Bob Brown and Michael DeVito delivered grant checks (in lieu of dictionaries) to staff and students at Sycamore elementary schools this week. [More photos after "News/Updates"]
“Community Hunger” was the topic of this week’s Rotary meeting guest speaker Joel Maurer. Maurer has been the executive director of the Sycamore Food Pantry for the past seven years. The Pantry, housed in the Sycamore United Methodist Church at 160 Johnson Avenue, was founded 27 years ago and is available to residents of Sycamore. Hours of operation are noon to 4 PM on Mondays and clients may use the pantry once a month. Food donations for the pantry may be dropped off on Mondays between 10 AM and 4 PM or during regular church office hours from 8:30 AM to 3:30 PM. Maurer said their client base is about 20% minority, 30% elderly, and 50% low-income or income constrained.
The sheltering restrictions from COVID-19 caused a major change in the food pantry operations according to Maurer. He said they normally offer clients a chance to browse shelves and choose their own food items. However, the pandemic rules meant food items were pre-boxed and placed in cars as they drove up. Some exceptions were allowed for fresh produce and dairy items but only then with viewing limited to one person at a time. Beginning June 1 Maurer says their pantry shelves will once again be open for client access.
Maurer says weekly client contacts went from the 40’s to the 20’s as COVID conditions persisted. He attributed this to opening of several newly created pantries, mobile pop-up pantry sites, and expanded federal food programs making it easier for people to use traditional grocery stores. Maurer said one specialty approach to food needs included the schools partnering with area non-profit groups to continue to offer breakfast and lunch options for students even though they were doing remote learning. Maurer also noted a specialty pantry organized by the Network of Nations organization at Northern Illinois University (NIU) which offered culturally unique foods to international students who could not leave the campus.
Maurer said DeKalb County has a Food Security Council which helps coordinate economical access to food and other home needs items. Representatives on the Council include pantries, the Health Department, NIU, Regional Schools Office, County Extension Office, and Community Foundation. As an example, Maurer said that $1.00 spent through a partner agency like the Northern Illinois Food Bank is equivalent to an $8.00 value of an item at a traditional grocery store. He said the Sycamore Food Pantry will continue to be ready to address the food insecurity needs of local residents going forward.
Posted by Ryan Hyland, Rotary International on May 13, 2021
Riccardo De Paola knew that as Italy’s supply of COVID-19 vaccine doses increased, more people would be needed to administer the shots and staff vaccination sites. He started contacting medical directors in the Verona region about how Rotary clubs could be ready to help — and began mobilizing a volunteer force that has since become a critical government partner.
De Paola, a past governor of Rotary District 2060 (Italy), says the dozen medical directors he talked to in late 2020 all echoed the same refrain: They desperately needed volunteer help to get vaccination sites up and running. De Paola coordinated with the current district governor, Diego Vianello, to recruit volunteers from the region’s 91 Rotary clubs.
“Our members work in so many professions, with deep and diverse expertise. We wanted our volunteers to use their skills in the best way possible,” says De Paola, a founding member of the Rotary Club of Marco Polo Passport D2060, which was chartered in July 2020 with the specific purpose of carrying out coronavirus-related service.
Within a week of the initial call for volunteers in January 2021, more than 150 Rotarians and Rotaractors had stepped forward. The group included several current and retired doctors, nurses, and paramedics. The volunteers were vaccinated and trained in specific health protocols, which vary from city to city.
Some volunteers had to purchase insurance to be able to administer the vaccine. A task force De Paola and Vianello set up worked with insurance brokers to obtain coverage for four retired doctors at a cost of about $300 each. The task force also established a group of volunteer lawyers to review agreements between various municipalities and the volunteers, providing legal support as needed.
“We even had a member who was a professional notary who could notarize the insurance papers and documents,” De Paola adds. “We weren’t just providing volunteers, we were providing our organization, our resources, our experience, and our reliability.”
Our members work in so many professions, with deep and diverse expertise. We wanted our volunteers to use their skills in the best way possible.
Members typically teamed up in groups of four to work a morning or afternoon shift, logging patient names in a database, coordinating with other volunteers and, if they were qualified, administering shots.
Impressed with how quickly and efficiently the Rotary members had mobilized...
May 22, 1813 – Operatic composer Richard Wagner is born in Leipzig, Germany.
May 22, 1859 – Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is born in Edinburgh, Scotland.
May 18, 1897 – Hollywood director and multiple academy award winner Frank Capra (known for such films as “It’s a Wonderful Life”, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”, and “It Happened One Night”) is born in Bisacquino, Italy.
May 22, 1907 – Four-time Academy Award recipient and five-time Emmy Award recipient Sir Lawrence Olivier is born in Dorking, England.
May 17, 1875 – The first Kentucky Derby horse race is run at Churchill Downs in Louisville.
May 20, 1927 – At age 25, Charles Lindberg takes off in the “Spirit of Saint Louis” and becomes the first person to complete a solo non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean. On this same date in 1932, Amelia Earhart would become the first woman to complete a solo non-stop flight across the Atlantic.
May 17, 1954 – In Brown v. Board of Education, the U. S. Supreme Court unanimously rules the segregation of public schools “solely on the basis of race” denies black children equal education opportunity. The case against segregation was argued by future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.
May 19, 1980 – The Mt. St. Helens volcano erupts in Washington State, its first major eruption since 1857, sending steam and ash eleven miles into the sky.
