Our speaker for Thursday, October 5, 2023, was Brad Sherwood, President of the Mark West Area Chamber of Commerce and Mark West Area Community Fund. Brad is a 5th generation Californian who moved to Sonoma County in 2006. He is an assistant general manager at Sonoma Water and manages business services and external affairs. He served on the Mark West Union School District Board of Trustees. He is currently President of the Mark West Area Chamber of Commerce and the Mark West Area Community Fund and Vice Chair of the Mark West Citizens Advisory Council.
With 9,000 residents, Mark West is the largest unincorporated town in Sonoma County. It is immediately north of incorporated Santa Rosa and south of the Town of Windsor. Mark West has no local political governance other than the County of Sonoma. Its County Supervisor is James Gore. The MW Citizens Advisory Council was created in 2016 by the Board of Supervisors to provide the Board of Supervisors and County agencies with a local perspective. Brad has been on the Advisory Council since 2018. Along with 1,900 other Mark West area residents, Brad lost his home in the Tubbs Fire. Brad has been working since that time to help the area rebuild, including as a Block Captain and a co-founder of the Larkfield Resilience Fund. The rebuilding efforts include improvements in infrastructure, early warning systems, landscaping, expansion of sewer capabilities, sidewalks, and undergrounding cables.
The Mark West Area Community Fund is a 501(c)(3) and was created as a means to improve the delivery of local funds from the Neighborhood Grant Program to the community. Its goal is to help support neighborhood improvement projects and community engagement activities. It is currently in the process of developing a new community park on Old Redwood Highway next to the old Cricklewood Restaurant. A consortium of business and community groups raised the $2,000,000 purchase price within 4 months of the property becoming available! The community is in the process now of designing the new park, with the first community-wide park design planning meeting scheduled for October 11, 2023! Brad gave a special shout-out to the Sonoma Land Trust, which provided fiscal and administrative services for the negotiation of the purchase of the land. Key funders for the purchase include the Saba Foundation, Sonoma County Ag + Open Space, the Advisory Council, and many others.
Thank you, Brad, for the great presentation about the Mark West area and its efforts to rebuild and improve after the debacle of the Tubbs Fire. We appreciate the highlight of such an important part, and often overlooked, part of Sonoma County!
Click HERE to view a limited time recording of Brad Sherwood's 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!
Above, Sunrise deliverers Moir, Randolph and Zwick pose with Elsie Allen Lobo band member Edgar and his new Alto Saxophone. Just below is Band Director Efrain Nava checking out the clarinet.
A recent Rotary District 5130 Matching Grant provided funding to match club support. An initiative earlier this year by Elsie Allen advocate, band booster and Sunriser, Merle Hayes helped advance the process. Delivery driver Steve Zwick had a deja vu moment recalling his high school clarinet days.
The Lobo band is building, currently with close to 35 members. Mr. Nava and his predecessor Mr. Thompson collaborate in mentoring budding local musicians.
Upcoming band performances will be promoted with special interest!
By the way, you can add your interest and equity in the band and color guard uniform drive:
Click HERE to view the full Press Democrat article.
But wait, there's more!
This was before. . .
Following the fire and with the vision of Sonoma County Master Gardeners and community engagement including Sunrise Rotary, this coming Saturday October 14 will commence the public opening orientation to the Los Guilicos Demonstration Garden. Designed to provide local schools hands on up close and personal exposure to gardening, soil and ecologic diversity. Tastes and smell are foremost on the agenda.
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Rob Bolduc, Penny Millar's son, and Rob doing some shoveling.
Paul O Rear, Club Climate Care and Environment chair identified the garden as a prime focus for member involvement. Several hundred hours of sweat ~ and brain equity have been planted.
Leroy Carlenzoli rallied his Golden Hammer ranksto answer Master Gardeners call for help designing and installing sun shades and compost bins.
Rob Bolduc checks the integrity of the compost lids.
Leroy and Paul invite you to see for yourself this remarkably transformed site. 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM Saturday. Take highway 12 to Pythian Road toward St Francis Winery. Elsie Allen Interactors will be directing traffic.
