Stories

Pickleball and Poker on March 28th

The Plano Metro Rotary Club invites the community to its fourth annual Pickleball & Poker Party on March 28, 2026, at Chicken N Pickle in Allen. Guests will enjoy pickleball, poker, games, raffles, and a small bites buffet—all to support the club’s local and international service projects. Tickets are $60. Learn more at PMRCPickleball.org.

Honor Flight Tribute for Joe Bicik

Welcome Eli Chudnow

Last Wednesday, Eli Chudnow became the newest member of PMRC, inducted by JC Posey and sponsored by Susan Plonka.

Eli received his Masters of Science in Information Systems and Operations Management from the University of Florida. Currently working in Plano, Eli is looking for opportunities in FinTech.

Interested in working on the Community Service committee, Eli looks forward to getting to know each of our members.

Rotary Night at Frisco Rough Riders May 24, 2025

May 7 Program: To Extend a Helping Hand

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God's Pantry exists to extend a helping hand, to the needy, by providing food to anyone who is facing circumstances beyond their control. The pantry serves all people, with respect and compassion, allowing them

to maintain their self-esteem and confidentiality during a difficult time in their life. We make a difference one person or family at a time. The pantry is a vocal advocate for the hungry and displaced.

Sylvia Martinez, Executive Director of God's Pantry at Ave K and 19th St in Plano, has served for over a decade. Leading with heart and purpose—working to ensure that no one in our community goes hungry, she bring passion, strategy, and compassion to everything from program development to volunteer coordination and community outreach.

Believing in the power of food, dignity, and connection, she is committed to building a stronger, more equitable future, one meal at a time.

God's Pantry Pickup / Delivery First Saturday

Robert Jansson and John Wendling pick up donated food from Costco and deliver to God's Pantry May 3, 2025

Robert at food warehouse

Loaded up and ready to roll

Collin County Courthouse Tour

As part of PMRC 5th Wednesday Vocational series, we visited the Collin County Courthouse and had a tour from District Judge Andrea Thompson for our Wednesday noon meeting. Judge Thompson is a PMRC member, past president and Paul Harris Fellow. Pictured Eli Chudnow, Susan Plonka and Judge Thompson.

Invite Your Friends Today!

Plano Metro Rotary Club

DFW Indoor Pickleball

Saturday April 19, 2025

6:00 pm - 10:00 pm

PMRCPickleball.org

Benefitting our community partners

Ed Drain, the event chair said we need each member to purchase or sell at least four tickets and provide at least two restaurant gift cards of at least $50. Forms to present to restaurants, retailers and sponsors can be downloaded below or on the website.

Our Silent Auction chair, David Harvey encourages everyone to get their items in. We want items by Mar 31 to give the committee time to photograph and get items into the website a week before the event.

Brian Garrett and Kenni Driver

June Jenkins and Lawrence Mann

April 16, 2025 City of Plano Candidate Forum Photos

Moderator Mabrie Jackson	Place 2: Bob Kehr	Place 2: Carson K. Underwood
Place 2: Douglas Reeves	Place 4: Chris Krupa Downs	Place 4: Cody Weaver
Place 5: Gary Cary	Place 5: Steve Lavine	Place 8: Hayden Padget
Place 8: Vidal Quintanilla	Plano Metro Rotary President: Susan Plonka

April 9, 2025 PISD Candidate Forum Photos

Photography by Matt Pasant

	Scott Sams Moderator	Susan Plonka, Plano Metro Rotary
Lauren Tyra, Place 1	Same Johnson, Place 2	Nancy Humphreys, Place 3
Harper Weaver, Place 3	Elisa Klein, Place 6	Dash Weerasinghe, Place 6

Candidate Forums
Rotary Clubs of Plano

To help educate the community and ourselves, Plano Metro Rotary along with other Rotary Clubs of Plano, will host several events at our usual Wednesday lunchtime at Gleneagles. The remaing event is April 16 starts at 11:30 am-1:00pm.

