Sue and Les Bryan, members of the century-old Derby Rotary Club in England visited our club.
"Service Above Self" |
We meet Every Monday at 12:15 PM
Ken's Steak House 95 Worcester Road
Route 9
Framingham, MA 01702
United States
Come join us!
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Victor Tom, an MIT Professor, discussed at our meeting today how he and his colleagues developed the system that measures whether a baseball pitch is a ball or strike by using cameras and software determining the exact location of the ball during its flight to home plate.
This photo is of the Outbound Rotary Exchange students taken on 7/25/ 18 for their last outbound orientation. Ben Tremblay, on the far right, is the student our club is sending to Colombia, South America, on 8/11/2018 for the next school year.
The Framingham Rotary Club, continuing its annual effort to help keep very low income seniors in public housing cool and healthy during hot weather, last week delivered thirty-seven 6000 BTU air conditioners for installation at units managed by the Framingham Housing Authority (FHA). The project, a collaboration among the Rotary club, the FHA, and the Callahan Center (the Framingham Council on Aging Senior Center), has now delivered 212 units over the past six years.
Shown in the picture are Rotarians and a representative of the Housing Authority (third from left) along with the recipient of one of the air conditioners (fourth from left), who is a veteran
Sharon Lisnow, Co-Founder of The Respite Center spoke at our Monday meeting. The Respite Center's mission is to provide a place where people with medical and developmental issues, or adults whose family needs help with day care, can come to allow families some space for the other things in their lives. The Respite Center provides adult day care, child day care as well as weekend and overnight care. The Respite Center gives families a break from the rigor of dealing with special requirements and allows parents time to focus on other children, each other or other members of the family. Sharon noted that the Respite Center welcomes volunteers who can help with projects for which the center doesn't receive assistance - from maintenance of the facilities to gardening and other projects to improve the living environment. Visit their website at www.HopkintonRespite.com.
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The Summer Carnival is open at the FSU parking lot on Rt 9. This full size carnival that draws many attendees from around the area requires two ticket booths manned by our Club members. Special "thanks" to Tom Sturiale for heading up this great fundraiser.
Six sophomores selected from our areas high schools were sent to RYLA for the weekend to experience "Service Above Self'" and gain leadership skills.
Club member Ken Erdelt presented a very interesting presentation on how to communicate to others that may have a different communicate style.
The Installation Dinner to formally install the new co-presidents and officers of
the Club was held on June 21st at the Framingham Country Club. Dick Manelis and Tom Sturiale were installed as Co-Presidents.
In addition several other awards were given out:
Eight members received Paul Harris awards in addition to the two honorary Paul Harris awards.Rick McPherson accepted the Organization of the Year award on 
behalf of the Framingham YMCA.
behalf of the Framingham YMCA. Bob Schecter received 
the Framingham Rotary's Rotarian of the Year award
the Framingham Rotary's Rotarian of the Year awardEdgar Kalinda was named the Citizen of the Year in honor of his Service Above Self acts in the community including the most self-less act of all - volunteering to donate one of his kidneys to help his mentor, and our club co-
president, Tom, with a much needed organ transplant.
president, Tom, with a much needed organ transplant. 
Once again our Club is "manning" a table at the Friday night Concerts on the Green to promote our Club.
Once again the Duck Pluck was a hit for the younger ones - netting a duck and receiving a gift. The Pluck was supported by 8 Interact high school kids who did most of the work with visitors to the pavilion.
At the recent MetroFest 10 Club members supported Operation Playhouse, a Habitat for Humanity program that provides playhouses to selected Veterans with young children. Our family's little girl, Georgia, was thrilled by her Minnie Mouse-themed playhouse. It was a beautiful house and was featured in the Metrowest Daily News.
Our Rotary Club enjoyed a bit of fellowship with a picnic at Simpson Park on the Sudbury River. Box lunches, conversation and games ruled the lunch hour in place of our normal lunch time meeting. Sun filled day with great camaraderie.
Natalia Steffen from Special Olympics of Massachusetts attended the meeting today as a guest of Ron Isaacson and gave a 
short address to the Club to express appreciation for the $1000 donation to Special Olympics the Club collected during Marathon Day. She noted that this year was especially challenging due to the bad weather on Marathon Day. There are 12,500 Special Olympic athletes in MA. All the contributions go to help the athletes that range from 2 years to 98 years of age.
short address to the Club to express appreciation for the $1000 donation to Special Olympics the Club collected during Marathon Day. She noted that this year was especially challenging due to the bad weather on Marathon Day. There are 12,500 Special Olympic athletes in MA. All the contributions go to help the athletes that range from 2 years to 98 years of age.Our meeting today was largely focused on the 2018 Accommodation Awards handed out by the MWOC to companies who demonstrated a commitment to employing persons with disabilities in our community. Rutty Guzdar kicked off the session with a brief overview of the origins of the MWOC many years ago when it grew out of a Jobs Fair event targeted on helping disabled persons with job placement assistance. She introduced MWOC's Mary Jane Kunycky, Employment Services Manager, Programs for People, who moderated the Program.
