Written by Patrick Hart

 

President Rich Schoeneman led this morning’s meeting, and we started off with a pledge and a prayer, but no song.

 

Tom Miller bragged that Cary-Grove high school won the state championship game by one point.

 

Tom Zengeler reported on his recent boarding of the aircraft carrier, the Abraham Lincoln, where he spent thirty-six hours watching the planes take off and land.

 

Steve Risley had his whole family for Thanksgiving this year and learned that he was going to become a grandfather for the second time.

 

Elliott Pinsel had a great Thanksgiving with no in-laws present, and he also went to Las Vegas to celebrate his son’s twenty-first birthday.

 

 

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Jon Robb is having a birthday this week.

 

In our Rotary Minute, our president listed Rotary’s seven focuses of service, including concern for the environment which just made it on the list last year.

 

Rick Mittelman reminded us that out holiday party this year will be held at Nirvana from 6:00 to 9:00 on Tuesday evening December 7.  There will be free hors d oeuvre and a cash bar.  

 

We will have a regular morning meeting next Wednesday, December 8 on the day after our holiday party.

 

Elliot Pinsel brought his bus this morning to pick up ornaments for his holiday gift drive. He has collected 420 gifts so far which he considers a good year.

 

The club is still soliciting contributions to help the Libertyville Township food pantry purchase Christmas meals for the hungry.   The cost will be about $50.00 a meal. On a related note, we passed the bucket this week for general donations to the food pantry and collected $792.00 .

 

This Saturday, December 4, our club will once more be ringing bells for the Salvation Army.

 

There will be a club board meeting on Tuesday December 14 at 5:00 p.m. on Zoom.

 

Tom Miller mentioned that there were still some unclaimed bottles of wine from our fall fundraiser.

 

We received the sad new that Richard Babjak’s daughter had passed away.

 

This week the club admitted its first ever corporate member, Advocate Condell. Medhane Amanuel  Director of Hospital Services at Advocate Condell Medical Center accepted the membership on behalf of the hospital.

 

At what was supposed to be our fun & frolics, Doug Fendon fined everyone three dollars, and President Schoeneman acknowledged that it was his negligence that had led to the failure include any fun in the segment this week, and he threw himself on the mercy of the club.  Everyone of course then demanded that he spin the wheel, which ended with a commitment from Rich to lead us in song next week.

 

Our weekly speaker was Jennifer Ackerman, a Development Officer for Corporate and Foundation giving at Northern Illinois Food Bank. Ms. Ackerman is a former resident of  Libertyville who attended Libertyville High School for a year, and she has been with the food bank since 2020.

 

The Northern Illinois Food Bank operates in 13 counties in Northern Illinois, and it serves our neighbors in need of food assistance. It provides 250,000 meals a day. The food bank works with a total of  900 partner agencies including food pantries, soup kitchens, and senior feeding programs to provide nutritious food and other resources. 150 of these partner agencies are based in Lake County. They have four distribution centers located in Geneva,  Rockford, Joliet, and Park City. They are planning to move their Park City facility to a larger warehouse though located in Green Oaks by the end of the year.

 

The Northern Illinois Food Bank depends heavily on volunteers to sort and pack the food.  Last year they had a total of 15,000 volunteers who contributed 130,000 hours of service.  Greg Hill mentioned that he is trying to schedule a date for a contingent from the Libertyville Sunrise Rotary Club to help at the food bank.

 

In addition to supplying food to their neighbors in need, the organization also conducts a number of ancillary programs to help the cause, such as providing counselors to help people sign up for Federal SNAP benefits (formerly known as food stamps) and holding training sessions for the partner agencies, who help in the fight against hunger,

 

The numbers continue to go up on our raffle prizes, and this week we had a total of $1,354.00 in the big pot with only ten cards left, along with $41.00 in the regular drawing.  Greg Hill went for the big bucks, and unfortunately or fortunately depending on your point of view, he failed to pull the ace of spades to take home the prize.  Rick Mittelman then won the not too shabby weekly prize, which I assume he will use to buy everyone drinks at the cash bar during next Tuesday’s holiday party.

 

Greeter and Prayer:  Howard Jaffe

 

Fun and Frolics and Bingo:  Brad Gutzler

 

QUOTE FOR THE DAY:

“Hunger is not a problem. It is an obscenity.”  Anne Frank