April 16

City of Plano Candidate Forum

Guests are $25 each in advance, $30 at the door, available here Candidate Forum. (formatted for mobile phones)

The Rotary Clubs of Plano request that those attending the Candidate Forums, respectfully listen to all the candidates without visibly showing preference for any one candidate (no stickers or signs). We thank the candidates willing to serve to make our community a better place.

This Week's Program:
A Teller of Tales

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As a songwriter, musician, producer, author, and keeper of the American blues music flame, The Reverend Shawn Amos has made a name as both a teller of tales and an astute shaper of others’ stories.

The Rev comes by the storytelling chops naturally. The only child of William Morris agent-turned-cookie entrepreneur, Wally “Famous” Amos, and singer Shirley “Shirl-ee May” Ellis, young Shawn spent hours in shadowy nightclubs, on the funky streets of ‘70s Hollywood, and in his own broken home, listening intently to people’s stories. He helped make his father’s cookie hustle real.

In young adulthood, he jumped from screenwriting for A & M Films to the stage, crafting acclaimed Americana music that wrestled with race and identity. On the other side of the microphone, Shawn oversaw soul icon Solomon Burke’s last three albums, and produced seminal CD collections Q: The Musical Biography of Quincy Jones, and Grammy-nominated box set Rhapsodies in Black: Music and Words from the Harlem Renaissance, among others.

For his 2022 debut novel, Cookies & Milk (published by Little, Brown), Shawn delved into his past to concoct a wildly entertaining story about the strength of family, and the power of forgiveness – plus just the right amount of semisweet chocolate – to mend hearts.

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Cookies & Milk was nominated for a 2023 NAACP Image Award and is currently in development for a Disney animated series with Laurence Fishburne as executive producer.

This Week's Program: A Rich Plano History

Dollie Thomas, has been committed to the Plano community as evident in her legacy as a Douglass Community Advocate, Executive Director of the Plano African American Museum, and her service on the Plano ISD Diversity Advocacy Committee, Collin County Parks Commission, Douglass

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Community Arts Advisory Committee, and the Plano Heritage Commission.

Previous to her current role, Dollie served in the Plano ISD Human Resources Department for 23 years.

Dollie SHINES in her service roles and has been awarded the Leadership Plano Distinguished Leadership Award, Plano ISD Superintendent Service Award, Plano Community Forum Community Service Award, & Special Recognition Award Diversity Advisory Committee. Plano would not be Plano, without Dollie Thomas.

Photos from the Meals on Wheels Packing Event Jan 4

Wed. Nov. 20: FBI Dallas Cyber Task Force

Special Agent (SA) Courtney Ping is currently assigned to the FBI Dallas Cyber Task Force and has been employed by the FBI since 2016. Prior to Dallas, SA Ping was

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assigned to the FBI Seattle Cyber Task Force, where she investigated computer intrusions, and the FBI Atlanta Cyber Task Force as an analyst, where she supported cyber intrusion cases.

In her current role, SA Ping works with a team of fellow agents, analysts, computer scientists, local and federal law enforcement partners, and other personnel, to investigate nation-state sponsored computer intrusions.

SA Ping has received specialized training and earned certifications in information security, incident handling, digital forensics acquisition, virtual currency tracing, interview and interrogation for cyber investigations, and other investigative techniques.

Flags of Honor Veterans Luncheon Nov 14

Plano Sunrise Rotarian, Captain US Navy Shep Stahel talks about the Cuban Missile Crisis, with event organizer and Plano East Rotarian Ean Sullivan and Plano Rotary's President John Priest.

Plano Sunrise Rotarian, Captain US Navy Shep and JoAnn Stahel, Susan Plonka and parents Marge and Army Staff Sergent Ray StClair.

Wed. Nov. 13: Lead and Create for the Greater Good

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I’m a man on a mission, and my purpose in life is to lead and create for the greater good. I’m at my best when that’s how I spend my days, and fortunately, our mission at Catapult Health is in lock step with who I strive to be.