State Representatives Carmen Gentile and Jack Lewis presided over the presentation of the 2018 Accommodation Awards to representatives from four employers in the area: Pet Supplies Plus in Ashland, TJX / Homesense, Stop and Shop (Wayland) and the Boys and Girls Club of Assabet Valley. The Awards were given "In recognition of demonstrated commitment to hiring and accommodating individuals with disabilities."
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The annual Scholarship Luncheon was held at Keefe Tech on May 14th. Ten scholarships worth $45,000 in total were awarded to High School Seniors from several communities served by the Framingham Rotary. Dr. Javier Cevallos, Chairman of the Education Committee, presided over the ceremonies which were attended by students, their families, friends and guidance counselors and the members of our Club. 10 seniors from Framingham, Hollison, Hopkinton, Keefe Tech and The Learning Center each received a certificate and a scholarship for $4,500.
Susan Wilkins, Director of Education at the International Museum of WWII in Natick was our speaker. This museum is the only international museum of WWII in the world and has the been made a reality through the passion and work of Ken Rendell to collect over 500,000 total artifacts since 1959. Susan provided a great overview of the museum's attractions which included various weapons, uniforms, Enigma Machines, various personal items from major figures and artifacts from WWII. But what was unique was the amazing set of documents that exist no where else in the world such as a Flyer for the Treaty of Versailles with Hitlers handwritten notes, a signed version of the actual Treaty of Versailles of 1919 and a 1938 working draft of the Munich Agreement with handwritten edits.
Check out their website for information on hours of operation and tours.
On Saturday 12 May, 21 Rotarians and 12 students from the Fuller High School Interact Club working on various projects around Framingham. Service activities included;
- Simpson Park - some raking, spreading chips, brush clearing
- Parks & Rec - planting small trees and simple gardening
- YMCA - landscaping and clean up
- Veterans - cleaning up around veterans' graves in Edwards Street Cemetery clearing the ground level plaques, cleaning the stones (soap & water & brush). The Fuller School students created over 400 greeting cards for the veterans at the VA hospital.
- Nursing home - calling bingo at Waterview Lodge in Ashland for the residents.
Sam was one of 21 Super Heroes that were honored and their stories of Service Above Self were inspiring. Service work is how members of the community get to know what Rotary does and attracts more members to contribute more community service work. Distric Governor Karin Gaffney presented Sam with the award, his pin and a Super Hero T-Shirt. Congratulations Sam!
The Rotary Club distribute flowers to residents of 7 nursing homes in Framingham and Ashland as a celebration of Spring. In an interesting twist of irony, the flowers were delivered on Monday in the snow.
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Jon Evans, Superintendent of Keefe Technical High School first read Keefe Tech's mission: "Our mission is to challenge students to demonstrate the academic, technical, and interpersonal skills necessary for successful lifelong learning." and then went on to explain how the organization is pursuing that mission through the depth and breadth of the 16 career and technical programs offered to the over 700 students currently enrolled. He explained that many people have a mis-perception that the school is only a technical school but that it actually offers an extensive and full set of academic programs that include AP and STEM classes and supports dual enrollment opportunities with MASS Bay and Framingham State University. In fact, 69% of the 2017 class went on to pursue college career programs.
4 new members from the Framingham Police department were installed last Monday by Rotary District Governor Karin Gaffney, Club Co-president Dick Manelis and Chairperson Kevin Webber.
The Framingham Rotary Club manned a table at the Taste of MetroWest with various Rotarians providing information regarding our Club.
Mark Contois, Director of Libraries for the city of Framingham, and Ruth Winett, Chair of the Library Foundation, attended the meeting on March 19th and provided an overview of the library services and the new initiative to put a Bookmobile back on the streets of Framingham. Mark shared a graphic showing the huge variety and volume (over 1,500,000) points of services the library provides. He described the unique programs offered including special programs for high school seniors and FSU; summer reading, visiting authors, adult reading, concerts and movies and a wide array of print and electronic resources. Mark and Ruth discussed the initiative to get a bookmobile to be able to once again bridge the library to different parts of the community where getting to the main facilities is not as easy or convenient. They currently have about 2/3rds of the money needed. Donations from individuals and organizations are welcome. Currently there is a matching program for individual donations.
Wendy Rocco shared her wonderful and amazing story of how she started Operation American Soldier when her step-daughter was serving a tour of duty in Kuwait in 2003 and found that many of the basic supplies we typically use every day simply were not available in the post exchange or in the local stores. She found that some soldiers weren't getting mail from home so began a campaign to ask people to send simple Thank You notes or other correspondence that can be given to the soldiers to help feed their spirits as well as their bodies. The program has grown over the years and they now ship packages to over 6 theaters including Afghanistan, Kosovo, Cuba, South Korea and Africa. All of their efforts are funded through donations and their own fund-raising events like the upcoming golf tournament