A hamburger walked into a bar, climbed up on the stool, looked at the bartender and ordered a tall cold beer. the bartender looked at the hamburger for a moment and replied, "I'm sorry sir, but I can't sell you that drink." the hamburger thought about this for a second and said, "I'm over 21. Why can't your sell me a drink?" after looking at the hamburger for another moment, the bartender replied, "I'm sorry, we don't serve food here."
The World Health Organization designates 10 October as World Mental Health Day, and with Rotary placing a special focus on mental health this year, I would like to help answer the question posed to me most often when I travel to meet members: How can my club get started?
There are some wonderful examples of Rotary members taking action already. In the Philippines, the Rotary Club of Tiaong-Hiyas held a 12-week health challenge for mothers in the community to promote some baseline health screenings and coaching on a healthier lifestyle.
By the end of the challenge, the mothers had a special bond and decided to form a Rotary Community Corps called Ilaw ng Tahanan (“one who lights up the home”) with the goal of involving more mothers in health education and wellness support — and later youth services, teen pregnancy prevention, and help with unhealthy substance use. Almost a year later, the RCC is preparing to open its own health center where mothers can come for peer-to-peer support.
Another strong example is in Colorado. In the fall of 2021, a small group of stakeholders from the Rotary Club of Highlands Ranch formed the Rotary Clubs of Colorado Endowed Fellowship for Pediatric Mental Health, which enhances the ability of Children’s Hospital Colorado to recruit and train pediatric psychiatry providers and allows the hospital network to make additional appointments. This increases access to mental health care for children and decreases provider shortages.
Since then, the project has brought on new supporters and is now fully funded with a $500,000 endowment. Investment income from this endowment will support a fellow — a psychologist or psychiatrist — at Children’s Hospital. A new fellow will be named every one to two years, beginning spring of 2024. Over time this will create a cohort to bolster the mental health workforce, treating kids from all 64 Colorado counties and neighboring states.
There are many more great mental health project stories on Rotary Showcase, and I invite you to share your experiences as you begin your own projects. Also, please reach out to mindhealth@rotary.org with any thoughts or ideas you would like to share about mental health in the Rotary world.
On 10 October, I will host a Facebook Live event when we will recognize World Mental Health Day and further explore how Rotary members can begin this journey. But I would like to leave you with one way every Rotary member can make a difference.
Right now, there is someone you know in the Rotary world — in your club, from a project you’ve worked on, in a Rotary Fellowship or Rotary Action Group — who could use a little more of your time and attention. Rotary is this great gift of global friendship, and that also means being there for each other.
Discovering the human connections that bind us is what we do through our membership every day. It’s what Rotary has always been about, and we can build on it by helping each other find peace at home.
We need to learn how to ask not just “How are you?” but also “How are you really?” By doing so, Rotary can continue to Create Hope in the World.
On 24 October, we renew our commitment to our top humanitarian goal for World Polio Day.
This year, let’s remember a young health worker in Pakistan known as Bibi Marjana (Miss Marjana). She braves the snow and cold in the mountains to vaccinate 84 children in rural areas, visiting each home, often miles apart.
Marjana is one of the thousands of frontline workers in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and outbreak areas I consider heroes in the final push to end polio. The work they do, coupled with the vision of our partners and the support you give, is moving mountains.
With Rotary’s partnership, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative is aggressively pursuing two key goals from its 2022-26 strategy. First, we aim to halt wild poliovirus type 1 transmission. This year, only six cases have been documented as of this writing. Could this be the year we see the last of these poliovirus cases? We’re cautiously optimistic that it might.
Second, we aim to report the final case of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2, or cVDPV2, in outbreak countries. About 80 percent of cVDPV2 cases last year occurred in subnational areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, and Yemen. We must implement tailored strategies to stop the virus in these areas.
Other challenges persist, including political tensions, security risks and access issues, and the lasting effect of the pandemic in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Despite these challenges, we are making progress. Poliovirus strains are diminishing, as is the number of affected regions where polio once prevailed. A new vaccine we have introduced reduces the incidence of the circulating vaccine-derived virus type 2.
