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THE ROTARY CLUB OF CAMBRIA IN PERSON EVENT COVID 19 POLICY
Signage at check-in will also reflect this policy and any changes in this policy each week



Bob told us that he was asked to speak with us today because many people are wondering how our very rainy winter might affect this year’s fire season. We live in a Mediterranean climate where we go for long periods of time without moisture which increases our fire risk. Many of our area native and invasive plants, shrubs & trees are used to going long periods without pre-cipitation. Many contain resins, sap and other materials that help them survive long periods without rain, however this also adds to how intensely they burn.
What does 2023 look like? It is all about four variables:
Fuel (we have plenty of that, and much of it is old)
Weather (hot, dry weather, hi temps, low humidity, dry winds)
Topography (we can’t change that, we live in an area that is ripe to burn)
Fire starts ( one of the few things we can try to reduce..)
Typically, Cambria & the North Coast are not in prime wildfire season until late August through December. That doesn’t mean we cannot experience a wildfire.
A slide show attached to this newsletter gives us some excellent information on how to protect our homes and what to do IF we are faced with a wildfire. We are so grateful to Bob for brining his 35 years of expertise to our club.
Mark Ober told us that this year 50 students submitted essays. A committee of Donna & Julian Crocker, Lo-rienne, Nancy McKarney, Cynthia Woodruff-Neer and Mark took on the task of reading all the essays and deter-mining the winners..
At the 7th grade level, Jaqui Cruz submitted the winning essay explaining how the 4-way test would have helped her in dealing with an “irritating younger brother. Jazlyn Bautista’s second place essay explained how the test would have helped her make better decisions and be more respectful. Third place winner, Arabella Feldman-Milliken essay earned third place. She explained how the 4-way test would help her to be more compassionate.
For the first time, 11th graders were asked to submit essays. Condee Seed turned in the first-place essay conclud-ing that the 4-way test is a helpful resource in being a thoughtful friend and family member. Second place win-ner, Adair Ponce wrote about how the 4-way test helped him to prevent escalation of an argument. Two essays tied for third place. Zahaira Melendez explained how being able to ask the four questions in the test helped “better improve the mindset while also valuing the process of making a decision that won’t have a terrible out-come”. Brandon Diaz Solis submitted the other third place essay about a disagreement he had with a teacher. Because he followed the 4-way test, he took time to let the problem solve itself rather than getting into a confron-tation with the teacher.
Congratulations to all the students who participated in this project.
Bob told us that he was asked to speak with us today because many people are wondering how our very rainy winter might affect this year’s fire season. We live in a Mediterranean climate where we go for long periods of time without moisture which increases our fire risk. Many of our area native and invasive plants, shrubs & trees are used to going long periods without pre-cipitation. Many contain resins, sap and other materials that help them survive long periods without rain, however this also adds to how intensely they burn.
What does 2023 look like? It is all about four variables:
Fuel (we have plenty of that, and much of it is old)
Weather (hot, dry weather, hi temps, low humidity, dry winds)
Topography (we can’t change that, we live in an area that is ripe to burn)
Fire starts ( one of the few things we can try to reduce..)
Typically, Cambria & the North Coast are not in prime wildfire season until late August through December. That doesn’t mean we cannot experience a wildfire.
A slide show attached to this newsletter gives us some excellent information on how to protect our homes and what to do IF we are faced with a wildfire. We are so grateful to Bob for brining his 35 years of expertise to our club.
Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) is an intensive leadership experience organized by Rotary clubs and districts where young people can devel- op leadership skills while having fun and making connections. The event offers courses not often found in the regular curriculum teenagers are offered. These courses include diversity training, public speaking, team building, leadership funda- mentals, goal setting, leading a meeting, character & ethics, facilitation, fellowship and creating good habits. The retreat offers a mix of indoor and out- door activities. Very talented keynote speakers are
invited to come and teach, motivate and inspire our youth to become great leaders and to do great things. Cam- bria Rotarian Nancy McKarney serves as the Senior Administrator and club members Tim Carr and Jane Howard both served as counselors.
