Kent Porter is a photojournalist based in Sonoma County, California. He has been employed by the Santa Rosa Press Democrat for over 30 years.
During the past five years, Kent has been concerned with the effects of climate change in Northern California. His work has been increasingly dedicated to covering wildfire and other natural disasters in and around the region and how Northern California communities are dealing with the lasting impacts of wildfire devastation.
Kent was part of the Press Democrat's team which won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the October, 2017 Tubbs fire. He is a three-time National Press Photographer Association's West Region Photographer of the Year, plus the recipient of numerous state and national awards. Kent’s photographs have been published worldwide, including Time, Newsweek, Mother Jones, and The New York, Los Angeles, and London Times.
Kent looks forward to continuing his dramatic photographic work related to environmental change on a local and national level.
At his April 3 presentation to the Santa Rosa Sunrise Rotary, Kent will be showing many of his award-winning photographs, including some from the Tubbs fire. Kent's engaging storytelling will provide the background that brings these photographs to life.
Braver Angels, Presented by Ellie Sears and Paul Schwebel
Our speakers for Thursday, March 27, 2025 were Ellie Sears and Paul Schwebel on behalf of Braver Angels. Ellie joined Braver Angels in 2021; Paul joined in 2020. Ellie worked in fashion retail management for 30 years and joined Braver Angels when she became exhausted by the constant barrage of political rhetoric from the media and her friends and began looking for a connection to sanity and goodwill. Paul joined to find opportunities to engage with people who have different backgrounds and opinions. Paul is a life-long musician who worked in IT before retirement. Braver Angels is a non-partisan organization who use discussions of politics as a vehicle to bring people together. The idea is to understand people on the other side of the political divide. Ellie mentioned that Braver Angels was a huge surprise to her because she made many friends and her world expanded exponentially. Paul learned in Braver Angels meetings that the people “on the other side” are often thoughtful and care deeply about this country. Both Ellie and Paul have found that despite the red/blue divide in our country, we have more in common with than we think. Braver Angels envisions the respectful embrace of political disagreements and embraces values of respect, humility, honesty, and responsible citizenship.
Braver Angels teaches participants how to have a political discussion with someone who disagrees with your own viewpoint. Paul and Ellie introduced a mode of discussion in which one person argues in favor of a particular issue (such as federal funding cuts). The other person listens carefully, and, when its their turn to speak, acknowledges what the other person says (for example, “I hear you”), asks “Can I tell you what I think?” and then says something like “I agree that funding needs to be looked at but disagree with the way it is being done.” This often leads to a meaningful and helpful discussion that shows significant common ground. The meeting’s discussion also raised the question of whether Rotary is the appropriate place for Braver Angels-stye political discussions. Braver Angels believes that a respectful and thoughtful political discussion is a way to foster peace and is thus consistent with Rotary’s peace initiative. On the other hand, several club members pointed out that Rotary is a non-partisan service organization and political discussions are unnecessary and possible unhelpful and divisive.
Many thanks to Paul and Ellie for their presentation of Braver Angels’ organization, philosophy, and practices.
Click HERE to view a limited time recording of the Braver Angels' presentation.
On a regular basis, our resident photo pro Warren Smith, submits pictures of what is going on at the weekly meetings. You can always find the most recent pictures at the websites photo journal called "Meeting Sighting" Please note that all the meeting photos for the entire Rotary year are at this location with the most recent on the last page.
Thanks for all the great pictures Warren!Link to Meeting Sightings. The most recent are on the last page!
Interact Students Rack Up Their Service Hours and Make an Impact!
Our Elsie Allen Interact Club has been very active this year. To date, there have been 12 service events Interact was involved in, with 26 total students participating, and 351 total service hours.
Listed below is each event, the date, and a brief description of the services students provided
Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery Clean Up 10/19/24
Students assisted with cleaning/refurbishment of gravestones and maintenance and vegetation overgrowth removal at this historic cemetery in Santa Rosa.
Elsie Allen Foundation Fiesta 11/2/24
Students provided volunteer services at the Elsie Allen Foundation’s annual fundraising event.
Santa Rosa Place to Play Clean Up 11/9/25
Students assisted with refurbishing and improving an existing dog park and baseball fields at the Santa Rosa Place to Play Park.
Redwood Gospel Mission Thanksgiving 11/24/24
Students provided a variety of dinner service tasks during the Redwood Gospel Mission’s Thanksgiving Banquet at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds. Plating and serving of food, prepping and clearing tables as bussers, and serving as banquet hosts to coordinate sitting of guests were all services provide by the students. It is estimated that the approximately 2,000 individuals were served during the service window that the students participated in.
Secret Santa Bike Build 12/7/24
Students joined our fellow Rotarians in assembling an estimated 300 bicycles for the Sonoma County Secret Santa non-profit gift giving program. The bicycles were to be provided locally to those less fortunate for Christmas.
Secret Santa Gift Wrapping 12/14/24
Students assisted in wrapping some of the 13,000 gifts coordinated and processed by the Secret Santa program for gifting to those less fortunate during Christmas.
Valley of the Moon Children’s Xmas Shopping 12/19/24
Students shopped for various Christmas gifts for the Valley of the Moon Children’s Center. The VMCC serves youths aged 0-17 that have experienced physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, abandonment, or neglect at home by providing a safe place to go. The VMCC youths provide Christmas wish lists, and our Interact students, utilizing funds raised through our Interact and Rotary clubs, perform a shopping spree to several stores to address as many of the wish list items as possible. This annual event is one of our Interact student’s favorites.
Santa Rosa Coffey Park Clean Up 1/8/25
Students assisted with improving landscaping and refurbishing another dog park at this popular Santa Rosa park.
