2009
Rotarians Lisa Humfeld and Grant Wilson were married on Feb. 9th.
The Annual Honor’s Banquet was held for seniors from BA and Faribault High School.
The Annual Strive Banquet was held with scholarships awarded at the Elks Club.
In April 2009, we hosted the GSE Team from India.
The Club held the annual picnic at the Rotary Camp.
The club sponsored a second circus at the Rice County Fairgrounds as a fundraiser for the soccer fields.
Over $1700 worth of books were donated to kids in 1st-3rd grade at Jefferson Elementary as part of their Kickstart Program.
Rotarian of the Year was awarded to Dave Beranek.
The annual Rotary Rose Sale was held in October.
On November 3rd, 2009, Rachel’s Challenge was held at the Faribault High School. Rachel Joy Scott was the first person who died in the Columbine High School shooting in April 1999.
In December 2009, we held our first ever Rotary Reindeer 5K Run. This was held at Boston’s and started on the bike path.
The club enjoyed the 70th annual Christmas Concert.
Our club’s 89th president in 2008-09 was Pastor Rick Ormsby.
I received the following from Pastor Ormsby who now lives in Pine Island.
Murray, as per our phone conversation, nothing sticks out in my fading mind about my year as Rotary President. I know we had good programs, supported ongoing and special causes, etc. We had just completed our international project--a cassava processing plant for 8 villages near Makeni, Sierra Leone, West Africa. That was begun during Angela Storch's presidency.
Since then, our Faribault Rotary Club was introduced to Rev. Judith Banya, who has spoken formally and informally about her dreams as a United Methodist Pastor in Sierra Leone. Since returning to her home country in 2013 (after spending 18 years in the US), she has founded 3 congregations in Baiwalla, center for the chiefdom, and in nearby villages (Dodo and Bomaru)--totaling 200 worshipers, 1/2 children.
She has also led a ministry which has fed 500 children a noon meal in three schools every school day. A major donor of food has been Minnesota's own Feed My Starving Children. She has organized community work projects (like road repairs), adult literacy classes, and conflict mediation.
The mission pick-up truck provided by the Pine Island United Methodist Church ($17,000) not only provides its intended purpose of moving children, adults, and bags of basic foods from a distant city, but also had the unintended use as an area ambulance. To date an estimated 12 people are alive because the truck shrinks the time needed to get to the nearest hospital from several days to four hours. The area is 95% Muslim, who have good relations with the few Christians. One of the Iman's is thankful that our ambulance "rushed" his wife to the hospital for an appendectomy.
Since 2017 the major project is construction of a secondary school (grades 7-11). I took Minnesota work teams in 2017 and 2018 and was made honorary Paramount Chief for Baiwalla. I was given a robe and cap by the Paramount Chief, along with the gift of a live goat, which I donated to the food program.
Since April, 2013, I have worked with churches and individuals in Minnesota, North Carolina, Massachusetts, and Oklahoma to see that Rev. Banya received $2000 monthly to support her work. In 2017 we raised the monthly stipend to $2500. One church in North Carolina has contributed $20,000 in support in the last 4 years. Another large North Carolina church donated 1/2 their Christmas offering--a gift of $10,000. Fourth Avenue UMC in Faribault provided $6000 from 2013-2015. While the money (over $200,000) for building the school was donated by a retired General Mills executive in Minneapolis, the Bishop in Sierra Leone called to tell me they were naming the school for me—
Richard Ormsby Methodist High School.
The school has opened with just four classes, 120 student, and 6 teachers and staff. With 11 classrooms, 2 labs, an auditorium and library, 4 offices and sets of bathrooms, the school will eventually have 500 students.
As I mentioned in our phone conversation, I believe this project is related to our Rotary project in Sierra Leone in 2006-2008. Recently I received a generous contribution for the school from Dick Cook, who along with Dick Huston worked with me on our Rotary project.