This year our club sponsored five Coast Union juniors to attend RYLA. They were chosen based on their leadership potential to attend RYLA. Olivia Klemstein, Ashley Klemstein, Adair Ponce, Dane Volz and Sean Schalk joined 190 students from high schools in Rotary’s District 5240 at Camp Ramah in Ojai. At our meeting on Friday, we were
pleased to hear about the student’s experiences. Adair told us that after attending RYLA,“I see leadership differ- ently. Ultimately my goal is to bring what I’ve learned back to Coast Union and any community I’m part of”. Ash- ley said “if I hadn’t come here, I wouldn’t understand the breakdown steps of how to be a leader and how I can positively impact my community”. Olivia described it as “a crazy fun experience I will appreciate forever”. Dane credited the friends he made there for teaching him so much about the world, life and himself. Sean told us that RYLA “has been a blessing. I have learned so much about being a leader and using my unique skills and talents to help my community”.
Local experts say human trafficking impacts thousands of people in California every year and warn this crime could surge during Super Bowl weekend. Most victims of human trafficking are forced into sex work between 11 and 14 years old — lured in with drugs and expensive gifts. Many remain trapped for years, or even decades.
Marianne Jackson, a human trafficking survivor, said she was a sex worker for more than eight years and she shared how she broke free. “I was on the street and I did-n’t have anywhere to go, anything at all,” Jackson said. “I got talked into getting into this lifestyle. It was portrayed as something really glamorous and empowering, but it was nothing like that at all.”
Jackson said her trafficker went to prison for murder, but it still wasn’t easy to leave sex work behind.
“I was able to break free from my trafficker, but I kept doing it on my own because that’s how I knew how to sur-vive,” Jackson said. “These girls really aren’t out there by choice. Whether they have a pimp or don’t have a pimp, like I said, it’s all about survival.”
Now she works for Magdalene Hope, a local group that serves and rehabilitates victims of sex trafficking.
“My daughter-in-law went to church one day and they were talking about Magdalene Hope and how they helped girls get out of the sex industry,” Jackson said. “When I first got into the program my four front teeth had been knocked out by a guy. We got a grant to fix my teeth and now I have my smile again. It was a free program. They provided everything for me. My life changed completely, it’s a blessing.”
Jane Howard introduced our speaker, John Weiss and told us that he joined the Rotary Club of Morro Bay in 2001. He is a Past District Governor (2017-18) and Club President (2009-10 & 2011-12).
John has created and presented Membership seminars since 2010, was a PETS instructor on “Engaging Members” for 4 years. He personally sponsored over 60 new members to his club, helped charter the Eco-Rotary Club Morro Bay, Morro Bay High School Interact Club and the San Luis Obispo Rotaract Club.
John’s wife Christine is a great partner who was a Charter member of the Rotary Club of Morro Bay—Eco. Together they have 5 adult children ages 33 to 44.
John served as a working Governor with retail and professional electronics stores in Morro Bay, San Luis Obispo and Paso Robles. Many members of his staff have been with the company (founded with father in 1978) and industry to 20-35 years.
John plays basketball, golf and walks when possible in between Rotary functions, church, family and work.
He is a cancer (Stage 4 adrenal Cortical Carcinoma) survivor having been diagnosed a month before serving as Dis-trict Governor in June 2017 and continues to get monthly treatments and constant monitoring.
INTERNATIONAL SERVICES: Julie Jenkins gave us an update on the works of the International Committee. The main purpose of International Services is to promote peace and understanding. So far this year the following donations were made: $1,000 Compass Zambia; $1,200 Whisper & Thunder; $924 + a $780 District Grant to Lor-des Meade in Uganda; $825 Grace Center in Zambia; $1,000 committee donation and $1,000 member donation to Turkey & Syria Earthquake Relief; $1,150 Water for Honduras; $2100 San Miguel de Allende (empowerment for women); $500 Arco San Pedro for a 7th grade classroom; $800 Roses of Mbuya, Uganda to purchase sewing ma-chines for young mothers; 4 Committee and 1 Private scholarship for girls to attend PACE in India; $1,000 to Shel-ter Box. A copy of the slide show will accompany this email.
