Antonio Vigil, a lifelong Sonoma County resident and proud graduate of Analy High School, Santa Rosa Junior College, and UC Berkeley with a BA degree in Business. He began his career with California Human Development, a local non-profit serving farm workers and other economically disadvantaged residents. His first position at CHD was assisting individuals with disabilities find employment. Eventually, he became the Manager of their vocational training center where English and vocational skills were taught together.
He was then hired by the County of Sonoma and has been with their Employment and Training Division for almost 28 years. At Employment and Training the goal is to help connect employers and job seekers. He has overseen special projects helping different populations such as Ex-offenders and English Language Learners, and most recently those experiencing homelessness.
Scott Holder, Greatest Guest Day Speaker, on Lessons Learned from the Highest Peaks in the World
Our Greatest Guest Day speaker for September 30, 2021, was Scott Holder with “Lessons Learned from the Highest Peaks in the World.” Scott is a long-time Santa Rosa Sunrise member, a partner in the financial services firm Edward Jones, and a high peak climber extraordinaire. Scott is married to Tricia, has two daughters (one of whom was married last week), and is an avid pilot and outdoorsman. In 2010, at age 45, Scott decided to climb the highest peak on each continent (the “seven summits”) before his 50th birthday. He almost made it but was ultimately denied the opportunity to summit Mt. Everest when a massive earthquake tore through Nepal killing 10,000 people, including 18 people in his camp.
Scott’s high-peak climbing days began while he was in an airport in Boise looking for something to read and found Jon Krakauer’s “Into Thin Air” about the 1996 Mt. Everest disaster. Scott, who admits to being slightly goal-oriented, decided to climb all seven peaks in 5-years. He started with “small” mountains like Mr. Rainer, Mt. Shasta, and Mt. Orizaba in Mexico before taking on the seven summits. Scott mentioned that one of the most amazing parts of his journey was learning about the cultures around these mountains, but the life lessons he learned during his expeditions were even more exciting.
He tried to climb Mr. Denali in 2010. It was very hard, very cold, and he failed. He contracted bronchitis on the slope and did not summit. He thought he was ready for it but he did not anticipate the difficulties. He discovered that he needed world class training. Scott learned that ‘failure is ok – not learning from it is not ok.’ Scott redoubled his efforts and took on Aconcagua after working with personal trainers and taking super long bike rides. Aconcagua, in Mendoza Province, Argentina is the jumping off point for this 23,838-foot mountain, the highest in the Americas. The trip to the summit takes 18 days; you have to go slowly, and you have to do a lot of backtracking. You climb up to thousands of feet, dig a hole and bury your food and equipment, go back down to base camp, and then go up again the next day! Scott’s lesson: Progress is not Always FORWARD! And, Scott reminded us of the immortal words of – checks notes – Frank Zappa: “Without deviation from the norm, forward progress is not possible.”
Scott climbed to the summit on 6 of the highest mountains in the world. He planted the Sunrise Rotary flag at the top of each of these mountains. And, his efforts resulted in a variety of donations for Rotary’s polio eradication efforts, including his $1 per step fundraiser for climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, which brought in donations of $20,000!
Well-done, Scott. We can’t wait to hear about your next adventure! Thank you for being our greatest guest!
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!
It’s October and that means Indian Summers, pumpkin spiced lattes, and the opportunity to curl up on the couch and watch all your favorite scary movies. In the spirit of this spooky month, I want to introduce you to a shadow part of our astrology chart. It’s Black Moon Lilith. We all have a Black Moon Lilith, and it is something to embrace. Black Moon Lilith is the geometric point in the sky that marks the furthest point of the moon’s orbit around the earth.
Lilith represents our primitive impulses and our rawest behavior. Named after the goddess Lilith who was deemed a demonic, child-eating night monster. This raven-haired goddess was known as the first vampire to roam the earth. A true seductress who represented lust and carnal desire. Lilith’s story has evolved over the years. In contemporary times she is lauded as a feminist icon that sets strong boundaries over male domination. This is true empowerment!
So how does this play into our everyday lives? It represents our deepest shadow self. It is the most vulnerable, darkest side of our personality. Please do not panic! This doesn’t mean that we are all serial killers or complete psychos. This means that these are aspects of our personalities that we may be ashamed of and hide from others. And shame is not a good thing, so Lilith challenges us to bring that shame to light and expose it for what it is and give us the freedom to live our fullest lives.
Your Black Moon Lilith is what inspires you to go against toxic social constraints and take a stand for what is right. Have you ever been faced with a situation where you rejected a tradition that no longer served you and society as a whole? How did you feel when you made that choice?
Read more below and discover how ArtStart is partnering to empower young artists refine their talent, and make history come alive for everyone.
WEAVING CULTURES
the Elsie Allen Mural
"Weaving Cultures, the Elsie Allen Mural” was created by approximately 40 students and two teachers from Elsie Allen High School with the guidance of Hannah Day and other Artstart artists. The original design and concept (created by Angelica Salas de Torres and Kathryn Loomis and their students) was adapted by Artstart Lead Artist Hannah Day to fit the available wall space and to be executed as a distance learning mural with major components painted off site by Elsie Allen students and Artstart artists.
