President Dick Hall called the meeting to order and called on David Small to lead the Pledge of Allegiance Julie L’Heureux gave the invocation about the children’s classic “Charlotte’s Web” in honor of the day’s speaker, Barbara Walsh, a children’s book author. Julie spoke about Wilbur, the pig in the book, who befriended the spider and protagonist, Charlotte, who ultimately saves his life. The moral of “Charlotte’s Web” is that true friendship is immeasurably valuable.
CANS HELP MAUI: After lunch, Dick reminded everyone to put money into the cans to support Polio Plus and Rotary International. Dick also shared that the Rotary Club of Waikiki is accepting donations to benefit the victims of the fire damage in Maui.
HELLO: Mary Pat Donnellon introduced the visitors to the meeting.
PLAYING THE ODDS: Jim Vincenzi led the raffle for the $260 pot. PTG’s ticket was drawn. As our club’s most generous raffle player, Paul statistically has the highest odds of winning but, alas, today was not his lucky day.
FLAGS EXCHANGED: Visiting Rotarian Kevin Donaldson traded Rotary flags with President Dick. He presented his flag from his club in Oregon. Kevin has been attending meetings all summer and participating in our volunteer projects while his wife works as a traveling nurse. Dick welcomed Kevin to come back anytime. Kevin thanked everyone for being so welcoming, especially Mike Fortunato, and expressed his appreciation for volunteering with the summer reading program. He said, “You do your community proud.”
FLAGS FOR HEROES IS HERE: Charlie Frair spoke about the Flags for Heroes event and encouraged Rotarians to buy a flag online if you haven’t done so yet. (Flyers were on the tables). At the same time, recruit non-Rotarians to purchase a flag and attend our next meeting on September 8
th at 12:30 at the mall to kick off the flag display. He suspects we will have 110-120 flags. Set up will be Thursday, September 7
th at 7 PM at the mall and let Charlie or Paul Tully know if you can make it. 30% of the donations will help solve homelessness in Portland and the remaining amount will be used for other Rotary causes as determined by the board.
Embrace this moment. For details, watch and share our video with others:
WELCOME MARIO: Nannette Ranger-Duncanson introduced new Rotarian Mario Martinez. Mario is a branch manager of Key Bank and lives in Kennebunk. He moved to Portland from El Salvador in his youth. Dick encouraged all Rotarians to invite others to attend a Portland Rotary meeting.
(Photo Mario and Nannette)
PACKS, SNACKS, & SHOES: Amy Chipman spoke about the recent Back-to-School event at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Southern Maine in the downtown Portland clubhouse. This was a collaborative event with Lamey-Wellehan and New Balance donating shoes, The Locker Project providing snacks, and Portland Rotary providing back to school supplies and backpacks. We served 135 members with new shoes, backpacks, school supplies and treats. The students were so excited like it was Christmas! Amy thanked all the Rotarians who helped to stuff the backpacks and volunteered at the event. It was a great project! Thanks for leading it, Amy!
READING ROTARIANS REST: Laura Young announced the end of the summer reading program and thanked the funders who helped us purchase the books and the volunteer readers. Special thanks to Mike Fortunato and David Small who led the reading programs on Mondays and Thursdays respectively. Laura asked the summer readers to stand for thank you applause. (Photo)
ELLEN GOES LONG: Ellen Niewoehner first spoke on behalf of Mike Fortunato about the Long Creek program. She recently started back up with the monthly program visiting with 13-14 kids from Long Creek. Last Wednesday, Ellen, along with Barbara and Jim Willey, Dave Putnam, Mike Fortunato, Tom Talbott, and Kirk Duffy attended. Rotarians organized team "speed" ping pong tournament, pizza, snacks and drinks which the kids and volunteers loved.
ELLEN TURNS GREEN: Ellen then spoke about volunteer opportunities through the Environmental Group. First is the Coastal Clean-up day on September 20th in conjunction with the Portland Sunrise group, tentatively 9am to noon. Rain day scheduled for the next day. Ellen also shared the good news that TD Bank is giving a $12K grant to help purchase trees to plant and will provide volunteers from TD as well. The next planting is Tuesday, October 3rd at approximately 9 am to noon. The goal is to ultimately plant 100 trees around Rotary grove in Portland. An ecoMaine tour will be scheduled at some point in the fall.
RECOVERY READY: Niki Curtis shared information about the 2
nd annual "Building Recovery Ready Communities Conference" planned for September 21
st, Italian Heritage Center, 8-4 pm, $25 pp. Flyers were distributed on the tables.
To Register, Click Here.
LOVE: Bill Blount announced the start of the next tennis league scheduled for September 11th.
WELL DONE: President Dick thanked Jake Bourdeau for organizing the Rotary social event last week in Yarmouth.
BUDGETS ONLINE: The Board of Directors has voted to post the club's budgets online. A new menu item, "Club Budgets" has been added to the website. It requires member login in order to see it.
SEADOG SOCIAL: Zach Newell is pitching our September social! We will be attending a Portland Sea Dogs game on
Thursday, September 14 @ 6:00pm at
Hadlock Field.
Use this link here to purchase tickets to attend the game. All ticket prices are $9 for section 212. Please purchase as many tickets as you would like and bring friends and family to the game. We have 50 seats allotted for the game but can get more added without a problem.
You may also purchase tickets by clicking here.
Happy Labor Day Weekend! 
Barbara A. Walsh is a Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter working on special projects for the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram. Walsh was one of two principal reporters at the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune, who worked on a yearlong series about Willie Horton Jr., a convicted killer and furlough escapee from the Massachusetts Walpole Prison. His crimes drew attention to the flawed Massachusetts prison system. The series won a 1988 Pulitzer Prize. (Photo: Paul Gore and Barbara Walsh)
Umaru Balde of Portland, Maine has been sponsored for membership by Nannette Ranger-Duncanson. Umaru is the Justice, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Director for the City of Portland. After this publication, his application will be voted on by the Board of Directors. .png)