NEAL JENSEN FOUNDATION: Dennis White and Mike Griffin announced that the Neal Jensen Fund is now at almost $700,000! They also told us about an exciting new project. Thanks to Andrew, a 4 acre parcel at Cam Ocean Pines where we will be planting 38 trees: one for each club member who has joined the Neal Jensen Fel-lowship. Greenspace has agreed to help us by telling us how to plant and space the trees.
YOUTH SERVICES: Cynthia Woodruff Neer told us that Luanne Kittle will be co-chairing Youth Services next year! Thank you Luanne. She also announced that there will be a reception at Camp Ocean Pines from 4-5 on June 7th to honor this year’s scholarship winners. 8 students will be awarded scholarship this year. And, for the first time, one of the students is a home-schooled student. RYLA is coming up and we are sending 8 students who will be attending our weekly meeting on May 5th to tell us about their experience. On May 12, we will be hearing from the 4-Way Essay Contest winners. And, plans are that there will be an Interact Club at the Middle School next school year. More information about that will be forthcoming. A copy of the slide show Cynthia presented is attached to this email.
TRF: PP Chuck told us that everyone in out club donated $50 a year to Polio Plus and $100 to the Annual Fund. This is possible because funds raised each year from fundraisers such as VIVA, go to the Cambria Rotary Founda-tion. 25% of those funds stays in our Foundation while the remaining 75% funds go to our Avenues of Service which includes TRF. The portion that goes to TRF is used to make the donations in each members name to Polio Plus and the Annual Fund. The 25% that remains in the Foundation grows due to dividends. A link to the slide show that was shown during this presentation will be in the email with our newsletter
Lorienne began her introduction with a quote from Rosalynn Carter, “There are only four kinds of people in the world: those who have been caregivers, those who are currently caregivers, those who will be care-givers, and those who will need caregivers.” She then welcomed Karen Ortiz, Director of Development and Tamra Mariott, Development Manager. We learned that The Longest Day is the day with the most light — the summer solstice. On June 21, thousands of participants from across the world come together to fight the darkness of Alzheimer's through an activity of their choice. Together, they use their crea-tivity and passion to raise funds and awareness for the care, support and research efforts of the Alzheimer’s Association. For more information about The Longest Day, go to alz.org/TLD.
Currently, more than 690,000 people in California are living with Alzheimer’s disease, and over 1.12 million family and friends are providing care.
The Alzheimer’s Association, California Central Coast Chapter provides free edu-cation programs, support services and care consulta-tions across the counties of San Luis Obispo, Santa Bar-bara and Ventura counties while also supporting critical research toward a cure.
CUHS English Teacher, Ogo Agbo read the 3rd Place Essay from senior Emily Reed who could not be with us due to illness.
Patricia Acosta, also a senior, submitted the 2nd Place Essay. Patricia will be attending Boston College on a QuestBridge Scholarship.
Declan MacKenzie, a sophomore, received 1st place honors for his essay. Declan was home-schooled in Viet Nam, where his family lived due to his father’s job, until last year when he relocated to Cambria and enrolled in Coast Union.
Joni Kirby has enjoyed sharing many of her personal life’s moments through “untrainings” for over thirty years. She is passionate about reminding other that their happiness is always carried within their inner heart space. Joni cur-rently lives in Cambria with her fur babies, Love and Faith.
“Our lives are full of satori moments—powerful snippets of time that, when recognized, invite us to awaken, become aware, be present, and find enlight-enment.” “Through inspiring personal stories and wisdom acquired over time, Joni Kirby teaches us that we do not need to be trained to be. Instead, she encourages us to live as Rylan did—awakened, dancing, and celebrating life in the mo-ment. As she leads others on the satori journey of reawakening, also known as Rylan’s untrainings, she reminds us of who we are deep inside, to love, live, and learn in the moment, to laugh often, to re-member that all is well because we are one, to embrace the joy that is always with-in, to breathe in the space of stillness between thoughts, and to intentionally plant our life’s garden—all while embracing the beauty of life.” Joni’s book, Satori Moments, shares anecdotes and wisdom intended to inspire any-one interested in finding their way back to their true selves and the I-ness within and it is available on Amazon All proceeds are donated to Dr. Loh’s Childhood Cancer Research.
em Munro has devoted his life and career to improving educational opportunities for dis- advantaged people across Canada and abroad.
