District Conference - Hall of Friendship

Posted by Jim Nelson, District Governor 
on May 29, 2015
 
Back to the Mall of America for the Hall of Friendship, featuring various nonprofit organizations with Rotary connections.  I will briefly list and describe them below (click Read more...), so that if your club might be interested in making a connection or learning more, you can follow up.
 
 
  • Alphabet Forest. Discover alphabet activities at the Minnesota State Fair Alphabet Forest. Take pictures with Fair Letters, create alphabet Ferris wheels, add your fair words to the Fair Dictionary and meet a different author each day at the Alphabet Forest’s Blue Ribbon Homegrown Author Showcase. For information, please visit the website at mnstatefair.org/entertainment/fair_alphabet.html. 
  • Common Hope The families assisted by Common Hope have the ability and desire to improve their lives if given the chance. Common Hope provides the opportunities and tools for them to do so, so the families no longer live in one-room houses, have little or no access to education, medical care, clean water, or jobs with livable wages. For information, please visit the website at commonhope.org. 
  • Compatible Technology International (CTI) is a Minnesota-based nonprofit that designs and distributes tools in collaboration with small farmers and their communities to improve food and water security in developing nations. CTI’s tools empower smallholder farmers with better food production, increased incomes, and more sustainable livelihoods. For information, please visit the website at www.compatibletechnology.org
  • CPR/AED Training (DONE IN A DAY PROJECT).  The Rotary Club of Plymouth has partnered with Allina Hospitals and Clinics in a new signature project called Heart Safe Plymouth. The goal is to make the community a safer place to live, work, and play. The core of the program involves education, training and placing AEDs. To date, the Club has trained more than 2500 people. For information, please visit the website at rotaryplymouth.org
  • El Sistema Minnesota  El Sistema’s approach to music education emphasizes intensive ensemble participation from the earliest stages, group learning, peer teaching and a commitment to keeping the joy and fun of musical learning and music making ever-present. The backbone of El Sistema training is preparation for participation in orchestral ensembles, choral singing, folk music, jazz, special needs programs, and other ensembles, which adapt well to musical genres and origins. For information, please visit the website at elsistemamn.org/el-sistema.
  • Haiti Outreach  is a 501(c)3 non-profit, non-governmental organization (NGO) based in Minnesota that focuses on working with communities on water and education that they initiate, help build and sustain. Its work is based on a grassroots effort involving community responsibility, participation and ownership. For information, please visit the website at haitioutreach.org.
  • Harmony Bridge Project was developed by the founder and director of the national touring ensemble, Dallas Brass, Michael Levine. Harmony Bridge Project is designed to encourage and enable school band students to take their music into the community, and particularly to nursing homes, assisted living residences and other care facilities nationwide. For information, visit the website at harmonybridge.net, email Michael Levine at mike@harmonybridge.net or call him at 214-707-2941.
  • Jhoole pronounced “Ju-lay”, makes comfortable clothing, colorful artifacts of our altruistic mission, hand block-printed and worthy of being worn while barefoot. Products support artisans in their effort to eradicate poverty in their community and foster global awareness of Humanitarian Enterprise. Jhoole has been hard at work in Maheshwar, India for over five years and is dedicated to seeing tangible, deep and lasting change in this community over time. For information, please visit the website at jhoole.org.
  • Little Free Library  It’s a “take a book, return a book” gathering place where neighbors share their favorite literature and stories. In its most basic form, a Little Free Library is a box full of books where anyone may stop by and pick up a book (or two) and bring back another book to share. For information, please visit the website at littlefreelibrary.org.
  • Meals on Wheels  operates in virtually every community in America through our network of more than 5,000 independently-run local programs. While the diversity of services and operations may vary based on the communities’ needs and resources, each program is committed to supporting their senior neighbors to live healthier lives in their own homes. For information, please visit the website at mowaa.org
  • Polio Plus. Rotary, along with our partners has reduced polio cases by 99 percent worldwide since our first project to vaccinate children in the Philippines in 1979. We are close to eradicating polio, but we need your help to protect children against polio forever. For information, please visit the website at rotary.org/myrotary/en/take-action/end-polio.
  • ShelterBox provides emergency shelter and vital supplies to support communities world-wide when overwhelmed by disaster and humanitarian crisis. Since ShelterBox was founded, they have responded to over 250 disasters and humanitarian crises in almost 90 different countries and provided emergency aid for over one million people. For information, please visit the website at shelterbox.org.
  • Sheridan Story is a growing network of weekend food programs (backpack programs) that operates in 38 schools throughout the Twin Cities and plans to expand state-wide. We coordinate efforts to equip the community with tools and resources to make a significant impact on child hunger. For information, please visit the website at thesheridanstory.com
  • TXT4Life a teen and young adult texting platform, with immediate access to trained crisis counselors, for people in crisis or suicidal.  Canvas Health, which developed TXT4Life, is a mental health, chemical health and crisis services organization serving the greater Twin Cities metro with 10 clinic locations. For information, please visit the website at txt4life.org
  • Warm Hands, Warm Heads, Warm Hearts provides hats and gloves to those in need of winter protection. This program, started by Edina Morningside Rotarian Ted Field, has been active in our district for nearly twenty years. Literally dozens of District 5950 Rotary clubs participate annually and so far have donated more than 300,000 hats and gloves to those in need. For information, please visit the websites at epamrotary.org or emrotary.org.