Observer for October 29, 2013

VISITING ROTARIANS AND GUESTS

Visiting Rotarians:

Sharon Myer from the Sausalito club

John Bottari, Past District Governor and member of the San Rafael Harbor Club

Emily Perez from Mission San Rafael, Hairdresser and daughter extraordinaire

Guest of members:

Ralph McLeran came with brother Brian for the Precious Life presentation.

WHAT'S GOING ON IN THE CLUB

Jeff read the list of Rotary events:

The Interact Blood Drive was a success with 40 students donating blood. They will have another blood drive in spring.

The Interact Autumn Fundraiser will be held on November 19^th at 6pm.

Brian McLeran will be leading Rotary construction crews on November 11^th building a community fence at the Senior Access facility, and November 16^th will be a project at the Laurel Dell School Project

I am not really sure why I am putting this down in the bulletin, but it was announced at the meeting. Today October 29^th there will be a Rotary District Information Night starting at 5:30pm, in Corte Madera Wells Fargo Bank.

Big news November will be Rotary Foundation Month.

MEMBER CONTRIBUTIONS

Sandy gave a donation to the Scholarship Endowment Fund in honor of his Wedding Anniversary and Billy’s Birthday.

Nathan Cobert celebrated Arlene’s Birthday.

Budd Jones celebrated Deloras’s Birthday.

Ann DeLaney is a new Grandparent, celebrating a new baby Grandson.

John Zeiter celebrated his Wedding Anniversary by going to Parents’s Day at USC with his daughter. 

Marty Malkin reminded all of us that Assemblyman Mark Levin will be our speaker at next weeks meeting.

 RAFFLE/MARBLE

George Walters was the lucky winner of a magnificent prize I forgot to bring.

Dick Kuhn’s ticket was draw for the marble pull and unbelievably he became about the sixth person to win the drawing this year.  I think they better make sure there is only one red marble in there.

PROGRAM SUMMARY

Brian McLeran lead a presentation on their trip to Africa for Precious Life. We hope to raise $5,000 each of the next three years for this joint project with the Rotary Club of Sausalito.

Sharon Myer told us Zimbabwe has approximately 50,000 baby’s abandoned annually.  The charity Precious Life has a downtown intake facility that serves approximately 70 young women per day. They have bought a farm that houses 15 young women and has a waiting list of 200.

Ann DeLaney informed us that the in town training facility does not include housing. While the farm has limited housing and focuses their training on farming activities.

Out group of Rotarians brought a specialized wheelchair all the way from San Francisco to Zimbabwe, and delivered it to handicapped athlete there. The chair is specially designed to allow him to play competitive tennis.

The Rotary Clubs of Terra Linda and Sausalito have already sponsored a water tower and truck for Precious Life, both of which are used regularly.

While our fellow Rotarians were there, they helped plant Avocado Trees at the farm and went over the future building plans.

One of the young girls at the farm was 14 year old Jackie. Who was pregnant for the second time and had only been there for three weeks. She was very withdrawn and quiet when she first got there, but after all the help and counseling from the Precious Life staff she is now talking to others and getting more and more social.

Precious Life educated all the young women on birth control and gives them the opportunity to receive birth control implants.

While visiting the Precious Life facilities our club members had the opportunity to visit with the children at the inspirational King George VI High School. The school is dedicated to the education for disabled and deaf children. They will be celebrating the sponsorship of their interact club on November 15^th. This is the same day as when we will be sponsoring the St. Isabella’s School Interact Club.

NEXT WEEK’S SPEAKER

Assemblyman Mark Levin will be our speaker at next weeks meeting.

Written by Tom Martz.