The mural centers around a portrait of the school’s namesake, Elsie Allen, an activist and revered basket weaver of the Pomo tribe, who sits beneath a black oak flanked by the school’s mascot, the lobo. The tree is draped in a number of vibrant flags, symbolizing the about twenty different nationalities represented at the school.
The backdrop of Taylor Mountain and Colgan creek were painted in May 2021, with the help of Elsie Allen students, over the course of a month. The landscape was painted in progressively lighter layers, the thickest layer being a bright underpainting of reds, pinks, and yellows, which show through the upper layers of naturalistic blues and greens.
The large black oak tree, Elise Allen, and the Lobo, were all painted offsite, by Elise Allen students and Artstart artists, on mural fabric, and then adhered to the wall. These pieces have been painted with a similar method of slowly layering translucent, bright colors to create a kind of watercolor effect. The Tree was predominantly painted by Elise Allen Students Crystal Millan Mendoza and Jessenia Garcia, during Artstart’s summer session, the lobo and Elise Allen were painted by Angel Manansala, and Kimberly respectively. The flags that hang from the tree were also painted by Elsie Allen students, from home, during distance learning.
M.J. Girard is currently an on air personality on KOWSfm.com His “Roots of Rock” is broadcast every Sunday morning at 7 AM
Chilly mornings and cool winds blow as the sun continues its journey southwards. Which is exactly what Lynda and I will be doing mid-month, visiting our friends and family in Puerto Vallarta on the Banderas Bay, where they filmed “Night Of The Iguana” starring Elizabeth Taylor. There’s a big stature honoring John Houston, the director, in the plaza.
Along that theme, this Sundays Roots of Rock will feature the Latin influences of popular music, many artists from the west coast, others from around the globe intermingled with the “usual suspects” of Rock ‘n Roll …
The following Sunday’s session, on the 17th, will be an encore of The Rolling Stones part two. Upon my return I shall feature the sounds of San Francisco during its heyday in the 1960’s.
Stay safe and prepare for the holi-daze where most everything seems to be in short supply, everything except our appreciation of Life, Liberty and our staunch belief in the American Dream!
A woman spent almost all of her vacation sunbathing on the roof of her hotel. She wore a bathing suit the first day, but in the second, she decided that no one could see her way up there, and she slopped out of it for an overall tan. She’d hardly begun when she heard someone running up the stairs; she was lying on her stomach, so she just pulled a towel over her rear. “Excuse me miss,” said the flustered little assistant manager of the hotel, out of breath from running up the stairs. “The hotel doesn’t mind you sunbathing on the roof but we would very much appreciate you wearing a bathing suit as you did yesterday.” “What difference does it make?” the woman asked rather calmly. “No one can see me up here, and besides, I’m covered with a towel.” “Not exactly”, said the embarrassed little man. “You’re lying on the dining room skylight.”
A quarter of the Rotary year is now behind us. I am sure you are helping Rotary to grow more and do more. And I hope you have already done your part for the Each One, Bring One initiative by introducing one person to Rotary.
Do you ever think about your earliest days as a Rotarian? I often do — because those first moments of discovering the power of service shaped who I am today. When I joined my Rotary club, our efforts focused on India’s rural communities, where people were living without toilets, getting their drinking water from the same pond they bathed in, and sending their children to outdoor classrooms set up under a tree. The nearest health care provider often was miles away — and the services were inadequate. But after Rotary clubs carried out some service projects, the villages had toilets, clean drinking water, a classroom for early learning, and a nearby health care center.
The spark that Rotary kindled within me forced me to look beyond myself and embrace humanity. It made service a way of life and led me to a guiding principle I still stand by: Service is the rent I pay for the space I occupy on Earth.
If you feel the need to reignite the spark of service in yourself or your club, October — Community Economic Development Month — is a great time to do so. When we work to improve the lives of people in underserved communities — through, for example, projects that provide vocational training and access to financial resources — we help build and sustain local economic growth.
The need is great. According to the United Nations, 9 percent of the world’s population — that’s 700 million people, a majority of them in sub-Saharan Africa — live on less than $1.90 a day. By supporting strong community development as well as entrepreneurs, we can help improve conditions for people in that region and others.
Your club can also promote economic development in your own community by expanding vocational training opportunities through local schools and community colleges, partnering with lenders to improve access to financial services, or working with a nonprofit that provides resources to entrepreneurs and connects them with the business community.
Of course, developing strong communities is impossible without strong public health. On 24 October, World Polio Day, we’ll celebrate our tremendous progress in the effort to eradicate polio. But we also know the fight is not over. We still need your help raising funds and awareness to ensure that all children are immunized against polio. Please don’t forget to activate your clubs on that important day and encourage them to donate here: endpolio.org/world-polio-day.
