President Paul Grey welcomed us to the final Rotary Club meeting at the present location at the Four Points by Sheraton hotel. He noted that Rotary International has a new focus on saving the environment. It has donated $18.4M to fight deforestation and other environmental issues.
Book Review:
John Moffat reported on “The Eagles of Heart Mountain,” by Bradford Pearson (2021), a book about the incarceration of Japanese Americans in the Heart Mountain, Wyoming, camp during World War II.
In February 1942, following the attack on Pearl Harbor two months earlier, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, a loosely worded order giving the Secretary of War the broad authority, to protect “against espionage and against sabotage,” to declare military “exclusion zones” from which certain people could be excluded. Although Japanese Americans were not mentioned by name, the Secretary of War targeted them (and German Americans and Italian Americans). On the west coast, 112,000 loyal and patriotic Americans of Japanese ancestry living from Washington to southern California were affected.
The book loosely follows the lives of three teenagers from the Los Angeles area as their families were uprooted and displaced from their homes and taken first to a makeshift camp at Santa Anita racetrack, and then sent by train to a hastily constructed, ramshackle prison camp at Heart Mountain, in the high plains of northwestern Wyoming. It was one of ten camps built in the western United States to house the thousands of Japanese Americans living in “exclusion zones” along the west coast. The camp held as many as 10,600 people at full capacity, making it the third largest “city” in Wyoming.
The book ties in a story of how the boys retained some self-esteem by forming winning football, basketball and baseball high school teams in the Heart Mountain camp. However, it is primarily a history book that chronicles how fear and xenophobia stirred racist policies and decisions at the highest level of our government following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Irrational fear of a Japanese invasion of the west coast induced President Roosevelt to follow the wishes of his advisors to overreact by uprooting Japanese Americans and imprisoning them in camps for over three years. These Americans were forced to flee their homes, farms and businesses, many of which they sold for substantial losses or simply abandoned for lives of poverty and boredom in the incarceration camps.
A secondary theme of the book was how the government, after classifying all Japanese American men of draft age as 4C (“an alien ineligible for military duty”) in June 1942, reinstated them that December in the Selective Service. The government then drafted these Americans to serve in a war for the country that had just imprisoned them and their families. Although many of the incarcerated Americans left the camps to serve their country, some, particularly those at the Heart Mountain camp, refused, and following trials, were imprisoned in McNeil Island or Leavenworth federal prisons for draft evasion.
After many years, some reparations were paid to survivors of the camps. But this black mark on Roosevelt’s presidency will live forever.
Club and Committee Announcements:
MAJOR PROJECT SURVEY:
With a new Rotary year underway, we've been hard at work developing a plan to select and fund our major project. In addition to providing funding for a valuable community project, our other main goal is for every club member to make a meaningful financial contribution to the project.
We're going to try a new approach to select our project this year. Instead of putting out a broad call to the community to submit projects, we'd like to target applications for projects that address areas of needs that club members are interested in supporting. We're hoping that this approach will not only increase member commitment to support the project, but also make the process more efficient for the applicants.
In order to learn what community needs you would like to see the major project address, please complete the short survey that was emailed to you by Andy Day 7-26-2022 (less than 5-minute) survey by August 1:
With the results of this survey in hand, we'll identify organizations or projects who work in the area you have helped to identify to submit project applications. Our plan is to have the project identified by October and to complete the fundraising by year end.
In addition to the survey, we welcome any feedback or insights you would like to share into the major project selection or fundraising processes.
Warm regards,
Sara Maloney & Andy Day, Co-Chairs
Major Project and Fundraising Committee
BREAKING NEWS: WE ARE MOVING OUR MEETING LOCATION TO WHATCOM COMMUNITY COLLEGE, PAVILION #201 EFFECTIVE AUGUST 1, 2022. HERE ARE THE NEW DIRECTIONS (ONES HANDED OUT LAST WEEK HAVE BEEN REPLACED) PRINTABLE DOCUMENT CLICK HERE
The buildings address is 241 W Kellogg Rd. But this is not where you park. There is no parking off of Kellogg Road. You must enter parking off either Eliza Ave or Cordata Parkway. You are looking for the YELLOW lot (look on light poles for Y2 or Y3).
Enter from Eliza Ave: the driveway between Kellogg Rd and Westerly Rd has a driveway into the campus, follow that about 200 yards until it slopes down, park in the area between the three buildings.
Enter from Cordata Parkway: Just north of the WTA station and Cruisin Coffee before the round about is Orca Lane, take Orca Lane around the first two buildings until you find a large parking lot between three buildings.
Nathan Twining announced the Rotary Golfun Tournament happening on 26 August in Lynden. There is a lunch included and a dinner afterward. Nathan said you don’t have to be a serious golfer to join in. Contact Nathan for details. $125 entry.