He is presently a Director of Amarok Society, a registered Canadian charity that provides education programs to the very poor in Bangladesh. As Gem told us, Bangladesh has the poorest of the poor and th worst of the worst. In the words of the Turkish Ambassador to Canada, “Of all the countries I have visited in all my travels, only Bangladesh made me cry”.
This was an excellent presentation. You are encouraged to visit their website: http:// www.amaroksociety.org.
Estero Bay Kindness Coalition started in December 2017, when founder Bobby deLancellotti met with the principal at Del Mar Ele-mentary school in Morro Bay, CA to inquire about how he could serve the most vulnerable students during the holidays. The princi-pal connected him with 10 families. Bobby bought them 2 gifts each: a fun gift, a practical gift, and a $100.00 gift card to a local su-permarket. In January, the principal sent Bobby a letter thanking him for the impact the gifts had on the families. She also informed him that 64% of the students at Del Mar were living at or below the poverty line. This broke Bobby’s heart, so he decided to do some-thing about it.
In March 2018, he started Got Your Back, a program that helps feed kids over the weekends, providing 2 breakfasts, 2 lunches, 2 dinners, healthy snacks, fruit, milk, and juice to each kid enrolled. The kids in this program rely on “hot/reduced lunch” at school to eat during the week and would often go hungry on the weekends. By June 2018, Estero Bay Kindness Coalition was serving 48 students with Got Your Back. The following school year, it jumped to 8 schools and over 200 students in the SLO Unified School District. During this time, our organization became a nonprofit 501 C-3. By the 2019 school year, we were feeding over 200 children in 8 schools.
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit and schools closed their doors in March 2020, Bobby met with local principals to get connected with some of the most vulnerable, food insecure families in the SLO Unified School District.
The Estero Bay Kindness Coalition went from feeding school kids on the weekends to feeding whole families for the week, virtually overnight.
To meet the needs of the families referred to us by 1 of our 8 partnered schools, we created Bags of Love, a program that delivers 3 bags of groceries per week to 164+ families in the greater Estero Bay area. The bags of groceries consist of healthy, protein-rich breakfasts, lunches, dinners, snacks, juice, milk, and fresh, local produce. During this time, we also created Sunshine and Seed, a new and gently used kids clothing collective where kids can shop for free.
When schools reopened in 2021, we reimplemented Got Your Back, sending kids home with healthy meals and snacks to eat over the weekends.
The Estero Bay Kindness Coalition has built a team of over 80+ volunteers, 2 team leaders, and 2 food pantries. They are currently partnered with 8 schools, 41 for-profits, 18 nonprofits, and 10 churches
Lorienne asked us “What does vocation mean?” It is, she explained, the action or result of calling or summoning, and derived senses. Your vocation in life is where your greatest joy meets the world’s greatest needs.
Lorienne then asked us to think about what, as a child, you wanted to be when you grew up. How surprised would that child be to discover what you actually wound up doing. And think of one or two skills you have developed that would delight that child.
Thank you for an interesting discussion, Lorienne.
Interact Club members plan various fundraising activities so they can raise money to donate to causes select-ed by the Interactors. In previous years, the club has donated to such causes as high school scholarships, Camp Ocean Pines, HART, Feeding America, Doctors Without Borders, St. Jude’s, Skate Cambria and FFRP. This year we were joined by Interact members President Violet, Ave, Oscar and Robert and their Interact Advisor, Ayan John-son.
The Annual Interact Bake Sale is always one of our favorite meetings because the baked goods the students make are auctioned off and, invariably bidding wars break out as auctioneer Bob Kasper uses humor to encourage high-er and higher bids. It is just another example of our motto: “If it ain’t fun, it ain’t Rotary”.
At Friday’s meeting, there were a lot of laughs, we got to enjoy some delicious baked goods and the 2023 Interact Bake Sale raised almost $4,500!
