their club traveled to the village of the San Raymundo, Guatemala to build stoves. They shared, through stories and pictures, the history and their impressions of the beautiful country and people of Guatemala. Trips to San Raymundo began in 2016 when Dr. Greg Young and Linda Robertson met local Rotarian Carlos Galvez. Seven thousand Chapina Bonita stoves have been constructed since then by numerous groups of volunteers.
PFLAG board members Lisa and Debra spoke to Rotary about PFLAG. Lisa is a founding member of the River Falls PFLAG chapter. She works as a mental health therapist at Allina in River Falls and presented information about the River Falls chapter of PFLAG, which stands for Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. PFLAG envisions a world where diversity is celebrated and all people are respected, valued, and affirmed regardless of their sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.
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