Great turnout this week! Great speaker as well.
Felt like a summer meeting at 90 degrees. Love summer nights in May though! Apparently we skipped spring this year.
Editor's Note: If you ever see me on my cell phone during our meetings, which is often, I am taking these notes not texting ;)
Events
- This past weekend – Boro Dam Fish Derby – thanks to Don and Pat for branding it with flags and pins, Keith and Holly and 2 Interact students for serving the community
- Also, this past weekend, the District Conference in Reading. Allen, Johnny O, Inge and Gail attended, along with Angela and 3 Interact students. Eight from Doylestown!
- Morning Meeting – Dr. Marian Mass – a chop doctor who is determined to route out the waste in our healthcare system. $425 for a bag of saline? The bag costs $.15! Look for the 60 minutes special on this and for her to speak to the evening meeting soon
- Tomorrow night – Rotarians are volunteering at the Designer House. 8-10 of us.
- Boro Dam Fishing Derby is May 12th. 8 am-4 pm. Please come out to cook burgers and dogs!
- Also, District Training for Officers and Directors is May 12th at DeSales College. Our club will reimburse the cost of this.
- Morning Meeting – Doylestown Health
- Evening meeting next week – Grameen Foundation with Bob Eichfeld introducing it
Birthdays
- May 7, John Gillhor
- May 8, Mark Hoffman
- May 11th, Michael Marks
Presentation
- Matt Jones
- GM of Poverty Resolutions, a non profit helping children and families in Haiti
- I was touched by Matt's origin story, leaving a Penn State MDA, with a wife and child, to go to Haiti to help out. old move and all the more impressive to pursue helping others versus himself.
- In 2010, 200,000 people died in Haiti out of 10 million people.
- On a lighter note, Matt noted that Haiti is about the same size as New Jersey, but nicer! As a Jersey guy, he is banned from Jersey, though I imagine he has only seen it from the turnpike between exits 7 and 13. Since Matt is saving children, I will give him a pass this time (but never an EZPass as he is still banned ;)
- People live in Haiti on only a dollar a day. Matt and his colleagues lived in that as well.
- Puts you in Survival mode. Make it to tomorrow.
- Drains your physical and mental energy.
- Heartbreaking to have a hungry child you literally cannot feed.
- Orphanages in Haiti
- One on ten kids do not live with their parents.
- Most have a living parent who simply cannot care for them.
- Broken families perpetuate the cycle of poverty.
- How do you drop off one or some of your kids to an orphanage since you can’t feed them?
- One on ten kids do not live with their parents.
- Only 20% of kids go to school.
- End up without a job.
- Have a kid.
- Kid ends up in orphanage.
- Cycle continues.
- They try to keep families together and take care of the kids within the parental homes.
- Opportunity for families to work
- Bring hope and opportunity to allow an education and enough food to get through and medicine to keep you healthy.
- Feed 200 meals a day for kids only
- Educate 150 kids.
- Making a difference. To some if not all.
- Also teaching adults to see and learning English. Perhaps get a job.
- Opportunities to serve.
- Make a trip.
- 300 volunteers a year.
- Holding babies.
- Help with medical queue.
- Build a home.
- Done this for the last eight years. Others also.
- Lives are being changed.
- Goals in 2018:
- Double their Impact.
- Build a larger kitchen.
- Add a second school building.
- Add a basketball court and playground.
- Double their Impact.
- 7 people work with Matt in the US. 50 people do most fo the day to day live in Haiti.
- Supported by individuals and some foundations.
- Why not Apply for a Rotary International grant?!
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