Our Rotary District Governor Becky Smith and her husband, Dr. Rick Smith will be visiting our club and presenting the program tomorrow. The Antlers will be serving a special fiesta menu that sounds tasty! Our Rotary Foundation Director, Maile Foster, will be presenting some Paul Harris awards and Holly Flores might be giving out a few red and/or white badges as well! This will be a special program and I hope as many club members as possible will be attending!
One of our Governor's special projects is to ask each club in the district to donate $500 toward an educational project in Kenya, specifically for girls. She will be telling us more about that tomorrow!
We have 9 whole days left until FLIGHT 2021, our biggest annual fundraiser of the year! Have you bought raffle tickets yet? We don't have many left so you need to get your tickets ASAP! This year's large size raffle butterfly is stunning!
In case you have not gone to the FLIGHT 2021 website to register to bid or donate, here is the link to do just that and to view all the silent auction items: https://e.givesmart.com/events/mxK/ If you have registered in previous years, the same login information will work for you.
Thank you to all of the Rotarians this year that have committed to sponsoring FLIGHT 2021! Many of you have also donated items for the silent auction.
As we are in the last few days before the main event, the best way to support FLIGHT at this point is to put the word out on social media or to your networks about September 25 and raffle tickets, and what a fabulous opportunity this is to own a butterfly! Please post and share and comment on your social media accounts about this event! We need to get record numbers to tune in to our broadcast on Sept 25 and bid to buy their butterflies, dragonflies, and some special silent auction packages.
I sent out a club survey last week with hopes that I can get as many members as possible to complete it. I did the survey and it took me just about 5 minutes and 29 seconds to finish. This is an anonymous survey so I'm hoping for brutal honesty about what you like about our club, what you don't like but most importantly, your suggestions for how we can make it even better! The demographics questions will help give our program speakers a better idea of whom they are presenting to and hopefully, your suggestions will help me find the right speakers for this year. I appreciate the club members who have been recommending speakers already.
This week's Random Awesome Deed suggestion is just simply to be nice. Everyone you meet has their own backstory that we know nothing about and we don't always understand the weight of our words. Let's use the power of our words to lift people up. Let's find good in everyone. We are all so very different individuals and that's what makes our club work. Our varied thinking and interests and our myriad of skillsets help us work together for the good of our community. Let's be good with differences as long as all of our hearts beat the same.
When my kids were 4 and 5 years old, one particular day I heard one of the kids starting to cry. The other one was trying to shush him so they wouldn't get in trouble. I heard Stephen choking back tears as he said, "Now was that nice??" So if a 5-year-old can do it, I guess I can talk to myself like that as well.
Now let's go forth, be great stewards of Rotary and Catalysts of Caring in our Community!
Please be well, be safe, and be kind. There are a lot of people out there needing just that.
Lyrics2Learn is a WEB-based reading application for Pre-k through 5th-grade students. "L2L" creates original fiction and non-fiction texts set to hip-hop, rock, jazz, and blues music. As students complete each 15-minute lesson, they read along with musicians to improve expression, accuracy, vocabulary, and prosody (collectively fluency). This enhances engagement, fosters authentic interaction and allows children to retain exponentially more information. With each text, students progress through 3 levels of questioning. As students become more familiar with text, questioning becomes more complex ending with high-level text-to-self and text-to-world connections. Concepts, engagement time, and a host of data is collected and provided to parents, teachers, schools and districts providing valuable, real-time data outlining student progress.
Our speaker, Jeremy Spartz, is an educator and advocate of anything that expands the ways and breadth in which the world's youth can learn to think critically and problem solve. His passion was sparked by parents and educators throughout childhood and was strengthened via youth mentoring and camp counseling.
On vacation during Spring Break following a fortunate series of events, he was offered a teaching job in Colorado Springs as a 2nd-grade teacher at Martinez Elementary in District #11. He promptly started a student-led poetry slam for his 2nd-grade students. This grew to include over 250 6-11-year-old kids performing their own poetry and group raps in front of hundreds of peers and parents.
