Our Satellite Club's first fundraiser was fun and attracted about 70 people, some of which may become new members.  Final numbers are not in yet, but they believe they raised well over $1,000 before expenses for the Kids   

Dr. Anna Joong Hoeppner is Assistant Professor and Attending Physician at the Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago where she focuses on Pediatric Heart Transplant Outcomes, Pediatric Ventricular Assist(VAD) devices, and outpatient management of children on VADs.

The objective of her team’s work is to support children with heart failure through mechanical pumps as they await a heart transplant. To illustrate various devices currently used, Dr. Hoeppner related the cases of children who recently benefited from them while awaiting a transplant.

 

One was Saniyah who was the first child in Illinois to wear a VAD, whose portability allows full movement, so she can be an active kid. Another was Sophia who received a heart transplant and became a spokesperson for organ donations in Illinois on local media.

Dr. Joong touched upon factors to be considered in Pediatric Heart Transplantation, namely availability of hearts, time constraints, and survival.  Given that a heart can survive outside the body for only 4 to 6 hours, transplantation must be arranged very rapidly with many complicated logistical issues needing immediate resolution.  Since the inception of the program in 1988, Lurie Children’s Hospital has performed 347 heart transplants, 19 of them in 2019.  Dr. Joong indicated that the selection of who gets the new heart is done via an algorithm with no humans involved.

Our Board of Directors unanimously voted to approve the application for membership of Dale Davison.  She will be formally inducted on February 26.  We are very pleased to have Dale join our Club;  she will be a wonderful addition to our group of service-minded people who want to make a positive difference in the world.

Our club will be sponsoring three talented high school students with leadership potential or demonstrated skills to attend the nationally-regarded RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Awards) academy in East Troy, Wisconsin during its March 12-15 or April 2-5 sessions. It’s an opportunity to explore and further develop skills with others. The RYLA academy stresses leadership, team-building, communication, presentations, group discussion and a great deal of fun.  RYLA attendees will learn new concepts of leadership and citizenship, have opportunities to express ideas and concepts, give acceptance to each other and experience the joys of learning and teamwork.  They’ll share opinions in a supportive group environment, meet new friends, learn how to make new friends without the usual conventions and cliques, and “Return to Serve” their communities.  Our Club will be paying all attendance charges.  More info to come.
 

We are pleased to announce that we have received an application for membership from John Kilner.  Sponsored by Terry Porter, John lives in Wilmette and is Emeritus Professor of Bioethics from Trinity International University. John gave a program some time ago to our club on this subject.  He is the author of 20 books; he has won the 2015 Paul Ramsey Award for Excellence in Bioethics, and the Educator of the Year Award from the National Christian Medical & Dental Associations.

 

John received his BA from Yale, his MA and PhD from Harvard and his Mdiv from Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary.  He has appeared in numerous interviews and debates in such television venues as NBC (with Tom Brokaw), FOX News (with Bill O'Reilly), CBS, CNN, and PAX,  National Public Radio, and such newspaper venues as the New York Times, Washington Times, and Chicago Tribune. Until retiring recently he held the Forman Chair of Christian Ethics & Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and was a Senior Fellow for The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity (CBHD) based in Deerfield, IL USA.

Due to health concerns, our participation in The Caring Closet at Oakton Community College has been suspended. We are hoping to begin collecting these necessary items again soon.

  Next Saturday is the Day -Hope to See You There                                                   

The 2020 Kids Against Hunger food packaging event is scheduled for Saturday, March 14, 2020, 11am to 1pm at the Winnetka Community House, 670 Lincoln Ave., Winnetka. We are sponsoring this event again this year.  This project, which our club has participated in for several years, packages food supplements for hungry and malnourished children in Nicaragua.  It's always a fun gathering. Our Satellite Club will be there with almost 24 participants. This event is free to our members since we are sponsoring the event.