Written by Patrick Hart

In the absence of our president Rich Schoeneman presided this week, and we opened our meeting with a pledge and a prayer.

 

GUESTS:  Glenn T Garlick, our district leader for polio eradication and veterans affairs joined us again this week.

 

With a wisp of modesty in the air, no one felt the need to brag this week.

 

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

There will be a club board meeting on April 11 at 5:00 p.m. on Zoom, and the board will be selecting officers for next year at this meeting.

 

As we continue to move into the twenty-first century, we updated our technology this week, and thanks to the efforts of John McDonald we broke in a projectorless screen for use at our meetings.  And just to show how modern and up to date this makes us, my spell checker tells me that projectorless is not even a word yet. 

 

Our Rotary District Conference will be held on May 13^th this year in Schaumburg, and we are all invited to attend.

 

The District is also holding its training on April 29 at Harper College.

 

Ron Lapin announced that the club’s Monday night golf league will begin its new season on April 24.

 

Our first highway cleanup for the year will be on Saturday April 29 at 7:00 a.m.

 

Bob Zamor announced that he is hoping to organize a blood drive on behalf of the club sometime early in June.  So start eating healthy so you can qualify to donate.

Steve Risley still has about fifteen silent auction items at his house.  So if you know anyone who has not picked up their purchases yet, tell them that the time has arrived for action.

 

Howard Jaffe announced that he is inviting the sponsors of our fund-raiser to our April 26 meeting, so that we can thank them for their support.

 

Today we passed the hat and collected $207.00 for the food pantry.

 

Bill Taranowski was in charge of Fun & Frolics this week, and he flipped coins, while asking everyone to choose heads or tails. If you guessed wrong you had to sit down, and he thus eliminated all players, except for the grand winner of the morning, Tim Dempsey. Congratulations Tim on your skillful performance. Bill called this game Cross & Piles, which he says is a European name and shows what a sophisticated cultured fellow he really is.

 

 

Our program this week was Vickie Marasco the founder of Art Impact Project. The Art Impact Project is a nonprofit organization which attempts to enhance emotional well being through creative activity.  The project holds work shops composed of ten to fifteen emotionally troubled individuals where everyone works on a single art project.  They work with a variety of art mediums, and they try to select different mediums for each session they hold with a group.  Everyone in the room is required to work on the project, and during these sessions the participants frequently begin talking about their individual problems and sharing their experiences, which can produce a great therapeutic value. 

 

Many of their workshops are conducted in schools, and Vickie says that the isolation caused by the recent pandemic has aggravated emotional problems for many students.  The Arts Impact Project is about to start a large program at Waukegan High School. They also have worked with Mundelein High School, and they are working on setting up programs for Highland Park High School and North Chicago High School.

 

Other major beneficiaries of their help are active and retired veterans and inmates of the Lake County Jail.  They have also been conducting programs for the City of Highland Park, as its citizens attempt to deal with the trauma generated by the mass shooting at their Fourth of July parade. 

 

The wheel got a big workout this week.  It started when our sergeant at arms Tom Gore decided to be mean and punish John McDonald for failing to wear his badge today.  Then when Pat Hart sympathetically lent John his badge, Tom decided he was not going to tolerate that either, and he ordered Pat to spin the wheel.  I guess some people let power go to their heads.  Anyway John did not have to pay a fine, because he was wearing his pin, and Pat only had to whistle “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.”  From my perspective as an objective journalist I might add that he demonstrated great musical talent in his performance.

 

At that point though our presider Rich Schoeneman recalled that Tom Gore had forgotten to introduce a guest at some past meeting, and he ordered our sergeant at arms to spin the wheel himself.  Tom had to pay a fine when he failed to answer a Rotary trivia question, and it was gratifying to see justice finally done.

 

We had $23.00 in our regular pot, and $207.00 in the progressive pot with 47 cards left. Dave Potts’ ticket was pulled both times, and he pocketed the cash with a smile.  To his chagrin though he only drew the Jack of Hearts from the deck, allowing the big prize to roll over.

 

 QUOTE FOR THE DAY:

“When asked if my cup is half-full or half-empty my only response is that I am thankful I have a cup.” –  Sam Lefkowitz