The annual Rotary Raffle was held on October 16th and the lucky ticket holder, number 210, was Joel Solomine. Joel won the first prize of $10,000 drawn at the dinner event that evening in front of a crowd of Rotarians, friends, and ticket holders who were at the Porthole Restaurant to witness the drawing while enjoying an excellent buffet and great fellowship. Other winners were: Ellen Moriarty Petroccia ($1,500), Frederick Overmars ($500), Roger Brennan ($400), Don Smith ($200), and Arthur Horgan ($200). Club members Rich Brangiforte and Obie Barker did a great job in managing the drawing, while club member and ticket seller Jim Harris got the enviable job of informing Joel of his winnings.
The Rotary Club of Lynn appreciates ALL those who purchased tickets. The club holds this annual raffle to raise funds for a variety of programs that it runs each year. Rotary programs include sponsoring special games for special education students, distributing dictionaries to each third grader in the city, a special awards program for grade 8 students, scholastic scholarships for graduating students, support for veterans, and raising funds for cancer research. This raffle helps to cover the costs of these programs and your support is greatly appreciated. The top prize is $10,000 and the odds of winning were only 300-1. The odds of helping people with these funds are even greater. The club thanks you for your support in its efforts to help people and make a better world.
The Board of Directors for Lynn Rotary has voted to endorse Lynn’s participation in an international project in cooperation with the Rotary Club of Jamestown, Rhode Island. The project is called the Ghana Literacy Project and collects books for schools in Ghana which do not have the resources necessary to educate their children. Details of our involvement will be forthcoming but it will involve collecting books and helping a local resident move a large number of books to Rhode Island, for shipment to Ghana. The letter sent to President Obie described their project as follows:
“Imagine taking university courses without the benefit of a textbook. Students at the University of Ghana, indeed at most universities in West Africa, do exactly this -- no textbook for any course. Now imagine what you can do about this. Simply take our used textbooks, (they don't have to be the current edition), and donate them to this project: we will collect, sort and package these for containerized shipment to Ghana each year. The container leaves Providence in May. In addition to textbooks for the University. children's books and culturally appropriate books for adults are also being collected for village libraries and schools and for orphans and vulnerable children.
The Rotary Club of Accra Airport is coordinating the receipt and delivery of books in Ghana to the Balme Library at the University of Ghana. where the books will be loaned to students for the duration of their course. All books will be re-loaned to new students even year so that your donation will serve students for years to come. Non-text children's books and adult books will be directed to Matthew 25 House, a refuge for people infected with HIV. a library in Pokuase Village and other schools and organizations in Ghana.”
Part of Lynn Rotary’s involvement in this project is to work with a local resident, Dorothy Wright-Irwin, who has collected a large number of books for the project, but who needs help in delivering them to Rhode Island. Lynn Rotarians will help make arrangements for the transportation of such a large number of books. In her letter to President Obie, Ms. Wright-Irwin described how she came to be involved with a school in Ghana, and the scope of their need. In part she wrote:
“I visited The Hilltop School, a village school just outside the town of Kumasi. As it so happened, one gentleman from the community, who owned a sawmill, had recently donated his time and materials to build the school a library. The library consisted of one large room with shelves from floor to ceiling, and a smaller room with round tables and chairs and also with shelves around the perimeter. Most of the shelves were empty because all the books that they had filled only a small portion of the space provided.
I was taken to meet the Director and Assistant Directors of the school. I presented them with the books I had brought. They both cried, with joy, that their prayers were being answered, first the library and now with books. In reality, the donation I brought was a drop in the bucket for what they needed, but they were so grateful.
I was brought to meet the children to explain about the books, their eyes lit up and sparkled and some asked if they could bring them home so their parents could see and hear them read. Now it was my turn for tears. The teacher explained that they could, but they would be responsible for taking care of the books overnight, but they would have to return them the following day, so other children could borrow them as well.”
The Lynn Rotary Board felt that our club could make a good contribution to this worthy project and that we would be able to provide the resources needed to move the books from Lynn. We will be looking to use several trucks needed to move the books and volunteers in loading and unloading them. We will also be looking for members to bring in whatever book donations that they can over the coming months.
Reprinted from "Ever Wonder Why?" by Douglas B. Smith
Ever wonder why dimes, quarters, and half-dollars have notched edges, while pennies and nickles do not?
The US Mint began putting notches on the edges of coins containing gold and silver to discourage holders of such coins from shaving off small quantities of the precious metals. Before coins were notched, shaving coins was a common practice, and at one point, the problem was so bad that merchants refused to accept coins without first weighing them to determine their true value. Notching the coins corrected the problem since any attempt to shave a notched coin could be easily detected.
Dimes, quarters and half-dollars are notched because they contain silver. There is no need to notch pennies and nickles since the metals they contain are not valuable enough to make shaving worth the effort.
The annual Rotary Raffle was held on October 16th and the lucky ticket holder, number 210, was Joel Solomine. Joel won the first prize of $10,000 drawn at the dinner event that evening in front of a crowd of Rotarians, friends, and ticket holders who were at the Porthole Restaurant to witness the drawing while enjoying an excellent buffet and great fellowship. Other winners were: Ellen Moriarty Petroccia ($1,500), Frederick Overmars ($500), Roger Brennan ($400), Don Smith ($200), and Arthur Horgan ($200). Club members Rich Brangiforte and Obie Barker did a great job in managing the drawing, while club member and ticket seller Jim Harris got the enviable job of informing Joel of his winnings.
The Board of Directors for Lynn Rotary has voted to endorse Lynn’s participation in an international project in cooperation with the Rotary Club of Jamestown, Rhode Island. The project is called the Ghana Literacy Project and collects books for schools in Ghana which do not have the resources necessary to educate their children. Details of our involvement will be forthcoming but it will involve collecting books and helping a local resident move a large number of books to Rhode Island, for shipment to Ghana. The letter sent to President Obie described their project as follows:.jpg)
Part of Lynn Rotary’s involvement in this project is to work with a local resident, Dorothy Wright-Irwin, who has collected a large number of books for the project, but who needs help in delivering them to Rhode Island. Lynn Rotarians will help make arrangements for the transportation of such a large number of books. In her letter to President Obie, Ms. Wright-Irwin described how she came to be involved with a school in Ghana, and the scope of their need. In part she wrote:
Reprinted from "Ever Wonder Why?" by Douglas B. Smith