Service has been rewarding for me throughout my life. I know the same is true for many of you. Join me this month in becoming a good tenant of our planet by helping others to better themselves and their communities. Together, we can Serve to Change Lives.
When Rotary courageously stepped up to pursue the dream of a polio-free world, we knew realizing our dream wouldn’t be easy. But since 1988, working with our partners, we’ve brought worldwide case counts down by 99.9 percent.
However, it’s not over ’til it’s over. It will take courage. We’re going to keep up the funding and keep on the pressure until this fight is finished, and no child ever again has to experience the devastating effects of polio.
As we mark World Polio Day on 24 October, we can take heart; we continue to make progress, and with the current low transmission rates of wild poliovirus in Afghanistan and Pakistan, we have a unique opportunity to interrupt transmission. We also have a new strategy and vaccine that will bolster our eradication efforts.
To eradicate wild poliovirus and stop outbreaks of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus (cVDPV), the Global Polio Eradication Initiative’s new strategy centers around several key areas: political advocacy to create greater urgency and accountability in the endemic and outbreak countries, improved engagement with high-risk communities, improved operations and polio surveillance, and the inclusion of polio immunization in broader health programs. (For more on the new polio eradication strategy, see page 30.)
Along with our new strategy, Rotary and its partners are using a new tool, novel oral polio vaccine (nOPV2), to help address outbreaks of type 2 cVDPV. This new vaccine has been deployed in a growing list of countries and is a promising development in our quest to end polio once and for all.
But there is still much work to be done. In particular, we need to remain strongly committed to our goals in the face of recent events in Afghanistan. As a nonpolitical organization, Rotary will continue to do the work that is necessary to protect the health of children everywhere.
After all the progress we’ve made in our decades-long fight, the worst thing we could do is to become complacent, so here’s where you come in.
Let’s raise awareness of Rotary’s role in polio eradication. And let’s double down on our commitment and keep raising $50 million each year for polio. Remember: Thanks to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, any contribution you or your Rotary or Rotaract club makes will be matched 2 to 1.
In Rotary, when we dream, we get behind our dream with everything we can muster. We have always risen to challenges — and now it is more important than ever for us to rise again, with courage, to defeat polio.
RI President-elect Jennifer Jones announces Rotary’s $97 million pledge for sustainable projects during Global Citizen Live
The star-studded global event rallied people to take action on some of the world’s most urgent problems
by Ryan Hyland
RI President-elect Jennifer Jones, right, announces Rotary’s $97 million pledge for sustainable projects during the Global Citizen Live event on 25 September in Paris, France. She’s joined on stage with British actress Carmen Ejogo.
Credit: Getty Images for Global Citizen
Rotary International President-elect Jennifer Jones took the stage at the Global Citizen Live concert on 25 September in Paris, France, and pledged $97 million in grant funding from the organization next year for sustainable, Rotary club-led projects.
Global Citizen Live, a 24-hour broadcast with events and performances across six continents, aimed to unite people to take action to defend the planet, end the COVID-19 pandemic, defeat poverty, provide education for all children, and promote equity and justice for all. Some of the world’s top artists, celebrities, activists, and government leaders participated in this year’s event to raise awareness and support in cities including Paris; Lagos, Nigeria; London, UK; Los Angeles, USA; New York City, USA; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Seoul, Korea; and Sydney, Australia.
In Paris, where Jones pledged Rotary’s support, thousands of people gathered at the iconic Champ de Mars near the Eiffel Tower to see performances from Elton John, Ed Sheeran, Black Eyed Peas, Christine and the Queens, Doja Cat, Angélique Kidjo, and more. Other leaders pledging support included European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo.
“Every day millions of girls walk miles to fetch clean water, and millions of boys are on the streets instead of going to school. Every day moms and dads struggle to find ways to feed their children,” Jones said from the main stage in Paris. “And every day, members of Rotary and Global Citizen start our days knowing that we can make a difference.”
“This year we’re putting a special focus on empowering girls worldwide, opening doors for young women to build brighter futures,” Jones said. “Today Rotary is committed to helping end poverty globally and protecting the planet by pledging $97 million in grant funding during 2022 for sustainable, member-led projects.”
She added: “We stand together with Global Citizen as people of purpose, people of action.”
Rotary has worked with Global Citizen for a more than decade, primarily regarding the effort to eradicate polio worldwide. At the 2012 Global Citizen event in New York City, Rotary General Secretary John Hewko and celebrity ambassador Archie Panjabi announced Rotary’s $75 million commitment to polio eradication. Rotary and Global Citizen have also connected at Rotary International Conventions, the Commonwealth Heads of Governments Meetings, polio advocacy events, and polio funding announcements.
In total, more than $1.1 billion in commitments, 157 million trees to be planted, and 60 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to be donated to developing countries were announced in conjunction with the 25 September event.
28-Sept-2021
Rotary Club of Santa Rosa Sunrise - Founded June 30, 1986
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