|
Tomorrow’s meeting:
Paul Fouts - District 5 Director, New York Farm Bureau: "NY Farm Bureau’s Role in The Financial Sustainability of NY Agriculture" February 6, 2019 President Mary Berens opened the meeting with the Four-Way Test, and then turned to our member  Christian Averill for the Thought for The Day. Recognizing February as Black History Month, Christian read a quote from President Barack Obama, noting it as an inspiration in his job at the Boy Scouts of America: “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” As Christian returned to his seat, President Mary noted how the quote resonates with this year’s Rotary International theme, “Be the Inspiration.”
Guests were introduced by their hosts, and we all greeted visiting Rotarian Ann Coyne from the Omaha, Neb. Suburban Rotary Club, now living at Kendal and a regular at our meetings. We are grateful that you continue to join us, Ann!
 Jeff Bricker announced February birthdays and Club anniversaries.
The red ticket prize last week was a $25 gift card to 15 Steps, the delightful artisan jewelry, pottery, and all manner of other things shop, on The Commons, co-owned, I will add, by Bettsie Park, a long-time member of and secretary for our Club, and my co-sponsor! The lucky ticket was held by Lenore Schwager.
President Mary asked all Rotarians to be diligent in recording their attendance each week as they enter Coltivare. Attendance does matter and the Club does keep track. Also, don’t forget to record any additional Rotarian duties you have undertaken or other Clubs you may have visited as those are makeups and are counted in the final attendance figures!
Last week, February 6, Dale Flinn was on DDD duty. He called attention — with classic Dale Flinn command and convince — to the fact that a mere 8 days remained until the DDD ticket window for 2019 would be closed. No time to waste, he concluded!
But that was then and this is now, and we are down to T-minus 48 hours (and counting). Buy a ticket — it’s the Dozen Dinner Draw, $50 each, only 200 tickets total, all proceeds to AguaClara: good work, clean water, real Rotary stuff. Buy a ticket.
The Drawing for the winner of a Dozen $100 restaurant Dinners will take place at the Valentine’s Day Rotary Gala, Feb. 14, at the Country Club of Ithaca. Cash bar opens at 6:00 p.m. Dinner is $40 per person (includes tax and gratuity). Choice of prime rib, stuffed chicken, or salmon (yum!) Call the Country Club for reservations — 607-257-0010 — pay at the door (cash or check preferred). Need not have bought a raffle ticket to attend, and need not attend to win the raffle.
 Foundation Chair Steve Johnson gave a Rotary Foundation update. Steve thanked everyone who had made a 2018 year-end gift to the Foundation, and invited additional donations before June 30, which is the end of Rotary’s fiscal year. Gifts may be made to any of Rotary’s priorities — PolioPlus is a big one — or may be designated as unrestricted, to be used wherever it is needed most. Donate now; click this link!
Laptop computers (Windows machines only) are being collected, destination Myanmar! Get details about the program from Nancy Potter, or follow these instructions: - Have your machine picked up: Our contact is Justinas at Cornell's Kahin Center. Call or write to Justinas and he will make arrangements to pick up your machine. j.stankus@gmail.com or (607) 379-7049.
- Deliver your laptop: Drop-off the laptop at Justinas' office at Cornell's Kahin Center, 640 Stewart Ave, Ithaca. If he's not there, please feel free to walk in and leave it on the desk in the meeting room immediately to the left.
- Before you donate: Please wipe the hard drive clean before you release it (what? wipe it with a cloth?!) Go to this website, What to do before selling your old [Windows] PC, for full instructions on how to safely delete your personal data.
 Happy Dollars were collected. We celebrated Jack Roscoe’s successful back surgery, upcoming Darwin Days, the Super Bowl Game of Thrones Bud Light commercial, new pets – rabbit and puppy, the Finger Lakes Toy Library, and more.
Do you know someone who would host an exchange student? The Youth Exchange Committee is always looking for good host families. Please let Marshall McCormick (marshall@fingerlakeswm.com) or Linda Brisson (ithacarotaryYEO@gmail.com) know if you have any suggestions.
February is Ag month at Ithaca Rotary meetings, focusing in particular on financial sustainability. Yours truly has the programming duties this month, and I have a special place in my heart for agriculture and farming, as earlier in life it was my chosen field of work and study.
 The first presentation for the series looked at a blossoming local market for local ag: school lunches. Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County (CCE-TC) and partners have just been awarded a Farm to School Project grant to put into practice a program of incentives for schools to buy local products. Our presenters were Lara Parrilla, RD, a public health practitioner at CCE-TC, Audrey Baker, on staff at Cornell’s Master of Public Health (MPH) program, and Silas Conroy, Director of Supply Chain for the Headwater Food Hub, a distribution center for local farmers.
 The core elements of a farm to school program are Procurement, Education, and School Gardens. The 2018 state legislation gave schools an incentive to buy local: source at least 30% of ingredients for lunches from NYS farms, and the state will pay 4x the going rate for every lunch. Currently schools receive about 6 cents per lunch; the incentive adds 19 cents more per lunch.
The grant awards about $93K over 2 years, specifically to hire a coordinator who will help schools achieve the 30% goal, work with partners and collaborators (including Coltivare) to increase food service capacity for using fresh produce, support menu planning that includes fresh local ingredients, and work with MPH staff and grad students to make farm to school sustainable, and in turn create dependable institutional markets for NYS farms.
 Creating demand within the schools and developing it to be sustainable can only be a successful model when the delivery logistics work, and that is where Silas and the Headwater Food Hub come into play. Headwater works with 140 farmers throughout NYS to help manage product availability and maintain a reliable supply chain. Already they are partnered with K-12 districts in Buffalo, Wayne, Ontario, and Broome-Tioga Counties, and now they’ve added Tompkins schools to their network. The team expects about 11,000 Tompkins County students will be impacted by the new program, and benefit all Tompkins districts.
To learn more about this exciting program, download the speakers slides here (PDF).
Ambassadors: None
Visiting Rotarians: Ann Coyne from the Omaha, Neb. Suburban Rotary Club
Students: None
Workers:
• Greeter,
• Kettle, Josephine Allen
• Thought for the Day, Christian Averill
• Introductions, Rotary hosts introduced their guests
Set-Up: Joe Giordano, Dale Flinn, Dave Martin, Steve Johnson
Bulletin Reporter: Kelly Buck
Photographer: Mike Brown
Bulletin Editor: Ted Schiele
Club Service Facilitators, Beverly Baker & Jeff True
Sunshine Chair, Kellyann O’Mara
Exchange student Madeline Turner’s blog, Ithaca to India, documenting her 2018-2019 experience with host Vapi Riverside Rotary Club in District 3060, India.
February 13, 2019
Coltivare, S. Cayuga at Clinton St., Downtown Ithaca
Paul Fouts - District 5 Director, New York Farm Bureau: "NY Farm Bureau’s Role in The Financial Sustainability of NY Agriculture"
|