There will be a BBQ for the club on Thursday, August 11, from 6:00 to 8:00 hosted by the Community Boat Center at its location in Fairhaven. The event is to thank the club for its Major Project gift last year. A notice will be coming out. Please remember to RSVP.
You will still receive an email from Sandee each week prior to the Monday 12:30 meeting if you are unable to attend in person (you can start logging in at 12:00 for short socializing) with the link for that privacy-protected meeting. If you have n done so, please download the Zoom app on your computer (you need a camera and microphone on it), iPad or phone. There is no cost to you. If you cannot do either, you can also call in. On the invitation, there are US phone numbers you can call and enter the meeting ID number also indicated on the invitation.
Four Points is now requiring a Contract thru March 2022. We will continue t evaluate other locations for a permanent location. Lunch will be $22 for a sit-down meal. We must notify them by Wednesday at 4:00 pm each week prior to the Monday meeting as to the number of members attending. We are sending out meeting "Invites" weekly and members are asked to sign-up ASAP. You can also sign-up by going to the event section of our website at bellinghamrotary.org. If you sign up for a meal at the meeting, you will need to pay the $22 even if you don't wind up attending the meeting after the numbers are turned in. If you plan to attend but not eat, PLEASE indicate that on your sign-up so we don't overorder meals and still make sure there is enough seating.
Four Points also will not collect the payment weekly, so the Club will collect payments prior to the meeting or at the door.
We urge members of the RCOB to set up a Venmo account for ease in payment of Meeting lunches, Happy Bucks, Minister of Fun, Dues or donations to the club. Our account is @RCOB- Bellingham. If you do not have a Venmo account you can set up an account with your computer then download the app. on your phone (just Google "Venmo" and you will find all the information you need) You then attach it to a debit or credit card (a fee on your end) or attach to your checking account at no cost. Payment will be sent di ctly to the RCOB checking account. When you use it for the first time it may ask you the last 4 digits of the RCOB phone number which is 0282. Give Sandee a call if you need help. 360-734-5532
Other payment options are to bring a check in the correct amount to the meeting made out to RCOB or cash in the exact amount to speed up the payment process. There is also the PayPal option as usual and we are set to take payments at the meeting. We have a QR Code that you scan and simply click to pay thru paypal also.
Website and Phone App instructions:
Here is a tutorial on how to login for the first time. (Click here) Go to belling mrotary.org first. In order to login you need t know your user name and password in your Clubrunner account. The user name is Your first name.Lastname.264 unless you have changed it. Example: Sandra.Lindhout.264 the password is initially set by Clubrunner at 264 unless you have changed it. Sandee can see your Username from her computer but not the password. She can also change your password for you from her computer at your request if you run into problems.
Once you have originally created your User Name and Password you can download the ClubRunner Mobile app on your phone:
Please contact Sandee at 360-734-5532 or rcob@comcast.net if you run into any trouble.
Guests
Steve Ban introduced our speaker, Annalisa Giust
Members attending on Zoom: Nancy Jordan, Corey Chaplin, Mark Knittel and Mike Plenkovich
Program:
This week’s guest speaker was Annalisa Giust of Ridwell Recycling. Ridwell is a Seattle company that does business locally through a satellite office in Bellingham. Ridwell provides recycling services that supplement the local municipal recycling service by picking up additional products that the local municipal service does not handle.
Ridwell’s goals are to (1) make it easy for people to recycle, (2) create new options for the disposal of things, including reuse, and (3) promote responsible consumption. Ridwell provides its customers with a metal bin and cloth bags to sort the following recyclables: (1) batteries, (2) light bulbs, (3) “threads” (textiles, useable clothing, rags and shoes); and (4) plastic film packaging (including produce bags, plastic wrap on meat packaging, etc.).
Ridwell prides itself on, as much as possible, getting the recycled products into the hands of people who can reuse them. This means getting the “threads” (used clothing) to people who need it, or turning rags into carpet pads. It also means, as much as possible getting other items like batteries and light bulbs into the hands of people who can use all aspects of the recycled material to produce new objects, keeping a “closed loop” so no part of the recycled item goes into the waste stream.
A regular annual membership costs $12 per month, which includes every other week pickups of the items enumerated above. Other membership options for less frequent pickups are also available.
Ridwell is always looking to expand its services to include additional items. This year it will also be picking up, on a seasonal basis, used election signs, ink cartridges and, at holiday time, corks and holiday lights. It is also working on recycling Styrofoam, fluorescent light tubes, latex paint and plastic bread tags. Future add-ons should include furniture, bicycles and medical equipment.
Annalisa emphasized that an associate watches all recycling activities so that inappropriate items that a customer might have included are picked out and put into the waste stream and not recycled improperly. She emphasized that the business is about teaching and informing the public.
Ridwell provides additional recycling services, supplementing existing recycling options, for the environmentally conscious consumer. Thank you, Annalisa.