Rotary Meeting Takeover 2/20/25
Our Interact Club students “took over” our weekly Rotary meeting, with the Interact officers actually running the meeting. Interact President Maria Ramirez ran the meeting in place of our Rotary Club President Cindy Gillespie, while the other Interact officers coordinated the Pledge, provided the thought of the day, and served as Greeter. Several of the non-officer Interact students attended the meeting as well and sat and visited with our Rotary club members.
Rotary Roseland Walk 2/22/25
Several students joined in on our Rotary club’s monthly walk. This walk was through the historic Roseland neighborhood in south Santa Rosa, which is within the Elsie Allen High School area, and likely home of several Elsie Allen students. The walk was a great success, and had the most participants of any of our Rotary Club’s walks or hikes over the last 10 years.
Active 20/30 Club Crab Feed 3/1/25
Students provided volunteer services at the Santa Rosa Active 20/30 Club’s annual fundraising event.
Science Discovery Day 3/1/25
Students donned lab coats and provided several volunteer services at this free community science festival at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds. The event has 100+ exhibitors and approximately 10,000 attendees. The Interact students assisted with set up, walking the event grounds to answer questions and provide event maps, and assist attendees with exit surveys when leaving the event.
Compliment of today's 3/31/25 Press Democrat article on community response to food insecurity.
Sunrise volunteers and friends give over 20 hours weekly support towards reducing food insecurity in Sonoma County. At FISH alone, our selected food pantry to support, that distributes to 500 people essential food stuffs.
With a 400% increase in demand and recent funding cuts our help in collecting donations of food from Target, Safeway, Lucky, Whole Foods and more are a huge input to community health and stability.
To leverage resources, Sunrise Support Raffle this year has designated FISH a prime beneficiary.
Ask our volunteers Steve Z, Peter H, and Paul how their time nourishes them. Additional drivers and sorters are welcome!
When 50 to 60 mph winds blew over the large welcome sign at the Stony Point Community Garden in January, the garden manager asked if Rotary could help resurrect the structure. Who ya gonna call? The Golden Hammer of course.
A quick assessment by Leroy, Rob, Paul and friend Garrett determined that they were not going to be able to lift the 350-pound structure (strong and buff as they are) so the roof was taken off to lighten the load, concrete poured around new posts, and the sign was hoisted back into place last Friday.
A guy asks a girl to go to a dance. She agrees, and he decides to rent a suit. The rental has a long line, so he waits and waits, and finally he gets his suit. He decides to buy flowers, so he goes to the flower shop. The flower shop has a long line, so he waits and waits, until he finally buys flowers. He picks up the girl and they go to the dance. There is a long line into the dance, so they wait and wait. Finally, they get into the dance, and the guy offers to get the girl a drink. She asks for punch, so he goes to the drink table, and there is no punch line.
One of Rotary’s earliest service projects helped to bring public toilets to Chicago, the quickly growing industrial city in the Midwest of the United States where Rotary began in 1905. Club members didn’t construct the restrooms themselves, as they sometimes do today. But just as they do today, they worked with other local groups to raise awareness of the need for sanitation in this urban area and advocated to get the project funded.
These public toilets, then known as “comfort stations,” were typically underground structures at busy sites such as parks and public squares. Civic leaders and reformers in several American cities were noting a need for them, and Rotary members in Chicago were part of the movement.
Program for a forum organized by the Rotary Club of Chicago, 24 October 1907.
Entrances to public toilets at LaSalle and Washington Streets in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Before February 1955. These entrances no longer exist.
Rotary founder Paul Harris and his fellow member Donald Carter worked with other club members and other organizations to make a plan to build public toilet facilities in the city and gather support for the initiative.
In October 1907, the Chicago Daily Tribune (now the Chicago Tribune) reported that the Rotary Club of Chicago had had plans drawn for public toilets in the downtown district known as the Loop. The club held a forum on the topic later that month, noting, “the topic is many-sided and can be treated to best advantage if we start with recognition of this fact and with due appreciation of its significance.” Representatives from the club, the city, and other local organizations spoke at the meeting. The discussion cited the need for Chicago to keep up with the latest practices in municipal improvements and considered who would pay for the project and what impact it might have on sanitary conditions and public health in the city.
Their efforts were noticed beyond Chicago. In December, Charities and the Commons, a weekly journal about social issues that was published in New York, reported on a study that found a lack of public comfort stations in Chicago.
Entrance to public toilets at LaSalle and Washington Streets in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Before February 1955.
Entrance to public toilets at LaSalle and Washington Streets in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Before February 1975.
The project faced opposition from the Chicago Association of Brewers and the Association of Department Stores on State Street, which represented businesses that had public toilets. In the social conventions of the time, men could use toilets in bars or their own places of business. Women’s access to sanitation facilities was more limited. Often the only toilets it was acceptable for them to use were in department stores, where they were expected to make purchases.
Chicago was building a new city hall at the time, and it was suggested that public toilets be constructed there. By March 1908, at least one location had been approved, and others were being considered. The City of Chicago and Cook County each allocated about US$20,000 for the project.
As the city hall building neared completion in January 1911, the Chicago Daily Tribune reported, “In the basement are public comfort stations for men and women, entered at the Washington and LaSalle street corner of the building.”
Paul Harris later recalled that additional public toilets were proposed but a lack of funding prevented the effort from expanding. Underground roads were also expected to be built in the future, and people thought that might require a different approach.
Today, the outline of one of the entrances can still be seen on the outside wall of city hall, along LaSalle Street. And Rotary members continue work to get clean water and sanitation to people in communities around the world.
— March 2025
Rotary Club of Santa Rosa Sunrise - Founded June 30, 1986
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