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Over the years, the Rotary Santa Run has become a mainstay in our community, and a fun way to help raise money for multiple local charities and international organizations. It’s also been successful. This year’s Rotary Santa Run is celebrating ‘10 Years and Running!’ Kicking off in 2008, the race has grown to include thousands of runners, walkers and reindeer alike, and in that time, the RCAH has raised over $250,000.
At our October 5th rotary lunch meeting, Phil Zaleski spoke about the Illinois Fire Safety Alliance, of which he is Executive Director. The Alliance is a not-for-profit organization formed in 1982 with the mission of fire safety, burn prevention and the support of burn survivors. The Alliance has a staff of three employees, and is guided by a volunteer board of 11 members. The Alliance is involved in fire prevention education and advocacy, the support of burn survivors, and legislative advocacy in favor of its mission.
The largest program to support burn survivors is Camp I Am Me, which was formerly known as Burn Camp. The camp takes place on 70 acres of a YMCA camp in Ingleside Illinois, and has been the signature program of the Alliance for 27 years. The camp is one week long and draws from state-wide, and attracts burn victims ages 8 to 16 years. The camp involves traditional daily camp activities, as well as activities designed to build the self-esteem of burn survivors. The camp averages approximately 70 campers per year, and has a staff of 60 full-time staff members,. The staff includes volunteers from fire service, medical personnel and burn survivors and camp alumni.
Alliance programs to support burn survivors also include Family Day, scholarships to the International Burn Survivor Conference, and the Young Adult Summit. Family Day is designed for burn survivors younger than eight years old and is meant to provide an opportunity for families and parents of survivors to interact. The scholarships to the Conference are approximately $2000 per person, and 5 to 6 scholarship recipients are named each year. The Summit is effectively a continuation of I Am Me Camp for 18 to 25-year-old burn survivors. The Summit includes workshops that are that teach life skills and personal growth for burn survivors. For more information visit www.ifsa.org.
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Making a Difference in Arlington Heights. This spring, we sought grant applications from organizations interested in launching or expanding programming to serve community residents. Rotary leadership is pleased to announce our six grant winners and introduce their projects. 
First was Luis Ramirez-Alonso, our club’s September Birthday Chair, who acknowledged and helped us celebrate the friendship among club members by leading us in a Spanish version of Happy Birthday. If you weren’t at the meeting, you can ask for a low-cal description of the beautiful cake!
Second was a remarkable success story (so far) of a multi-agency, multi-volunteer, multi-resident effort to address problems in a low income pocket near the middle of town. Jake Chung, school Dist. 25 Assistant Superintendent for Personnel, explained the project. Our club and Rotarians have participated in various ways including supplying two benches at a garden area, supplying a “little library” and providing refurbished bicycles for holiday gifts to the kids. The photo is of Jake (right) presenting a plaque from the school district to club president Jim Thomson (left), acknowledging the club’s efforts. To find out more, click “…more”..jpg)
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Each year, the Rotary Club of Arlington Heights commits to a Community Service theme that guides all volunteer and grant-making efforts. The 2017 theme is Making a Difference in Arlington Heights. This spring, we sought grant applications from organizations interested in launching or expanding programming to serve community residents. Rotary leadership is pleased to announce our six grant winners and introduce their projects. 
John W. Glueckert was born on January 20, 1935, in Arlington Heights, Illinois to Richard and Mary (nee Neville) Glueckert. He died Monday, August 14, 2017, peacefully at his home. A lifelong resident of Arlington Heights, he graduated from Arlington High School, Class of 1954, and attended Northern Illinois University before entering Worsham College of Mortuary Science.
On 8/24 Georgia Koch, Community Outreach Coordinator with Career Vision described her firm's aptitude testing and counseling programs; useful tools, she said, for making decisions about schools, majors and careers for any age group. The company is a small, 30-year-old not-for-profit research and consulting organization. She described benefits of evaluation and planning, costs ($400 +/-), and the risks of inaction. She also described the company's heritage and commitment. Self knowledge and counseling bring together a person’s interests, values, personality and aptitudes to help individuals discern their paths in and out of school, explore life-long learning, and manage their careers. For more comments, background, resources and her contact information, please click “more”.
"INGAGE Unlimited" is a 501(c)(3) organization which was founded 1 ½ years ago by Carolyn Muir (right in photo) and whose purpose is to create and foster education skills between people from our community and people in less fortunate communities. So far, Carolyn has put together six teams with communities in Guatemala, Peru, Dominican Republic, and South Africa. Jodi Cyr (left) is one such teacher from our community who shared this summer’s trip to Guatemala City. Jodi summed up her experiences as deriving a “new focus” or “nuevo enfoque”.The speakers at our lunch meeting on August 10, 2017 were Chuck Frankiewicz and Dave Zuehlke, who both gave their classification speeches.
Chuck spoke about A Soldier's Journey Home, which is an organization that he is associated with that builds homes for veterans that are severely injured in the line of duty. The core of his volunteers are firemen and tradesmen. The organization has built homes in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and Illinois. After identifying a qualified recipient veteran, the group meets with local village representatives, identifies a general contractor, obtains donations for materials and labor, and (after building the substructure), completes the final construction of the home in an amazing 10 days. The organization’s largest corporate benefactors are Home Depot, First Midwest Bank, and several large general contractors. Students from Hersey, Rolling Meadows, and Buffalo Grove High Schools all contribute their time and effort to fundraising and assistance with construction. For more information please see www.soldiersjourneyhome.org.
Dave Zuehlke became a member in January 2017, and is a neighbor of Wendy Davis. Dave grew up in Grosse Pointe, Michigan and received his bachelor of science and MBA degrees from Michigan State University. Dave is a builder, loves sailing and photography, and includes woodworking, gardening and cooking among his many hobbies. He is also active in the Boy Scouts and his church. Dave’s first career was with Amoco Corporation where he served in financial, accounting and administrative positions in both Detroit and Chicago. His second career, which started after his retirement from Amoco, is in remodeling in maintenance with his son. The focus of their company is in residential, condo associations and senior facilities.
Each year, the Rotary Club of Arlington Heights commits to a Community Service theme that guides all volunteer and grant-making efforts. The 2017 theme is Making a Difference in Arlington Heights. .JPG)
President Jim Thomson described his goals for the club this Rotary year. Key is member engagement through a mix of service, financial resources and fellowship. We all have various degrees of these resources, of course. From the member’s point of view, he simply encouraged us to “Pick something, Do something” and gave several examples of the opportunities Rotary of Arlington Heights provides. 
bernick, Ron Crawford, Neil Scheufler, Amy Philpott, Glenn Garlick, Linda Borton, Bob Paddock and Betsy Kmiecik passed out candy canes and post card information about the Santa Run. Greeting residents as they walked by, folks were heard saying the likes of, "They run down my street!" "Thanks, we'll try it." and "My dad was in Rotary and it's time I found out how to get involved in it."
The club was happy to award Kari Kobernick a certificate of appreciation for her work on behalf of the club, often giving club members the opportunity to do “hands on” service for the community. Kari sets a high standard for involvement and commitment for new and associate/sharing members. She does so with good humor too – see photo of antlers for Community Night Out Santa Run promotion. Congratulations, Kari!
And we were happy to induct an esteemed member of the Rotary and Arlington Heights community, Mary Stitt. Sponsor Kris Niemann did the pinning as President Jim Thomson officiated. We also thank Jason Ivy, chair of our Membership Committee. Welcome, Mary!