We’ve already helped over a million people improve their health, and we’re just getting started.

I also love creating sophisticated technological solutions that make things simpler, and better. Twenty-five years ago, before the days of Toy Story and Shrek, I pulled together an amazing creative team and we used motion capture to create a 3D animated television series called Jay Jay the Jet Plane. We converted an old Raytheon bomb factory on PCH 1 in Oxnard, California to a production studio and spent a full year churning out 3D animation. All 45 episodes aired daily on PBS for a decade, and Jay Jay continues to live on in six languages worldwide.

WinningHabits came next. Our small but mighty team pioneered the development of online health and benefits platforms in the early 2000’s, before iPhones and mobile apps. After merging WinningHabits into a public company in 2005, I partnered with some local Dallas folks to purchase and lead InnerChange, a nationally recognized residential treatment facility operator that specialized in the care of teen girls with emotional trauma. See the pattern?

With bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemistry/geology and divinity, my background doesn’t really fit the typical CEO mold … and I’ve always believed that gives me a special edge. It’s also proven to be the perfect training ground for a life of leading and creating for the greater good.

Nov. 6, 2024: Speech AI for Early Childhood Language Intervention

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Artificial intelligence is not typically considered to be a part of early childhood development research, but

Satwik Dutta MS’20 wanted to take a different approach to the field. He sought to use voice AI to analyze naturalistic adult-child interactions in the hopes of detecting developmental issues early.

“Most of my work has been to see how accurately we can understand what children are saying using AI for data-driven intervention,” Dutta said. “I am trying to measure how my AI algorithm varies across children who are typically developing as well as children with speech or language delays.” In 2023, Dutta was granted discretionary research funding from the Eugene McDermott Graduate Fellowship.

“The Jonsson School Graduate Fellowship gave me an opportunity to pursue a graduate education in the United States,” Dutta said. “Without it, I would not have been able to come here. Coming from a middle-class family in India, this fellowship helped greatly.” Dutta hopes to complete his PhD in 2025.

Palomas for Polio, World Polio Day

On October 24 World Polio Day, PMRC's event raised over $700 for PolioPlus at Mexican Sugar Cocina in Plano. Above the committee included Greg McKinney, Peyton Lynn and June Jenkins. We had a visit from our District Governor Regina Edwards and our Area Governor Diana Kolb.

Winners of the raffle were June Jenkins and Julie Chow, Patty Duncan's sister. Thanks for everyone's participation!

This Week's Program: The Security of Autonomous Driving

How can autonomous driving be made safer? Although autonomous taxi service exists in select cities and consumers can currently purchase vehicles that tout various levels of autonomy, there is no

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research-oriented version of these projects available to the academic community.

The Nova project (https://nova-utd.github.io/) delivers a ROS-based modular approach that enables all of the most critical fundamental needs of an autonomous driving platform. We use this testbed as a proving grounds for our work on security of cyber-physical systems. Our research in security quantifies the potentially damaging effect an attacker can have on a system.

Justin Ruths, PhD is an associate professor with appointments in Mechanical Engineering at the Erik Jonsson School at the University of Texas at Dallas. He joined UTD in 2016 after spending five years as an assistant professor and part of the founding faculty at the Singapore University of Technology and Design.

Since 2019, Dr. Ruths' undergraduate Nova team has grown to over 20 students and focuses on building and maintaining an autonomous vehicle and self-driving software stack.

This Week's Program: Neeti Khaitan Polio Survivor

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Neeti Khaitan's spirit and unique drive were forged in the crucible of despair. She acquired polio at a tender age of 2, one of its side effects left her in a coma and near death for an extended period. Her

physicians gave up on her many times. Coming from an entrepreneurial family, despite this hardship, she pulled through and persevered.

Today, Neeti Khaitan Gupta is President and CEO of Accelerate Consulting Inc., SBE and HUB certified to connect corporate diversity initiatives with Minority and Women-owned Businesses. Ms. Gupta was an Advisor of a Unified Communications Company, AGC Networks and a Board Member of Aegis USA, a call center company.

