Minutes from April 3, 2017

 

President Jim Ruble called the meeting to order promptly at 12:30, with the ring of the bell and welcomed everyone to today’s meeting.

Steve Higginson was the greeters today, and he introduced the members who brought guests:

Gary Pehrson had us stand and sing Cowboy Joe in honor of the UW basketball win this past week.

Dennis Lower, Red Nickerson and Martha Rakestraw are all back with us this week, welcome back!

Dennis Lower brought us a club banner from the Rotary club of Mesa East AZ.

 

President Jim announced that Bob Auflick’s mom passed away this past week so there is a card going around for him and he asked us to remember him in our thoughts and prayers.

Sheryl Foland nominated Burt Toews for helping her become a Wyoming Licensed clinical social worker.

President Jim reminded us to register for District Conference which is in Casper this year and told us that the club will pay for anyone to attend.

Peaches Lynch announced that the Golf Tournament is coming up and there are flyers on each table and there are more opportunities for sponsorship as well as open spots for teams to golf. The plan is to have more focus on more fun this year.

Tobby announced that the international dinner fundraiser will be Sunday April 23 and there are sign-up sheets on the tables to attend. Please support this great fundraiser as it helps pay for the exchange student’s trip at the end of the school year.

Richard Schwahn announced that they are looking for volunteers for a steering committee to develop a plan for the next big project that the club will undertake so please let him know if you are interested in helping out.

PE Richard Schwahn introduced our speaker today, Jaci Byrd from the Wyoming Habitat for Humanity. She is the Family Services Coordinator and has come to give us an update on what Habitat is doing here in Casper. She just returned from Atlanta from attending the National Habitat conference where she was invited to attend and represent the State of Wyoming by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. She started with Habitat in May of 2016. She told us that Habitat was founded here in Casper in 1994 by our very own Don Harris and his wife Hallie. They had a passion that Casper was in need of housing for lower income individuals and Don is still involved in the work. So far they have built 32 houses with numbers 33 and 34 started and they are working on getting number 35 started up. The women who are getting these homes were unable to attend today due to work and children. Habitat acts as the lender and builder for each of the projects and the cost for each is about $125,000. All home buyers have to invest at least 500 hours of sweat equity into the home. It takes 9-12 months to complete the home and they are required to have a down payment of $500 at the closing. Each home also has over 1500 volunteer hours into building the homes so they are always looking for people to volunteer their time and skills. They purchase the home for a no interest mortgage loan that the money is returned by the mortgage company at the end of each year to go to help build the next homes. All of the funding comes from grants, donations, fundraisers and this funding, there is no government funding at all. There will be 4 builds this year which is a great step for Habitat. A voice from the audience today volunteered to furnish the first home that will be finished this year. Out of the 32 homes that have been built, 31 of them still have the original home owners. The only reason the one is no longer there is because her husband was transferred out of State for his job. The new Restore will be at the old Roosevelt High School building and will be open soon, Casper Housing Authority will be running it and the homeless veterans that are living at the new veteran’s center will be working there.

 

President Jim Ruble concluded the meeting at 12:55; letting us know that next week we are meeting at the Casper Events Center and Charles Schoenwolf will be our speaker.