Our very brave and amazing President took a deep breath and started telling us the story of her bumpy road to stroke diagnosis and recovery. One week before she left for a long- awaited trip to Africa, Christel told us she was in her garden wearing tall garden boots. She noticed she was tripping and blamed it on the boots. But, the next day the same thing happened. She also noticed there was a change in her handwriting but didn’t think a whole lot of it.
On May 19th, she was at the airport, reading to board for her trip to Africa when she
could not find her credit card and was feeling confused. In Africa, she wore tennis shoes
most of the time and foud herself tripping again. Two days in a row, while eating dinner,
she felt like she was choking and had trouble catching her breath. When she returned home on June 3, she still found herself tripping and her handwriting seemed to be getting worse. On July 3rd, she was diagnosed with COVID for the second time and was quite sick. After recovering from COVID, she noticed she was having trouble keeping dates straight.
On that Friday, she was preparing to come to our meeting but she started feeling hot and her speech was slurred. After talking to both Patty and husband John, who both verified that she WAS slurring her words, she decided it was time to get checked out. She contacted a Neurologist from Cedar Sinai who told her to get to the emergency room. But, in typical Christel fashion, she made John drive her to Cambria so she could give Sue the purple shirts she had ordered for the Board before he took her to the hospital in Arroyo Grande. In the ER, she was told that she had a Transient ischemic attack (TIA or mini stroke). An MRI confirmed that she did have a stroke and it was centered on her cerebellum which is why her speech, coordination and swallowing were affected. She even lost 65% of her hearing.
Strokes can be caused by a number of things, Christel told us, including high cholesterol, which she had, hormone replacement therapy, which she had been on for far too long and COVID, which she had twice. Once she returned home, she went through speech therapy, occupational therapy and physical therapy. But, her biggest challenge was fighting the feeling of helplessness and depression. It was a long, hard road but, she said, all the cards and flowers helped her through it. “I am healing and recovering”, she said. And, she warned, if you no- tice any changes in mobility, speech, vision, get to an emergency room. If treated withing a few hours of the onset of symptoms, medications can be administered that can possibly reverse the damage.
Dr. Kate added that considering the amount of time Christel waited from the onset of symptoms, she is amazed she is doing so well. “Better to be wrong in an ER”, warned Kate. TIA’s are a precursor to a stroke so it is imperative that you get medical attention as soon as possible to avoid a full-blown stroke. Kate also recommend going to Sierra Vista if you are experiencing signs of a stroke and go to French if you feel you might be suffering from a hear attack.
We are all so glad you are back, Christel and thank you for sharing your very difficult story.
While waiting for Bob to collect his notes and make it up to the stage, Christel asked him, “Bob, when your mom had you, were you late?” Bob responded by telling the story of the night his sister was born. His mom went into labor at about 11:00 on a Saturday night. His dad was speeding her to the hospital but took a detour to a liquor store. When his mom asked him what he was doing, he responded that the liquor stores are closed on Sundays and there are games on. When they finally got to the hospital, the doctor told Mrs. Kasper that, if she had a fourth child, she needed to get to the hospital sooner. Now you know where Bob gets it from!
Bob told us that he would be starting all his meetings off with a joke. Today’s joke was “What do you get when you cross a shark with a cow?” Someone yelled “What happens?” To which Bob responded, “I don’t know but I would- n't want to milk it”.
Bob announced that Viva will be held on April 29th at Camp Ocean Pines. It will begin at 5:30 with a champagne reception on the deck overlooking the ocean. Tickets are $100 each and there are cabins that can be rented for $175/night. The theme for this year is Spring Fling.
We will have an online Silent Auction again this year but people will have a chance to bid on the Silent Auction items during Viva. There will also be a Live Auction and a Wine Pull. Judy Schuster told us that we will once again be doing the Grand Raffle featuring a choice of 8 travel experiences. Tickets will cost $50 each and all members will be given 5 tickets to sell.
Please consider donating to the Silent Auction. In the past, we have auctioned off baskets for gardeners, paint sets, Italian food basket, sport baskets, jewelry lovers basket, pet basket, wine baskets, etc. We also need wine for both the wine pull (wines values at $25 & up) as well as re- ally good wines for the wine cooler that will be part of the Live Auction.
