Rotopep for March 5, 2015

If you haven’t made a reservation for our EVENING Rotary program on Wednesday, March 25, featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist John H. White, do it soon! Seats are limited and they are filling up fast! Just visit www.eventbrite.com and type “John White” in the search box. White’s presentation, on “Peace and the Power of Photography,” will be from 7 to 8 p.m. in the Rotary International auditorium and a short reception will follow the event.

A special tribute to ETHS is being planned for our March 12 meeting. District 202 Superintendent Eric Witherspoon will be our speaker that day and we will celebrate the strong historical connection between our club and the high school. We’ll have lots of guests that day and will also be shining a spotlight on our club’s ETHS alumni. Note: This will be a longer meeting than usual -- it will conclude close to 1:30 p.m.

On Thursday, March 19, we’ll have our third hands-on volunteer day of the year. This time we will be helping Peer Services, which offers substance-abuse prevention, education and recovery services. On March 19, we will actually visit Peer Services’ offices at 906 Davis Street  to help them process a mass mailing for their Annual Benefit, to be held May 2nd,  that they need to get out...so be ready to help stuff envelopes and provide assistance in organizing this mailing. Again, this volunteer activity will NOT be at RI headquarters! We have limited volunteer slots for this project, so it will be first come-first served. Please let Kat Eiff know if you can make it by no later than Thursday, March 12. You can send an email to Kat at katherine@eobgroup.com. We’ll be on site at Peer Services over the lunch hour -- from noon to 1:15 p.m.

Thanks, everyone, for helping us achieve 100 percent participation in giving to the Rotary Foundation for 2014-15! Thanks to your generosity, we did it! Our giving levels to the Foundation will be significant this year, and that will help us NEXT year when it comes time for District 6440 and RI to allocate matching-grant funds for clubs. We will have access to more Rotary funding for the projects we support because of your donations. Way to go!

Help our Local Rotaract Club...Hye Sun Kim of the Northwestern Rotaract Club recently updated us on a Networking Event for Rotaract that Rotarians can support on Tuesday, March 10th in the first floor conference rooms of Rotary International, from 6-7 p.m. The event is an opportunity to make connections with Rotaract & non-Rotaract students. They are eager to hear about our work experiences and community service involvement. If you are interested in participating in this informal session, please email the following details to Hye Sun at hyekim2015@u.northwestern.edu by March 5th: Name, email address, areas of work (education, consulting, non-profit, etc.) and years of involvement.  Any and all participation will be appreciated! To learn more, visit, www.facebook.com/NURotaract.

Good luck to President-elect Wally Bobkiewicz, who will be representing our club at this weekend’s Rotary Presidents-Elect Training Seminar (PETS), to be held at the Westin Itasca. Wally starts his presidential term on July 1.