Well hello fellow Rotarians. I trust that you all are healthy and staying safe during these unprecedented times.
I hope and pray that professionally you all are able to weather this storm. Personally speaking, my days have been spent explaining to families that per CDC mandates, we are only able to offer funerals with less than 8 people in a room. Needless to say, this is an extremely difficult time for all of us both personally and professionally.
With that said, outside of work I have been able to spend even more quality time with my boys; consisting mostly of playing basketball, scavenger hunts, and paper airplane making contests to name a few. So, certainly there is a silver lining in all of this.
I think it is safe to say that none of us know exactly when we will be able to resume our face to face meetings.
In an attempt to offer somewhat a sense of normalcy to our club, I have decided to begin offering a scaled down version of our meetings online.
We have since reached out to our list of speakers requesting that they video record their presentation and email these presentations to us so that we can share the presentation with the club. We are anxiously awaiting to receive these presentations from our speakers.
For now, I have a list of Joy's and concerns as well as a few announcements to share with the club. Up front I apologize for the production quality.
Click the link below to access our first pre-recorded meeting
Sincerely,
Jeremy R. DeBord
Rotary Club of Lancaster President
Joys and Concerns
From Beth Trout
"I’ll add a prayer request for the high senior population in our club and across our county. Being in the center of the communication efforts for Landis Communities, I fear that the weeks ahead could be devastating. "
From Paul Lynch
I wanted to let you know that Kelly had scans last week and we met with her doctor to review the results. The scans showed that the lung cancer that went to her brain in 2018 is stable, so the medicine is working. However, there is a new spot in the other lung and some in the upper back - we assume this is the sarcoma spreading.
The most concerning is there are 20-30 tumors that have developed in her liver.
It just seems like the cancer is much more aggressive than ever.
She is going to have an Embolization procedure at Penn in Philly on April 6th on half of her liver in hopes that is can slow the cancer down for a little while. They will scan a few weeks later and if it looks like it worked, she will do the same on the other half.
If this works it might give her up to a year of no progression. If it doesn't work, she has been given 6-12months.
Please keep Kelly, Paul and their entire family in your prayers.
Announcements
From Josh McManness
Unfortunately, our Rotary Citizenship Program that was planned for this Spring is now postponed until further notice. The IU13 Citizenship classes are currently canceled and will hopefully resume this summer. Once things get back to normal, we’ll meet as a committee to plan for the possibility of holding the Rotary Citizenship Program in the summer. Please let me know if you have any questions.
From Rich Wolman
We were advised by McCaskey that, unfortunately, due to the extended school closing, we will not be able to have our last Mentor Program session that was scheduled for April 8, 2020. We were intending to “practice” for our graduation ceremony at that session. Therefore, our April 8 Mentor Session is cancelled and will not be rescheduled and we will not have our graduation ceremony on May 6.
From Chuck Blumenstock
Community Service Awards. We have nominees from Lancaster Catholic High School and McCaskey and two adult nominees to date. I have to forward the second adult nominee to the Committee. My feeling is we can probably select award recipients by email this year but may not be able to have in person awards.
From Russ Harlan
Due to the current COVID-19 Pandemic that is affecting our economy and our local businesses, I feel that it would be prudent to look at postponing the Spring Wheels and
Wings event until the Fall.
From Bill Boben and Chip Kirchner
Bill Boben and Chip Kirchner talked with Melina Godshall, current Grants Manager to discuss this year's Rotary United Way Summer Youth Experience. Below are our topics of interest:
Covid-19 may cancel the entire school year and could also impact many of the traditional summer youth programs that have been previously funded. The United Way is interested in continuing its partnership with Rotary, but is not sure what they will look like this summer and into the future. The organization is interested in investigating greater participation in the RSYE programs with more Clubs from different geographical areas of need in our County with continued administrative/organization support along with funding. However, what that match looks like and where the dollars flow is yet to be determined. There is strong interest in working with the School District of Lancaster this summer to support the students who have missed a lot of class time get caught up. We agreed to reconnect in several weeks once the picture is clearer on when and how life and school will resume, how to combat the issues affecting our youth at risk and where best to deploy our resources. Thus, our RSYE Committee could potentially morph into something different moving forward.
From Steve Henning
As you know, I have been researching the Club’s history to provide stories for the Transmitter during these troubled times. I just discovered that June 24, 1970, was our first meeting at the Farm & Home Center. We had met for 50 years at the Brunswick Hotel until 1965. After meeting at the Odd Fellows Hall briefly and a few years at the Holiday Inn on Lititz Pike, we will have been meeting at the Farm & Home Center for 50 years. I am mentioning this in case it was not realized and the Club would want to schedule something in the future to recognize this benchmark or to recognize our landlord.
From Kathy Hainley
Hello to all of the Rotarians. I miss seeing the Rotary Club of Lancaster members each week. Wishing you good health. I am working from home on various projects. Thank you to the members who have paid their dues for the January to June 2020 timeframe. I have been and will be sending emails to those of you who haven’t paid your dues. I continue to check the mail weekly, so if you need to mail your dues, I will deposit the payment. I am also working on a new Club Directory. As some of you are aware, I have been asking for either updated photos or new photos to enter into the Directory. These photos and the information listed is taken from ClubRunner. Thank you to those who have provided those photos and for those who haven’t, please do so. If you have joys and concerns or announcements, please email them to me at RotaryClubofLancaster@gmail.com . I can send a burst email to all members. During these difficult times, I am certain all of you would like to keep in touch with your Rotarian friends.
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