For those of you who missed our meeting last week, our speaker, Deborah Hendrix, had us play Black History Bingo. The bingo card had the names of famous Black Americans and a description of their accomplishments below. We had to match the name to the reason they were famous. It was a fun way to learn about the achievements of these black leaders. If you were unable to attend but would like a copy, please let me know and I'll get you one.
This week we are having a Mayoral Candidate Forum. This is the first forum for the mayoral candidates so it should be informative. Our own past President, Rodney Gullatte, hopes to live stream it on our YouTube channel, in case you cannot attend in person this week. A television station has also expressed interest in covering the forum.
Because there is a lot of interest in the forum, there will be more people in attendance, we encourage members to arrive early to get through the buffet and seated by the 12:15 pm start. The buffet line will open by 11:45 am, so come and enjoy!
Reminder to senior actives, from 11:45 am to noon, one of the scheduled greeters will be at the entrance closest to our meeting room to greet and let our senior active members into the hotel. We hope this will make it easier for members to attend.
In case you missed it, Cody Burket, Samantha Chapman and Krys Fakir were on Living Social last week promoting the mini fundraiser/social/new member event at Goat Patch Brewery. Our club was also mentioned in coverage of the High School Mock Trials. Thank you to all who worked and volunteered on these events.
As always, our club has some great service projects going on - this month is the Care and Share Spread-the-Love peanut butter and jelly drive. Look for lots more details further in the bulletin.
We are also doing amazing things with our international projects and involvement with global grants. Later in this bulletin is an update on a water project in Niger. It is a project that provides water, supports agriculture and is a business enterprise - all in one. Check out how our club and the Community Service Fund is making a difference globally.
After telling your friends, coworkers and neighbors about what great things we do in Rotary, invite them to come see what great people we are too! Invite them to a meeting or our March 1st social at a downtown speakeasy, District Elleven.
Next week we will have Frank Sinclair on Martin Luther King Jr. - An American Hero, not just a Civil Rights Hero!The legacy of Dr. King has inextricably tied to civil rights, as it should. However, his legacy extends far beyond "I have a Dream". His wish was for all People to experience their dreams.
Come and bring a friend. Don't forget to RSVP by Monday at 5 pm.
If you can't attend but would like to watch the meeting, let our club administrator, Karen Mooty know and we'll try to Facetime the meeting as we are no longer Zooming the meetings.
Please take time to read the bulletin each week and check out our website that has more information about all our events, activities and upcoming speakers.
Martin Luther King Jr. - An American Hero, not just a Civil Rights Hero!
The legacy of Dr. King has inextricably tied to civil rights, as it should. However, his legacy extends far beyond "I have a Dream". His wish was for all People to experience their dreams.
Frank's Bio:
Frank Sinclair is the Chief Encouragement Officer for Dream Again LLC, a coaching, keynote speaking, and training enterprise. His primary focus are entrepreneurs. He is widely known in the region as the No. 1 Encouragement Empowerment Coach. He is very community minded serving on the boards of CASA, Another Life Foundation, Front Range Power Connectors (founding member), and Pikes Peak Pros (founding member). He is also the President of VetNet (Veteran’s Networking). He further presents quarterly to Onward to Opportunity (transitioning veterans) and consults with leaders widely. He further mentors’ men coming out of addiction and homelessness at the Springs Rescue Mission. He was awarded the Colorado Random Acts of Kindness award in 2019, the Most Influential Networker award in 2020, and /CSBJ Best Networker 2022. Married to Michelle, all three of his adult children are business executives in Denver. He is certified in diversity, leadership development, culture change management, Emotional Intelligence, and Interpersonal Communications. Educated in business at the University of Maryland and Biblical Studies at Nazarene Bible College, received an honorary doctorate from Cornerstone University, and he has 13 grandchildren. He has authored Dream Again, Lessons on Leveraging Your Pain (2020), Co-Author of Your Personal Life Coach (2021) and the upcoming Your Personal Business Coach (September 2022).
