Diane Mendenhall joined the Nebraska Pro Volleyball the “Omaha Supernovas” in July of this year as its President. In this role Diane will lead a current team of 26 (and growing), 16 players, and a comprehensive Medical Team in the inaugural year of the Pro Volleyball Federation League.

Prior to joining the Supernovas, Diane worked for three years at the Lincoln Community Foundation as VP for Strategic Giving and for 20 years for the University of Nebraska in several administrative leadership positions. Her roles at UNL included 12 years in Husker Athletics – initially as John Cook’s first Director of Volleyball Operations and then as a Senior Associate Athletics Director, followed by six years leading the 25,000 member Nebraska Alumni Association as the Executive Director. Diane completed her tenure at the university by serving as the Chancellor’s Director of External Engagement. She was honored to serve two Chancellor’s for eight years as a member of the Chancellor’s Cabinet.

A native of Ogallala, Neb., Diane is an alumna of the University of Kansas. She was a four-year starter for the Jayhawk volleyball team and a team captain as a senior. Many of you know her as the former radio analyst of Nebraska Volleyball for 16 years.

And a proud Rotarian.

By Brad Webber

UNITED STATES

Earl Knauss got a lesson in food waste when he received a neighbor’s gift of three bushels of red peppers that had been cast aside by a farm because they were misshapen. “I discovered that odd-shaped, blemished, and imperfect vegetables were dumped or destroyed,” says Knauss, of the Rotary Club of Hamburg in western New York state. He asked the farm’s owner for more of the unsalable produce and collected 18-gallon totes of vegetables that he sent to food pantries. The Farm to Family project has since expanded to include three farms, and the Hamburg club formally adopted it in 2018. From May to December, Rotary members and friends work alongside Knauss delivering vegetables to about 3,000 families. In 2022, they provided more than 100,000 pounds of vegetables to 23 distribution sites. Among them is the Resurrection Life Food Pantry in Cheektowaga, where pantry director Kim Reynolds says the site would not have many fresh vegetables without the program. “Our clients rely on Farm to Family to fill that gap,” she says.

PERU

Much of the milk produced in Peru never leaves the farm: It’s consumed directly by farming families, fed to calves, and used to make artisanal cheeses. The Rotary E-Club of Fusión Latina Distrito 4465 teamed up with the nonprofit CEDEPAS Norte to help subsistence farmers in the country’s northern highlands. Last year the club delivered stainless steel presses and molds to open two cheese production facilities. A global grant of more than $50,000 helped pay for the equipment, training, management, and marketing. “So far there are 21 new employees and 63 families served, and 25 pregnant cows were gifted” through the Peruvian government program Agroideas, says Club President Fernando Barrera, who lives in Trujillo.

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