In 2012 he used music, rhythm, rhyme, and wrote a series of stories in iambic pentameter to help a reluctant group of 4th-grade students engage with text at a higher level, increase fluency, and retain more of what they read. This was highly motivating and successful, which led to free tutoring sessions for multiple groups of 1st-5th grade kids in the mornings before school. It was eye-opening and the beginning of a new challenge.
Jeremy left the classroom in 2013 feeling he could have a greater positive impact by making this music-based reading methodology available to kids around the world via mobile and desktop applications. Since then, though still a fledgling start-up, "Lyrics2Learn" has served more than 4 million reading lessons to 50,000 students in every state and six countries.
You can find all things FLIGHT 2021 in this column every week! Also, check out WWW.CSFLIGHT.ORG!
FLIGHT 2021 will be virtual one more time!
We will be working under the direction of Steve Weed Media at the Colorado Institute of Massage Therapy!
Raffle Tickets
Raffle tickets are available @ $10 each. The prize is a stunning butterfly created by local celebrity artist, Al B. Johnson. The raffle squad this year is Jenn Cancellier, Cody Burket, and Caryn Adams. Tickets can also be purchased at the front desk of The Gasper Law Group at 128 South Tejon, Suite 100. All money and stubs need to be returned before the Flight event on September 25. Please let Caryn Adams know ASAP if you need your raffle tickets mailed to you; her email is caryn@gasperlaw.com.
~Sponsorship information:
If you are interested in being a sponsor for FLIGHT 2021 at one of the many sponsorship levels available, please click here for the:
Creek Week Clean-Up: Rotarians are encouraged to participate in Creek Week Sept. 25- Oct. 3. Join a location of your choice by contacting the crew lead for the day/time you are interested in. Please let Samantha Chapman know which location you signed up for and how many hours you volunteered!
Flight Delivery:On Sept. 26th we will need volunteers to assist in delivering the auctioned butterflies to their new homes.Sign up to follow soon!
Community Water Challenge Event – Sept. 28th, 5:30pm at The Pioneer’s Museum. Learn about how your company/organization or yourself can take part in the community water challenge by sponsoring a Gutter Bin like the club has. Our club will also be honored as one of the initial sponsors. Please let Samantha Chapman know if you plan to attend. It will take place outdoors.
The community service committee meets via zoom on the 3rd Thursday at noon each month! Let Samantha know if you want to join the committee.
If you are interested in participating in our International Committee, please email Jordan Davis at Jordan@sociallyexceptional.biz to be added to the notification list!
Our committee is meeting in person - the 2nd Friday of every month (Oct 8), directly after the weekly meeting at Sportivos and we guarantee it will be less than an hour! Many exciting things happening all around the world! Don't miss an opportunity to be part of this!
If you have bulletin announcements, please email the EXACT WORDING of your announcement to KSaltmarshVoss@yahoo.com by Wednesday at 5 pm. I don't write your announcements but I do make them nice 'n' fancy!
As you're doing your shopping online, did you know that you can support our Rotary Club with every Amazon purchase? Here’s how:
Go to smile.amazon.com (not amazon.com). Amazon Smile is the same company, same account, same password, but the Amazon Smile program gives one half of one percent of every purchase to charity. No, it’s not a lot, but it’s also not nuthin’ (to be exact: about $150 for the Club so far). So again, go to smile.amazon.com
Sign into your Amazon account as you normally would
On the very top left of the page, next to the AmazonSmile logo, are three horizontal bars. Click there for the drop-down menu.
Scroll ALL the way down to “Your AmazonSmile”; it should be the last option right before “Sign Out”; Click on “Your AmazonSmile”
On the right side of the page, click on the “change charity” box under Your current charity (Note: If you are currently supporting another charity, that’s awesome! These instructions are for those who are not doing so. Also, if you have not previously selected a charity, your default option will be St. Judge Children’s Research Hospital.)
Type in Community Service Fund of the Rotary Club of Colorado Springs; click Select
That’s it. You’re all set. Just remember to go to Smile.Amazon.com when you shop from now on.
