Meeting Notes
January 19, 2021
President Paul welcomed everyone to today’s Mountain View Rotary Meeting. The Rotary International theme for this year is “Rotary Opens Opportunities.” Our Club theme is “We Open Opportunities For Everyone in the Community.”
Mandy is our Rotary Foundation Chair and she wanted to celebrate four Club Members who have reached new levels in giving to the Foundation:
Jack Wong reached Level 6
Jim Cunningham reached Level 5
Bruce Barsi reached Level 4
Heather Stenshamn reached Level 3
The goal for the Club is to have 100% participation in this year’s contributions to the Foundation. You can send your donation for The Rotary Foundation to Mandy Andrei at 2934 Vivian Lane, San Jose, CA 95124. If you prefer, you can also make your donation to The Rotary Foundation on line at
https://my.rotary.org/en/donate. If you make an on line donation, please send a message to Mandy to let her know. Feel free to give Mandy a call if you have any questions at 650-281-4356 or email her at mandyandrai@gmail.com.
For anyone who would like to join the President’s Club, please make your checks out for $150 to the Mountain View Rotary Club and send them to Mountain View Rotary President’s Club, PO Box 390280, Mountain View, California 94041.
President Paul announced that we will be unable to have a Crab Feed event this year because of the pandemic. He asked that all members consider donating whatever they would have spent on tickets to the Crab Feed. The funds will be used for the Club’s charitable grants for the year. Members may make their checks out to “Mountain View Rotary Endowment” and send them to Mountain View Rotary Endowment, PO Box 390280, Mountain View, California 94041. All donations to the Mountain View Rotary Endowment are fully tax deductible.
The Club is sponsoring four students for a virtual Camp RYLA this year.
President Elect Heather is in the process of forming her Board for the next Rotary year. If anyone is interested in a most exciting position on the Board, please contact either Heather or Past President Tom. If we are short of volunteers, Tom has indicated that he will shift into draft mode.
Several of our Members’ canine companions joined us to see some of their canine colleagues in action. Those Members included Hal, Anita, Roger, Alan and Paul.
If anyone knows of any of our members in distress or that need anything, please let President Paul or one of the Board Members know. We want to make sure everyone knows that we are here to take care of each other.
Program
Heather introduced or speaker, Thida Cornes, with her canine companion Nakoma, to talk to us about Canine Companions For Independence. Thida was also accompanied by Shari who is a Breeder/Caretaker.
The program was founding in 1975, initially for Service Dogs, but it has since been expanded to include Companions, Therapy Dogs, and Dogs to Assist with PTSD.
The canines in the program remain with their Breeder/Caretaker for the first eight weeks. Then they go to a Puppy Raiser until they are eighteen months where they learn basic commands and they are exposed to various situations in the environment. Following that, the canines are assigned to one of six geographical regions where they receive professional training in one of the various specialties. Upon completion of the training, they are matched to a person to provide assistance. All of the canines live a comfortable live and are well taken care of when they retire from service.
The cost of a service canine is $50,000. The program accepts donations and volunteers to assist with training and socialization.
Next Meeting
Tuesday, February 2, 2021, via Zoom. Social time will start at 12:00 pm with the meeting beginning at 12:15 pm. Our speaker will be our own Jack Wong giving us a Financial Market Outlook along with an update on the Club’s Endowment Performance.
There will be a Board Meeting on Thursday, February 11, 2021, starting at 5:30 pm via Zoom.
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