After eight years in the Air Force, Frank has made Colorado Springs home the last 38 years. Born into object poverty and a self-described saboteur, creating an unhealthy pattern he struggled with into his forties. Inspired by his children’s success he created Dream Again LLC 4 years ago. Building on momentum built in 2020 and 2021, he is now expanding the brand through “The Dream Again Coaches Collaborative”. This subset of Dream Again will Have 10 coaches and speakers initially creating a world-class organization that will expand its reach, initially nationally with 4 additional states then internationally. This ambitious platform will set new standards for small business thinking with a global mindset. I am so excited for this venture and all that will be created for the purpose and good of humanity. We launched it on January 10th of this year and will quickly seek to expand the brand.
I wanted to reach out this morning with some good news on our Ukraine letter writing project; after some delays in getting to Poland, the latest batch of letters have finally arrived and are ready to be distributed to refugee children and mothers this weekend and next week! Attached are pictures you can download and share, including one of the full boxes of over 1000 letters, and a great example letter of an American child to a Ukrainian child. And with additional funding from the CSF, this project has already grown to triple the expected outcome initially thought last year, with 30+ states and a school in France having sent letters through the program!
I'll have more pictures to update as they come in next week but I just love the sentiment in the letter below and I thought it would be a great message to share with our club! Thank you all for making this program possible and I look forward to see where it can go from here!
ShelterBox HERO Clubs are foundational to our ability to respond when disaster strikes. To show our gratitude for your generous support, we are hosting an exclusive online Rotary Club HERO event on:
We hope you can join this event in hopes this informative session will inspire you to renew your HERO club status before the end of our current Rotary year.
ShelterBox is proud to be Rotary International's official project partner in disaster relief. Together, we are putting the partnership into action.
This exclusive event is open to every club member. ShelterBox USA President Kerri Murray and other executives from ShelterBox will deliver reports on our current response work, the impact we make in the lives of those we reach, and how Rotarians make this work possible. There will also be an opportunity for you to submit questions.
Thank you for being a Shelterbox HERO, I hope to see you on February 11.
Bill Tobin
Rotary Relations Manager
ShelterBox USA
Greetings President and members of Colorado Springs Rotary Club,
ShelterBox is responding after a series of powerful earthquakes devastated southern Turkey and northern Syria. We are sending an emergency response team to carry out crucial assessments and establish how we can best help.
ShelterBox is launching an emergency fundraising appeal. Your support will contribute to our Turkey and Syria Earthquakes response as part of our general fund. We believe that the best way for us to be impactful is by staying flexible, and it is essential that we have funds available to support those affected by disasters around the world. www.shelterboxusa.org
We’re speaking with our existing partners in Syria and Rotary contacts in Turkey to understand more about what’s needed and how we might provide support where it is needed most.
The humanitarian need in Turkey and Syria is immense and growing – it's the most devastating earthquake to hit the region in 100 years. The death toll has surpassed 5,000 and is likely to rise significantly, and thousands of buildings have been destroyed in both countries leaving people homeless, with nowhere to sleep, in the middle of a bitter winter.
A powerful 7.8m earthquake struck southern Turkey, close to the northern Syria border, at 4.17am local time (1.17am GMT) on Monday 6 February. The epicenter was about 20 miles from Gaziantep - a major city and provincial capital. Minutes later there was a strong 6.7m aftershock, followed by another major 7.5m earthquake striking hours later in the same region.
The region where the earthquakes struck is home to significant numbers of Syrian refugees.
ShelterBox provides different combinations of emergency shelter and essential household items depending on what is needed. This could be tents and shelter kits, stoves, thermal blankets, and clothing to keep people warm through the freezing winter nights. It could be cash to help people buy what they need to survive. Or it could be solar lights that help people when there is no electricity.
Head of Emergency Response for ShelterBox, Alice Jefferson says: “Emergency responses to a disaster of this scale can be a huge logistical nightmare especially against the clock. Freezing temperatures and heavy rain are causing extra complications. The poor weather poses a real threat to life for people whose homes are now rubble or unsafe to return to. Access and communication are challenging and that’s why responses must be well-coordinated to make sure that the right aid is getting to the right people, in the right place, at the right time.”
Club and Member support is desperately needed so we can reach survivors in the aftermath of this disaster.
Can you believe it's already February!? I hope everyone's new year has kicked off right and y'all are ready to get into our next month of service projects, starting off with one of our biggest supported local non-profits, Care & Share!