Rotary is the organization that had the audacity to take on a global effort to protect children everywhere from disability or even death due to polio. We must have the tenacity to see it to the finish line.
What can you do to help us get there, you ask? Join or initiate a PolioPlus Society in your club or district and engage all members in this historic moment. And don’t forget that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation continues to amplify Rotary’s donations to polio eradication with a 2-to-1 match for every dollar.
You can also advocate the cause of polio eradication with governments to secure political and financial support and promote Rotary’s leadership role in all media.
Like Marjana marching up the mountain, we have our goal in sight, and we will keep going until we get there.
For over 100 years, the grand parade of the Washington State Apple Blossom Festival has been a calendar highlight in Wenatchee. Besides the royalty, the motorcycle drill teams, and the floats with local luminaries, there’s another unusual draw: horse manure and, in particular, where it lands. In May, the Rotary Club of Wenatchee Sunrise held a raffle for people to guess where along the parade route the equine excrement would fall first. Those who correctly chose the first “drop zone” were entered into a $10,000 grand prize drawing; four $500 consolation prizes were offered for other zones. The concept, adapted from an idea of the Rotary Club of Hailey, Idaho, raised $14,000 for scholarships, gifts for families in transitional housing, and improvements to a farmers market. “What makes [the event] so fun is the unique and slightly naughty concept for the raffle,” says Kathleen McNalty, a club past president. “Selling the raffle tickets gives us the opportunity to talk to our community about the good works of Rotary in a lighthearted way.”
Guatemala
The Rotary clubs of Solvang, California, and Escuintla, Guatemala, teamed up to bring safe drinking water to the small town of Nueva Concepción. In February, nine Solvang Rotarians, the daughter of a club member, and a member of another District 5240 club visited the rural community, about a three-hour drive southwest of Guatemala City. They joined a professional crew to help drill a $6,000 well funded by their club. The Linda Vista Foundation, created by a Rotarian, will match that with a second well in the area. “You’re soaking wet and you’re dirty, dirty. It’s not a pretty job,” says Linda Johansen, a past president of the Solvang club. “But when clean water comes out, it’s pretty impressive.” During the visit, Rotarian dentists provided free dental care to 50 children in a clinic coordinated by the Escuintla club. Rotarians helped conduct classes on hygiene and nutrition and led craft projects.
This story originally appeared in the October 2023 issue of Rotary magazine.
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For over 100 years, the grand parade of the Washington State Apple Blossom Festival has been a calendar highlight in Wenatchee. Besides the royalty, the motorcycle drill teams, and the floats with local luminaries, there’s another unusual draw: horse manure and, in particular, where it lands. In May, the Rotary Club of Wenatchee Sunrise held a raffle for people to guess where along the parade route the equine excrement would fall first. Those who correctly chose the first “drop zone” were entered into a $10,000 grand prize drawing; four $500 consolation prizes were offered for other zones. The concept, adapted from an idea of the Rotary Club of Hailey, Idaho, raised $14,000 for scholarships, gifts for families in transitional housing, and improvements to a farmers market. “What makes [the event] so fun is the unique and slightly naughty concept for the raffle,” says Kathleen McNalty, a club past president. “Selling the raffle tickets gives us the opportunity to talk to our community about the good works of Rotary in a lighthearted way.”
The Rotary clubs of Solvang, California, and Escuintla, Guatemala, teamed up to bring safe drinking water to the small town of Nueva Concepción. In February, nine Solvang Rotarians, the daughter of a club member, and a member of another District 5240 club visited the rural community, about a three-hour drive southwest of Guatemala City. They joined a professional crew to help drill a $6,000 well funded by their club. The Linda Vista Foundation, created by a Rotarian, will match that with a second well in the area. “You’re soaking wet and you’re dirty, dirty. It’s not a pretty job,” says Linda Johansen, a past president of the Solvang club. “But when clean water comes out, it’s pretty impressive.” During the visit, Rotarian dentists provided free dental care to 50 children in a clinic coordinated by the Escuintla club. Rotarians helped conduct classes on hygiene and nutrition and led craft projects.