On November 15, I presented a check to Rob Pickett from Pickett's Painting for the painting of the Endicott Visitors Center in the amount of $2,800.00. It hadn't been painted in many years and was looking pretty bad. We were asked to actually do the painting but after considering it, the board decided to hire professionals to do it. Monica Jordan and I received two bids for the job and Rob came in $600 less than the other painting contractor. I personally have been responsible for getting the bricks on the inside walkway done for several years now. The bricks each cost $35.00 including engraving, which is now $15.00 per brick I believe, with the other $20.00 going into a separate account that is to be used ONLY for the Visitors Center. I asked if any amount could be used towards offsetting the cost of the painting and we received $500.00 towards that cost from Broome County Community Charities. So the foundation's net cost was $2,300.00. This was approved by the board several months ago.
Nicole Wolfe sent me a request for the U-E Key Club for a donation of any amount. After speaking to her about the request, she said the Endicott Sertoma Club donated $500.00 to this cause. I am attaching her letter to me so that everyone can get an idea where our funds are being used within the community once we make a donation. The Foundation also agreed to donate $500.00 to them.
We have also received a request from JoAnne Morak from the Girl Scouts NYPENN Pathways for $3,000. She was a guest speaker a few weeks ago. I returned an email to her explaining to her that we cannot give $3,000.00 to them at this time and that I would let her know the amount, if any, that we can donate.
The board is trying to donate something to each organization requesting a donation. As I said earlier, once the funds that have been allocated and have been donated, we can only donate more from the principle for an emergency situation, which brings me to another topic.
As you all know, in the past, Sam Lupo has been able to secure from Broome Catholic Charities the turkeys for the food boxes that are donated each year to the needy families of the U-E School District. This year, Sam was notified that they would not be able to help with the turkeys. Sam called me to see if the Foundation could purchase them if he couldn't secure the turkeys. This would fall under the emergency situation that I mentioned, plus it wouldn't be a huge sum of money. As it turned out, John Karedes became involved and was able to secure the 125 turkeys needed from Rob's Market in Hallstead, PA, owned by Anthony Coppola. Anthony made a donation in the form of a discount of approximately $1,100 to $1,200, the Broome County Community Charities made a donation, and Louie and John Karedes picked up the balance. Due to the business relationships developed over the years by several people and the generosity of individuals, this highly worthwhile project will continue as always.
I hope this gives all of you the insight of what's going on with the money we work so hard to raise over the year. If any of you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
Take care,
Tom Latini
Endicott Rotary Foundation President 22/23