Four Years After the 2017 Fires: How is Rebuilding Going and What Lies Ahead for the Construction Industry?
Four Years After the 2017 Fires: How is Rebuilding Going and What Lies Ahead for the Construction Industry?
“NCBE CEO Keith Woods has spent the past four years working with fire victims, homebuilders, and government officials throughout the North Bay to help with the recovery of over 7000 lost homes. He will bring Santa Rosa Sunrise Rotarians up-to-date on rebuilding successes and failures, and also give an outlook for the construction industry over the next decade. If he senses that no one is really interested in what he’s saying, he will pivot to talking about the SF Giants’ totally unexpected great year.”
The Homeless Employment Pilot Project by Antonio Vigil, Lupe Castaneda, and Eileen Morris.
Our guests for Homeless Employment Project presentation on October 7, 2021, were Antonio Vigil and Lupe Castaneda, counselors at the Sonoma County Employment and Training Division, and Eileen Morris, Client Enrichment Services Manager at COTS. Antonio is the supervising counselor and has been employed at the Division for almost 28 years.
The Division is working with a number of key partners to implement the program.
They are implementing in two phases: the 1st phase is focused on people with temporary shelter and the 2nd will be focused on those without shelter. The key idea is to create a support system for referrals by collaborating with partners and adjusting to meet the referral’s needs. The Division will also use other County resources, such as On the Job Training, Temporary Work Experience, and Supportive Services, to help participants transition to employment. The program has already achieved significant accomplishments. They had their first workgroup meeting in April and started receiving referrals in May. They surveyed those experiencing homelessness to find out what they need to get back into the workforce. They have started fundraising to purchase gift cards to incentivize participants. For example, participants can get a $15.00 gift card for registering with the program or taking a mock interview. Fundraising is also necessary to pay for things that participants need to reenter the job market. They also enlisted volunteers from the Workforce Investment Board to help with mock interviews. One mock interview significantly helped a participant get a job!
Key findings from the survey regarding barriers to employment:
Some key statistics: they’ve had 40 total referrals, with 19 cases still open. Five people have gained employment. Some of the reasons for exiting the program include communication issues, the inability to contact them, relapse, and mental health.
Lupe Castaneda spoke about the program’s challenges and successes. The challenges start with the difficulty communicating with people who don’t have phones, or whose phones don’t work, or who don’t have viable email connections. She told us about 3 of her customers whose lives have been improved even after a few contacts. Ms. A. was homeless with 3 children and the victim of domestic violence. Her last job ended as a result of COVID-19. Lupe helped her apply for Cash Aid, Medi-Cal, and Food Stamps and she will get all of these, which will help her employment.
Eileen told a story about one of their clients, Rebecca. She has been homeless for a decade. She earned her AA in medical billing and coding while working on her laptop in her car. The pilot program worked with her challenges, including spotty work history, technology issues, and confidence issues. Pedro at Job Links helped her with her resume and did mock interviews, which gave her increased self-confidence. He also used his channels to help her apply for jobs. She is now on her 2nd week on the job and loving it! Everyone at COTS knows she got a great job and they are asking about the program!
What can Rotarians do? They are always looking for file organizers, gas cards, bus passes, flexible funding, and people to help with mock interviews!
Thank you so much Antonio, Lupe, and Eileen! You have a great story to tell and we appreciate learning about your good work.
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 that time of year where the sunlight begins to wane earlier in the evening. The amber and tawny landscape makes us nostalgic. Mornings are crisp. Harvest is almost complete. The air smells of leaves and yearning. The veils of our conscious realm are thin.
The opportunity to have contact from a loved one on the other side is much stronger when the light of the summer moves into the dimness of fall. Visits from those who we have lost-or those who were lost before we had a chance to meet them is a gift. They are our spirit guides. They are the relatives that we loved and knew that left their physical form, and they are our ancestors and those who we knew and loved in past lives. When times are tough, they visit. They can visit through music, dreams, a specific scent, or a visit from an animal.
When times are wonderful, they also celebrate with us. They are our biggest advocates, and they are here to help us through our conscious lives. Most of us are not aware of their presence and their eagerness to still be an integral part of our lives. These souls are here to guide us, teach us, and show us how we can be the best versions of ourselves. It’s the willingness to be still and listen carefully that lets us receive this beautiful gift.