For the Live Auction, we are looking for vacation homes, experiences, theme dinners. More in- formation will be coming.
Also, Bob announced that there will be a party at Sea Chest. Unlike previous events, Sea Chest will only be donating the venue, not the food. But there will be food and wine and musi
Luanne introduced Bob and told us that he spent the majority of his career as editorial page editor of The San Diego Union-Tribune. Prior to that post, he was an associate editor of U.S. News & World Report in Washington where he served as White House correspondent, congressional correspondent and Pentagon correspond- ent. He has been a much sought-after commentator, providing regular political analysis on PBS's ”NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,” and appearing frequent- ly on National Public Radio's ”All Things Considered”
and ”Weekend Edition.” He has numerous writing accolades including the George Washington Honor Medal awarded by the Freedom's Foundation of Valley Forge, the Scripps Howard National Newspaper Award, the William Randolph Hearst Award and the California Newspaper Publishers Association Award.
Bob is also the author of a book on California History: Franciscan Frontiersmen, How Three Adventurers Charted the West which is available on Amazon.
Thank you Bob for a wonderful presentation. We all learned a number of things we did not know about our area of the world.
Don Maruska engages people around the world to take climate action and have fun doing it. Since 2003, he has brought together people from scientific, environmental, business, government, and community organizations to boost awareness, actions, and advocacy for steward-ship of natural resources.
Don’s new book, “Solve Climate Change Now: Do What You Love for a Healthy Planet” includes stories and examples of Rotary Clubs and community groups working together to make a difference. As a mem-ber of Rotary San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, Don has earned a President’s Special Recognition Award and a District Governor’s Award for his climate action leader-ship. He’s delighted that Rotary International has awarded collabo-rating Rotary Club’s “Day of Service” recognition for their results.
Earlier in his career, Don founded and was CEO of three Silicon Valley companies, earning a National Innovator Award. Now he’s a Master Certified Coach helping others succeed. Don is also author of “How Great Decisions Get Made” and co-author or “Take Charge of Your Tal-ent.” He earned his BA magna cum laude in government from Har-vard and an MBA and JD from Stanford.
Major publications including Fast Company, Inc., and Entrepreneur have quoted Don for his expertise. He has also appeared on over 30 radio and TV stations across the country. Businesses, nonprofits, government agencies and community organizations enjoy his inspiring keynotes and productive workshops delivered both in person and online.
A copy of Don’s presentation is attached to this email and his book is available on Amazon
Thanks to Miguel and Judy, who met with each of the 19 families to find out what the children wanted and needed for Christmas and came up with a detailed list. These two are amazing!
21 Rotarians agreed to be Secret Santas to the 43 children living in the Oceanside Apt.
Once again, an anonymous donor purchased a pair of shoes for each of the children. Once again, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Valerie Ratto had the students in her confirmation class at Santa Rosa Church write a note to each of the par-ents, in Spanish, telling them that they are appreciated. What a great idea, Valerie.
When Del Clegg heard me promoting the Secret Santa project and hearing that 10 or so kids that were still waiting, he offered to give me $200 to purchase gifts for those children. Well, club member did step up and, in record time, all the kids were covered. Nan-cy Carr had suggested that we purchase gifts for the children in Head Start in Cambria. I asked Del if it would be ok to use the money he gave for Secret Santa to buy sweaters and stuffed animals for the little ones at Head Start. Needless to say, he was all for it! Not only that, but he gave us a 10% dis-count on the Cookie Crock gift cards that will be passed out to the Oceanside Apt. and Head Start families. Is there any wonder why Del was recently honored with a Legacy Award from Camp Ocean Pines?
Thanks to Karen and her helpers, we had a fun evening at the Holiday Party. Everyone was in a festive mood and seemed to be enjoying themselves. The poinsettia centerpieces were auctioned off with the proceeds going to Polio. A total of $175 was raised! The each table was asked to sing a holiday song and everyone happily participated. We heard holiday songs, Christmas carols, a Hannukah song and, yes, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” by you know who.
ROTARY: MEETING GREAT PEOPLE AND MAKING A DIFFERENCE
Service Above Self
San Simeon, CA 93452
United States of America