BULLETIN – October 2, 2024

By Michael Schachner

 

This week we all enjoyed a great morning meeting at the City of Hope Cancer Center Chicago in Zion, IL. The hospitality that the staff there showed us was tremendous. We were welcomed with an amazing breakfast spread. The head chef at City of Hope greeted us before the meeting started and described in detail some of the wonderful items that they had made for us. 

To start the meeting, Jon Robb opened the meeting, Michael Schachner started us with the Pledge and then led us in prayer.  We spared our hosts having to listen to us sing.

 

- Robin O'Connor bragged about her son and his band's amazing charitable work they are doing down in Asheville, NC in the wake of hurricane Helene. Her son and his band were even featured on the news here in Chicago!

- Tom Zengeler bragged about his business' event/contest in which they were very highly reviewed. He looks forward to the next event that he is hosting for that organization in Japan next March. 

 

-Rick Mittelman was applauded for the anniversary of his 20 years of service in the Rotary Club later this month.

 

We skipped fun and frolics to jump straight into the informational presentations that were given by City of Hope President Pete Govorchin and Chief of Medical Oncology Dr. Kahn.

 

City of Hope President and Libertyville Sunrise Rotarian Pete Govorchin introduced his staff that was present, and went into detail about the wide-reaching network of City of Hope Cancer Centers. The Zion location was acquired more recently, but the original hospital on that site was founded in 1988. City of Hope was founded in 1913. 

After Pete spoke, Dr. Kahn gave a presentation on the ongoings at the hospital and the current status of cancer treatment and research. He spoke about many of the clinical trials that are currently being conducted and future ones that will be conducted soon. In addition, he went into detail about chemotherapy versus immunotherapy, how cancer mortality rates are dropping, and the importance of genomic testing. To end, he fielded many questions from our group and, in general, provided great information to us all.

 

-Daily:  Bill Rickert won the raffle and chose to take the cash, while,

-Progressive:  Ron Lapins had a chance to win the progressive but failed to pull the Ace of Spades……ROLLOVER! 

 

Three members (Olson, Robb, & Fendon) forgot to sign in and were forced to spin the wheel which was good fun. Doug did a great impression of a snail as he figuratively crawled back to his seat.  

Following the meeting the staff at City of Hope gave us a tour of the facilities at City of Hope Cancer Center Chicago. A big thank you to them for being such gracious hosts!

 

-Greeter & Prayer: Steve Risley

-Fun & Frolics & Bingo: Jon Robb (substituting for Diana Servos

-Program: Fellowship Breakfast