Have you ever had a loved one visit you in your dreams? Or have you felt their presence in a strong and profound way? How did you feel after your experience? What insight did it bring you?
These“high 5’s” celebrate moments members share during our meeting
Doug Shureen reported that he now has 2 grandchildren-to-be. Their entries are expected on or about December 7 and March 4. Don’t expect much of Doug for the next 20 years or so!
Max Childs has a new Vespa! We are begging Max for a photo of him rolling down the road on his Grease lightning!
Merle is stayed with her college roommate at her son’s Tahoe condo. It seems that Homer will soon have a new friend!
Peter shared that his heart is now in "sinus rhythm", after having a procedure this past week called cardio-version. This procedure was needed to get him out of "atrial fibrillation" or "a-fib", an arrhythmia condition where the two smaller upper chambers of the heart are electrically misfiring. A-fib itself is not life-threatening, but can increase the chances of other bad outcomes, like stroke. A-fib is a condition that tends to re-occur, so it may require other remedies in the future. But for now, the cardio-version procedure worked well and Peter is firing on all cylinders.
Steve Herron depleted his retirement funds to get his daughter down the aisle! Wife and Husband tied the knot at the Sonoma Depot Hotel. We are waiting for photos or video from the father-daughter dance.
The inaugural North Coast Ethics in Business competition
In case you missed it, District 5130 held the awards ceremony for the inaugural North Coast Ethics in Business competition Friday. Unfortunately, thanks to a virus interrupting our reality, it wasn’t the fancy banquet at a District Conference PDG Doug Johnson had envisioned when he had the germ (no pun intended) of the idea over a year ago. However, the Zoom ceremony was remarkably well organized, entertaining, inspiring, very well attended and meaningful. 70 exceptional firms were nominated by Rotarians from District 5130, 14 by Santa Rosa Sunrise Rotary alone (thanks everyone who participated!). The hour and a half presentation mixed three-minute video clips by the three finalists in each of four categories, $500 to $1,000 scholarship were awarded and short introductions made by three Interactors active in the field of business ethics and a fascinating talk given by Dr. Ken Shotts, a Stanford professor of Business Ethics. His talk was enjoyably informal and full of ethic situations and case studies, from Enron to HealthSouth to Wells Fargo. The winners in each category were announced as follows:
Small Business (<15 employees) Lunchette, Petaluma
Medium Business (15 to 50 employees) Thanksgiving Coffee, Ft. Bragg
Large Business (50+ employees) Oliver’s Markets, Santa Rosa
Non-Profit Coast Central Credit Union, Eureka
Thanks to Mark Campbell for nominating and interfacing with the Large Business winner Oliver’s Markets! All 70 nominations were quality businesses deserving recognition and our business, and no doubt next year’s Ethics in Business competition will raise up the good works and values of more North Coast businesses.
A cocky rookie was pitching in his first ever playoff game. He started out the game with five straight walks, so the manager immediately took him out. As the rookie walked into the dugout, he slammed his glove on the ground and yelled, "That jerk took me out when I had a no-hitter going!"
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.
Join us for Rotary’s World Polio Day Online Global Update
Rotary International
14-October-2019
Mark your calendar to join us on 24 October 2019, for Rotary’s World Polio Day Online Global Update. It will be streamed on RI’s Facebook pages in multiple languages and time zones around the world.
World Polio Day is an annual opportunity for Rotary members to rally the world around the fight to eradicate the disease forever. This year’s program will highlight the heroes of polio eradication, with stories from areas that have recently been affected and areas where polio is still endemic.
This year's program, sponsored by UNICEF USA and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, features TV presenter and former Paralympian Ade Adepitan, supermodel Isabeli Fontana, science educator Bill Nye, and actress Archie Panjabi. Our partners at the World Health Organization and UNICEF will provide updates on the latest progress toward a polio-free world.
Will your club or district host an event? Tell us about it and promote it to the world. Or find an event near you to attend. Be a part of celebrating the progress we’ve made toward eradicating polio.
Rotary Club of Santa Rosa Sunrise - Founded June 30, 1986
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