Care & Share is back with their annual Spread the Love event, where they will be taking peanut butter/ almond, etc. and jelly/ jam donations from Feb. 6th to Feb. 14th, at any of the donation locations found at the link below. I will also be collecting donations this Friday at our weekly meeting and at next Friday's meeting to do a bulk drop off. If you do drop off on your own please let me know the amount in an email, and always feel free to snap a picture or selfie to post on social media and tag our club!
Care & Share has also put out the call for attendees to their largest annual event, Recipe for Hope, where guests will be provided the opportunity to hear powerful stories of hope and courage from their neighbors who have experienced hunger. Join over 1,000 guests to learn more about how you can help to bridge the gap between hunger and abundance, and how Care and Share is able to further their impact by partnering with more than 270 agencies to provide food assistance to thousands of families and individuals across 31 counties and 52,000 square miles throughout Southern Colorado.
The event will be held on March 2nd from 12 p.m.-1 p.m. in Broadmoor Hall at the Broadmoor Hotel, and is free of charge to attend. You will also get to hear from fellow Rotarians like Monique Lewis and Rodney Gullatte who will be speaking at the event! For more info or to reserve your spot at one of the available tables, please respond directly to Monique Lewis at her email: monique@careandshare.org or by cell at: (931) 561-4432
Thank you all for a great first month of clothing donations, over 200 items donated, and I look forward to what the rest of the year brings to our club!
Our club, through the Community Service Fund is supporting the following projects:
Practical Education Network (PEN) in Ghana with a $5,000 grant
A science lab for Maasai High School in Kenya with a $2,500 grant
HKMU in Tanzania with a $3,000 grant
So wonderful things happening throughout the world as we kick off 2023!
Below is an update on the Niger project we sponsored last year.
Warmly,
Jon Kaufman
P.S. If you are interested in participating in our International Committee, please email Jon Kaufman jk595@aol.com to be added to the notification list!
Update on Global Grant from David Smith
Last year your club contributed $4000 to the Farmers of the Future Income Generating Global Grant (GG2127084). This project was approved and funded late in the fall.
Background:
In 2015, the United Nations ranked Niger 187 of 188 countries in human development. Niger disparately needs economic development!
Substantial malnutrition, including stunting and wasting, and subsequent irreversible cognitive impairment are rampant in Niger. Fifty percent of women ages 15-49 years are suffering from the effects of chronic anemia. Malnutrition causes stunting in 48% of the children under the age of 5 years.
This Global Grant addresses both economic development and malnutrition. We will clear 2 acres of land, dig a shallow well, install a solar powered irrigation system and train village women and children to grow high-value, highly nutritious crops.
In addition to providing the 25 families in the cooperative with highly nutritious food, profits from sales of produce will be divided between the families and local schools.
Progress Report January 2023
The following photos show that the well was drilled, a submergible pump was installed, water was found, solar panels were installed, and women are organizing to grow crops. To make so much progress in a few months is remarkable.
March 1st from 5 pm to 7 pm we will meet at District Elleven, a downtown speakeasy.
You can access district elleven in two ways. First, through the vault in Mood Tapas Bar. Just let the host know that you would like to visit district elleven and they will escort you back and through the vault. Please be prepared to show ID at the host stand. You can also access d11 from the back alley. Our entrance is right across the alley from the parking garage’s alley exit. If you are walking up the alley from the south, you will be able to spot our sign under the large flood lamp.
We've had no new wild polio cases reported for the last 15 weeks, yeah!
Meanwhile, the state of New York is still surveilling polio in wastewater and urging all residents to get vaccinated against Polio. Remember, polio anywhere in the world can be transmitted to anyone in the world.
Poliovirus Weekly Update 28 December, 2022, World Health Organization
The number of wild polio cases for 2022 as of December 28 is 30 (2 in Afghanistan, 20 in Pakistan and 8 in Mozambique).
The total number of wild polio cases in 2021 were 6 (1 in Pakistan, 1 in Malawi and 4 in Afghanistan).
The total number of wild polio cases in 2020 were 140 (84 in Pakistan and 56 in Afghanistan).
The total number of wild polio cases in 2019 were 176 (147 in Pakistan and 29 in Afghanistan).
If you have bulletin announcements, please email the EXACT WORDING of your announcement to kay.rendleman@comcast.net by Wednesday at 5 pm. I don't write your announcements, but I do make them nice 'n' fancy!