She has been in external organizations such as a key executive at the Greater Irving-Las Colinas Chamber of Commerce, Vistage Forum, the Young Entrepreneurs Organization (YEO) and the Dallas Round Table (DRT). Ms. Gupta is a proud Board member of the Girls.Inc and her other non-profit affiliations include, Rainbow Days, Hope’s Door, Ekal Foundation, Girl’s Inc and Pratham for Education, and Chetna among others.

Ms Gupta has delivered motivational speeches on survivability. She has a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Pepperdine University, California and currently, lives in Dallas, Texas with her husband and daughter.

Walk to End Alzheimer's Team PMRC

Team PMRC including Carla Blickensderfer, Laurie Williamson, Greg McKinney and Tracy Toomer, represented Plano Metro well at the Saturday, September 28 event at Grandscape in the Colony, raising funds and awareness for Alzheimer's care, support and research.

This Week's Program: Collin County Transporation & Growth

Collin County is growing by leaps and bounds. Plano Metro member and our Collin County commissioner for Precinct 4, Commissioner J. Duncan Webb, IV, will talk to us about how the growth in Collin County is affecting our transportation and why plans for years in the future need to be done now. Growth is also redefining county infrastructure, personnel departments and office infrastructure.

Currently working on his fourth four-year term on the Court, Commissioner Webb's precinct is composed of the West and Central portions of the City of Plano and the City of Dallas portion of Collin County. Commissioner Webb has served on the Regional Transportation Council since 2011, including service as its Chair in June 2023.

Previously Commissioner Webb served on the Board of Trustees for Plano Independent School District from 1998 to 2010, and held various leadership roles on the Board, including serving as its President for three years. He also served on the Board of Trustees for the Medical City Plano Board of Trustees. As a graduate of Leadership Plano Class X, Commissioner Webb has also served on its Board.

Commissioner Webb and his wife, Beth, have two daughters, Heather (graduated from Texas A&M in 2010) and Melissa (graduated from Texas A&M in 2012). The Webb family was honored by the Plano Family YMCA as the 1997 Plano Family of the Year. In 2009, the Plano Chamber of Commerce selected and honored Commissioner Webb and his wife, Beth, as “Plano’s Citizens of the Year for 2008.”

PLEASE RSVP - Flight to End Polio

Quick reminder to PLEASE RSVP for this event if you plan to attend. It's next week, and we need to get a headcount to Gleneagles.
Click to RSVP. (If you are a member of Plano Metro Rotary Club or Plano Rotary Club, there is no cost for you to attend this event, as your lunch cost is covered by your club dues.)

Plano Metro Holiday Flag Program

For $50/year, have an American flag placed outside your home on 7 national holidays while also supporting projects such as high school scholarships, CASA of Collin County, Polio Plus, and more. Learn more, and sign up today!

Online sign up: PlanoMetroRotaryFlags.com

Restoring Sight, One Cornea at a Time

A Rotary model for eliminating preventable blindness
By Dr. Avanika Khanna

Imagine living with or waking up one day unable to see the faces of your loved ones and the world around you. For millions of people worldwide, this is not imagination—it is daily reality.

Corneal blindness, caused by infection, injury, or disease, slowly clouds the cornea, preventing light from entering the eye. Unlike many other forms of blindness, it is entirely reversible. A single corneal transplant can restore vision. Yet lack of awareness, limited access to care, and financial constraints keep this solution out of reach for millions.

The cornea—the transparent, dome-shaped front layer of the eye—plays a critical role in vision. Because it contains no blood vessels, corneal transplantation has one of the highest success rates of any human tissue transplant. Still, success depends on more than surgical skill. It requires timely eye donation, meticulous tissue handling, coordinated logistics, trained surgeons, and reliable systems that track each step from donor retrieval to post-operative care.

