Tim Hunt offered our invocation while Kathy Austvold was our song leader, as we celebrated the holiday season with three Christmas songs. Our Student Guests were from Hillcrest, all seniors and on the football team that finished second in state in their class. Drew Fischer is from Elbow Lake, and his parents are John and Brenda. He played cornerback and wide receiver and is also in the choir with plans to study finance. Levi Bowman is from North Dakota and played wide receiver, running back and cornerback. He too is in choir and a member of Key Club; his intention is to attend Hillsdale College in Michigan next year to study sociology. Kian Sender, son of Wayne and Nancy, was the team's kicker and he hopes to pursue a career in masonry and stonework or some other building trade.
President Ryan said he has now received 23 responses to the survey he sent out and Brian's survey, the latter on fundraising, has received 14 responses. There was a Rotary Minute Plus Quiz based on the December Rotary magazine and one of three questions were answered correctly, which indicates at least one person at the table that provided the correct answer looked at the cover - or is a good guesser.
Mary Pettit bragged about this past weekend's Dance and Dessert performances and a show or shows that will be held tomorrow for about 600 school children. Keith Olson put in money for missing a couple meetings while elk hunting in Montana, even though he attended virtually while out in God's Country. Out of a party of 14 they got three elk and, if I understand correctly, Keith took down one of them.
Our program was introduced by Dean Monke who invited Nathan Johnson, Chief Executive Officer at Pioneer Care, to speak to us about the effort Pioneer has embarked upon to provide day care facilities in the community. Dean told us that about three to four years ago they started Pioneer Kids, which provides on-site day care for their employees. One of their memory care units is used for that purpose but they would like to get it back in service as originally intended. Thinking about the community-wide need for day care, Dean called up Paul Shol at Habitat for Humanity to see if Habitat could build a day care facility. That was taken up the chain of command and Habitat ultimately said yes, meaning the project will cost about one-half of what it would have otherwise. The capacity to provide day care in Fergus Falls has gone down (by 63 slots or 12%) while the need has increased, with 452 children needing day care services, up from 382. Before turning it over to Nathan, Dean told us that the intent is to start construction next spring.
Nathan, who has now been at Pioneer for 17 years, started out by saying that the two major needs of Fergus Falls are housing and childcare. West Central Initiative provided a grant to Otter Tail County which started a Rural Childcare Innovation Project ("RCIP"); its coordinator is Katie Ganow. The project planned for Fergus Falls is modeled after one in Morris and the Vedin Trust challenged the planners to think big, providing a $600,000 matching grant to the effort. Scott DeMartelaere at Design Intent Architects here in Fergus Falls has come up with some images of what the three duplex units will look like, with one of the six pods being used by Pioneer for its day care program for employees' children. The other five pods will be leased to independent childcare providers, and the units will be located on a vacant lot across from Hillcrest's elementary school. The rent will be very low - $200 to $300 a month plus utilities. The total cost is estimated at $1.4 million and $1.25 million of that has been raised. It is expected that once completed, the project will add 60-70 childcare spots to Fergus Falls. It will be a phased development, with one duplex likely to be built each of the next three years. They are in the process of coming up with a name for the facilities, not intending to use Pioneer in doing so.
