Western Douglas County Food Basket Project will be December 17th, 18th & 19th. We will need volunteers to help collect canned goods from schools on Thursday morning at 9:00AM. Volunteers on Friday morning at Bethany Church at 9:00AM to sort food and pack baskets. Then on Saturday beginning at 9:00AM we need volunteers to help deliver baskets to the families. Contact Jim Tomanek at 402-669-1019 if you would like to sign up for one or all three days to help.
President Roger opened the meeting with a request to Duane Prorok to give the invocation and lead us in the pledge of allegiance to the flag. Visiting Rotarian (guess who?) Larry Johansen of the Downtown Club Treasurer Rita reported a balance of $8,096.04. Secretary Ron queried the membership in attendance about their receipt of THE ROTARIAN magazine. This question was brought about by our club records being compared to Rotary International Records resulting the finding of several errors in the International records, which were corrected following the comparison. Jim Tomanek reminded us of the FOOD BASKET program and the need for volunteers on December 17, 18 and 19th. President Roger reminded us of the Christmas Party on Sunday evening, December 13th. Tod gave us a report on the scholarship program indicating that our scholarships will remain at $1,500 each. The interviews going forward will be held as late as possible after other scholarships have been awarded.
Dick Krueger was the winner of the WHITE BALL in the drawing. There are only two golf balls in the bag to draw from
President Roger awards badges to returning member Roger Bettemann and new member Paul Dritley. Jim Tomanek's continuing recruiting is causing our badge box to run out of slots. Maybe to gain space we will have to remove the golf balls and replace them with marbles. (This is an Engineer's solution)
Shown in the above picture from left to right is Jen Karolski our speaker and Alyssa Conn, Jen's close friend and daughter of Mike Ough.
Jen and Alyssa were introduced to our group by Mike Ough. Jen is from Quality Living International who operate at a 70 acre center located at 72nd and Sorensen Parkway. After hospitalization, brain injury individuals, mostly young adults turn to the facility to deal with rehabilitation, quality of life issues, and become motivated. This is a residential facility and there are patients from about 28 different states.
The facility does not work with medicare, they have links with Bellevue University and have ties to the Wounded Warrier programs at the Pentagon. They accept medicaid from 9 states, including Nebraska. They have low patient turnover.
There are 350 staff members and their annual budget is about $25 million. They do fund raising to assist with non-insured patients.
This was the final Rotary Lunch Bunch meeting for 2015. We met on December 9th at noon at Shevy’s in downtown Elkhorn. Our speaker for the day was the new owner of Christian Brothers Automotive located at 177th & Maple. Owner, Tom Beadel provided us information about the mission of Christian Brothers Automotive, including various service offerings and packages. Tom pointed out that there about 160 Christian Brothers franchises nationally. There was a good turn out of club members, 50 per cent of our Regular Thursday meeting, including New Member Rebecca Vermuele, Steve Kucirek, Steve Davis, Ron Mortensen, Jill Muegge, Jim Tomanek, Carlie Johnston, Roger Bettemann, Duane Prorok and Cal Hinz. Below is a a picture of Jim Tomanek and Tom Beadel. (if you have seen the clunkers that Jim drives, it would be easy to understand why he is buddying up with a garage owner) Just kidding.
Jim reminded us that the next Lunch Bunch will be meeting in January of 2016
Shown in the above picture from left to right is Jen Karolski our speaker and Alyssa Conn, Jen's close friend and daughter of Mike Ough.