More than a decade ago, the Rotary Club Midtown Hoshiarpur in India recognized this gap and took action. During a visit to India, Plano Metro Rotarian Sanjeev Khanna learned of the program’s success from Rotarians Manoj Ohri and J.B. Behl. What stood out was not only the medical results, but the systems behind them. Khanna proposed an ambitious idea: replicate the model globally so that Rotary clubs everywhere could tackle corneal blindness in their own communities. Working with local doctors and eye banks, the club developed a sustainable, high-impact corneal transplant program. To date, the project has restored sight through more than 4,000 surgeries.

Before and after pictures of two corneal transplant patients:

That idea became reality through a partnership between the Rotary Club of Plano Metro, Plano, Texas, USA and the Rotary Club Hoshiarpur Midtown, Hoshiarpur, Punjab, India. Together, they developed standardized operating procedures (SOPs), strengthened fundraising mechanisms, and built partnerships with hospitals, surgeons, nonprofits, and government agencies—creating a program designed to scale.

Technology played a critical role. Salesforce became a cornerstone partner, providing software and ten free licenses to manage the project’s data. Salesforce volunteers contributed hundreds of hours to build, customize, and train teams on the platform, ensuring transparency and accountability across continents.

Salesforce Reports for 2025 YTD:

Philanthropic support amplified the impact. The Tony Robbins Foundation sponsored 1,000 corneal transplants. The Rotary Club of Plano Metro also secured two Rotary Global Grants totaling over $100,000, enabling the program’s expansion and raising funds from members and locals.

Through collaboration with surgeons who donated their time, negotiated reductions in eye bank fees, and optimized medication costs, Rotarians reduced the cost per transplant from $200 US to $150 US —allowing resources to reach even more patients.

“Watching a child see the world for the first time after surgery is unforgettable,” says Khanna. “It made this the most meaningful $150 I have ever spent.”

Since 2018, the Plano Metro Rotary Club has supported more than 1,000 corneal transplants, contributing systems expertise, funding, and global coordination. Combined with Hoshiarpur’s long-standing leadership, the partnership has restored functional vision to thousands.

Beyond surgery, the project addresses the root challenge: lack of eye donation. Working with government agencies and nonprofits across India, Rotarians lead awareness campaigns through print and social media, educating communities about preventable blindness and the life-saving power of corneal donation.

Now, the program is ready for its next phase.

The Plano Metro Rotary Club is offering this proven model to Rotary clubs worldwide. Any club willing to take on corneal blindness locally can adopt the system. Plano Metro will sponsor up to 5 Rotary Clubs, the first 50 transplants (up to $150/transplant, maximum $7,500). Plano Metro Rotary Club and Rotary Club Hoshiarpur Midtown will provide complete training, standard operating procedures, and database templates—tools refined through years of service and thousands of restored lives.

This is Rotary in action: combining compassion with systems, local commitment with global collaboration, and medical science with the power of service.

Because when sight is restored, lives—and futures—are transformed.

Get Involved

To support or replicate this initiative, please contact:

Sanjeev Khanna
Plano Metro Rotary Club, Plano, Texas, USA
📞 +1 (469) 556-5006 ✉️ skk2913@gmail.com

Manoj Ohri
Rotary Club of Midtown Hoshiarpur
Hoshiarpur, Punjab, India

📞 +91 94630 21200

Acknowledgments

Salesforce Team: Padma Muppidi, Ritu Khanna, Harpreet Garewal, Pratima Rana, Gaurav Singla
Rotary Club of Midtown Hoshiarpur, India: Manoj Ohri, Parveen Palial, Parveen Pabbi, Jagmeet Singh, Avtar Singh, Satish Gupta, et all
Rotary Club of Plano Metro, USA: Sanjeev Khanna, Susan Plonka, Laurie Williamson et all

Monkeying Around at the Adoption Picnic!

Posted by Andrea Stroh

More than 30 children found permanent homes after attending Rotary's Adoption Awareness Carnival!