Dee Elliott invited Marci Ronald and Tom Moroz as her supporting cast for a panel discussion on “Collective Impact” at our May 21 meeting. Marci is the Executive VP of United Way of the Lehigh Valley. Her responsibilities include achieving United Way goals in education, healthy aging, and food access. Tom is Senior Consultant at Techné Verde, a research and consulting group based in San Francisco and New York. He provides consulting and advisory services to non-profit and philanthropic clients, specializing in knowledge management, organizational development, and cross-organizational collaboration on social justice and sustainability issues.
With Dee’s expertise in dealing with homelessness, the trio took turns illuminating the potential power of organizations cooperatively solving complex problems, i.e. “collective impact.” They illustrated complexity with a local example. Of the ~44,000 children ages 0 – 5 in the Lehigh Valley, ~18,000 or 40% live in poverty. When children of poverty finally get to kindergarten, many are not prepared. They did not attend pre-school and missed the social, listening, reading and other classroom skills their peers already absorbed. If they are hungry too, their attention spans are short and learning becomes difficult. There are over 1,000 non-profit organizations in the Lehigh Valley alone – all pursuing their own distinct missions – but the poverty and educational performance problems remain. Since creating sustainable solutions to important social problems requires work on many fronts, the collective impact movement is attempting to open the conversations that will allow organizations to cooperative for more impactful and sustainable solutions. If you would like to learn more about collective impact, you can start at www.impacthub.net.
Note: Our Program Committee will be following up to learn more about the results of the “Envision Lehigh Valley” study prepared by US HUD. Most Morning Star Rotarians have little knowledge of this recently conducted $3.4 million project.
Thanks again to Dee for leading our program and congratulations. By the time you see her next, she’ll be married to David Johnson. Congratulations to Dee and David!!!
In addition to last week’s speakers, we had a room full of guests, including:
-
Jan Schwartz– guest of Shawn Deiter
-
Vicki Hicks – guest of Sharon Fontana
-
Sharon Brown – guest of Janet Sipple
-
Carl Kolepp – guest of Janet & Tom Kolepp
ALL HANDS ON DECK FOR THE GOLF TOURNAMENT – THIS MONDAY JUNE 1. The Golf Tournament Committee needs Morning Star volunteers to run the tournament. So, if you are in town and not already golfing, please contact Butch Macri. All Rotarians are asked to purchase some raffle board squares at $5 per square.
Reminder: Return any remaining Spaghetti Dinner ticket sales money to Val Walk or Sue Reeps immediately so that we can close out the event reconciliation by May 31.
We have almost qualified Morning Star as a Rotary Foundation “Every Rotarian Every Year” Club. All members Tom H or Tom K talked to have pledged or donated. There are only a few members that we have not been able to contact – and we’ll keep trying. To fulfill your pledge, write your check to “The Rotary Foundation” and give it to Tom Hartzell or the “$2 a Week” Table. We are trying to finish this up now so that Tom H can assure proper credit to both you and the club for our EREY achievement.
Join Janet Sipple and Mike Long, May’s “Prospective Member Challenge” volunteers, and make the commitment to introduce one or two acquaintances to Rotary and share our “Service Above Self” ideals. Guests are always welcome.
This week’s program on May 28 will have Rotarian Terry Reed informing us about the District 7430 medical training mission in Uganda.
Terry was there recently and witnessed the outstanding work that is enabled by Club funds, Foundation funds and energetic and dedicated Rotarians. (See separate story below.)
Be sure these club events are on your calendar. See the MSR website for additional information:
-
Golf Tournament: This Monday on June 1, 2015 to benefit the Bridges Foundation.
-
Board Meeting Reminder: Our joint board meeting with both current and new Board Members will be held June 17 at Rosanna’s Restaurant at corner of Broad and New Streets at 6:00 PM.
-
Kickout Party: Join the club Saturday evening June 20 at Tom and Landa Mohr’s to give President Tom (me) the boot. Food and fun for all. Bring friends and potential members along.
-
Club Changeover Meeting & Celebration: At our club meeting on June 25, President Elect Ron Searfoss and all incoming officers will be inducted.
-
Celtic Classic 5K / 10K Race: Saturday September 26, 2015.
Here are District events of interest with full details and registration information on the District 7430 website.
-
Camp Neidig (RYLA) 2015: June 19 – 22 with closing ceremony & dinner on June 22. For tickets, please go to CampNeidig.com.
-
District Turnover Meeting and Dinner: June 29 at William Penn Inn in Gwynedd (Ambler), PA.
-
Rotary Leadership Institute: Saturday November 7, 2015 at the Radisson Hotel in King of Prussia. (Other dates are available at different locations.) MSR reimburses attendees and all Morning Star Rotarians are encouraged to attend.
Reminder: President Tom will be in South Africa from May 29 through June 12 -- missing meetings on June 4 and June 11. While I’m AWOL, please attend our meetings to support President Elect Ron and our speakers. I’ll next see the Board on June 17 and all our members at the club on June 18 and at the kickout party on June 20.
If you are visiting Bethlehem or our website or you want to learn more about Bethlehem Morning Star or Rotary International, please contact Tom Kolepp via email at tkolepp@gmail.com or via mobile phone at 484-241-1251.
Let's continue to "Light Up Rotary".
Regards, President Tom
