Northwind January 28, 2016

Call to order: President Sharon Robinson led us in the pledge of allegiance and Stan Brunner led the invocation by reminding us of our past member Jim McKellar with his annual Robert Burns prayer. Stan did this with a strong Irish accent and I am not sure what he said.
Visiting Rotarians:  none.

Returning Rotarians:  Marlene Sexton, Sharon Robinson and the Villhauers were all returning from vacation weeks in Porta Vallarta and other parts of Mexico, where the air was warm (86), the water was fine and the margaritas “self-loading”!  They were all fairly obnoxious about the amount of fun and sun they soaked up, while we all marinated in the PNW rain.  Marlene and Mark were guests of our past member Pete and Fidela Kremen for dinner in their lovely home near Porta Vallarta. I think we may need to hold a WCN RC meeting next January in Mexico and take the whole club!

Birthdays: Dan Parsons birthday was today 1/28! Happy Birthday Dan!  We missed you and had you attended today, we had pineapple upside down cake just for you.
Announcements: RLI starts this Saturday and by the time you read this, it will be too late, but you have been reminded for the past two weeks. Also, it continues on through the spring, so please sign up and start the RLI journey. The Global Grants seminar is next Saturday 2/6 in Mt Vernon and we must send two people and can send more. Dale will be going and he needs your company. We have a project that can use a grant, we have the money, and we just need you to champion the paperwork to make it happen. The Career Fair is 3/31 at BTC. Mark your calendar and plan to help out. The time commitment that day is about 9 AM-1 PM to set up and then clean up.  The keynote speaker is Alex Parker, an amazing NASA scientist. Check him out; http://www.alexharrisonparker.com/curriculumvitae/   He is a Whatcom Community College graduate who is now a renowned member of the scientific community.   Dale is not in town the day of the fair, so, we must be ready to manage without him.  Ken Richardson reminded us we need Duck Race sponsors. All members are strongly encouraged to bring in at least one sponsor.  We need $21,000 to cover the costs of the race and the winning tickets. We have approximately $9,000 pledged to date (if Dale brings in First Fed) and we need the sponsors before printing the tickets. We made progress last week but running out of time!  Finally, we all miss Rocky and Laurie Lloyd and send them well wishes as both are recovering from foot\knee surgery.

 

Happy Bucks:  Bill Grace was $20 happy that he no longer must take the middle of night calls during our epic wind storms that cause the power outages and the PSE trucks to be called out. Marlene paid for her most excellent Porta Vallarta trip and a visit with our snow bird member Brian Lott while soaking up the rays, plus a few sad bucks for being “hacked” and sending out weight loss emails. She claims that if such things worked, she would be unemployed. Dale was sad that his 104 year old grandmother in London fell and broke her hip with a prognosis of not recovering. The good news is there was time enough for his father to fly to London to be with her. Rollo was happy his daughter is home from college for a visit. Tim had happy bucks for his and Pati’s Mexico vacation and a visit to the Mayan ruins (pyramids) where the climb to the top was daunting. His friend opted out of the climb but later broke his leg jumping a small waterway on his way to the pool, or the bar..not sure which. This is Tim’s friend’s second bone breaking experience while in the company of Tim.  I think he may want to start paying attention to the company he keeps. Tim had apology bucks for early leaving and missing the board meeting the night before, but with the very good reason of needing to be with his 19 year old dog as the vet put him (dog) down. Pati was happy for the program today and Jake was sorry he missed the board meeting but the basketball game that interfered with the timing was worth the penalty and happy he was early to the meeting today. Jim Blaney was happy about his wife’s mobile scooter..Wheeler Dealer- and I could not hear the rest except that it seems to enable her to get around better. Stan was happy Janella is home after a visit to see her brother in Spokane. Stan and Margaret rely on Janella to help them at home. Ken was just happy and Linda is happy about the pending marriage of her son in June.

Fine Master:  Marlene failed to check the schedule for fine master so she stepped in with quick assessments so we could get to our program. $1 fines for everyone who had not been in 80 degree weather in the past week, or had not consumed a margarita in the past week, Stan for his appreciation of Janella, Tim for general purposes, Ken & Rocky for general purposes, Linda for her talent in convincing all of Lummi Island to vote for the Ferndale School levy (although they continue to argue about the reasons), Bill for believing the wt. loss hack, Dale for delaying her vacation exit by the last email, Rollo for lack of empathy with her plight, Pati and Tim for having too much fun in Mexico and taunting us with the FB photos, Jake for his lame excuse for missing a board meeting, Jim B for the Wheeler Dealer comment, Eric (via Tim) for his welcome to the club, Julie for her “semi” retirement because Marlene is ready and can’t pull the plug, yet.
Banners:  Another brilliant display from Stan; Robert Burns’s birthday 239 years ago.

Program: Karen Ekdahl, the executive director of Bellingham Childcare & Learning Center (BCLC) provided our program today. Karen has been with the organization (a 501 c 3, not-for profit entity) since she came to Bellingham from California in 1993. She reported lots of facts about the history of the organization and the contribution made to the early childhood readiness for children in our community since 1968. The roots of this entity were a small group of parents and community members that were searching for a child care solution for single working mothers. BCLC was originally located at the First Baptist Church on Flora and was staffed by parents and volunteers.
The need for larger space led to several moves to area churches as the organization grew. BCLC is now accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, has 72 children enrolled and is open to all families. The Center is located at 2600 Squalicum Parkway near St. Joe’s hospital; they are close to paying off the mortgage on their building. It costs nearly $1,000 per month, per child to provide this care and education. BCLC has a sliding scale for parents with much of the program cost subsidized by grants and donations. Many families start with one child and continue in the program as their families grow until all are in elementary school. Some of those children have cycled back with children of their own in the program.
There are 13 Head Start slots and about a 50/50 ratio of subsidized children with those who can afford the monthly fee. The teacher/student ratio is high to assure the best quality of care, support and training for the children. This program is highly successful and other communities would like to see it franchised. This is an affordable care option for low income families and is especially important as 90% of critical brain development happens by age 5. There are 2000 days between the time a baby is born and when that child begins kindergarten. Experiences during that time have a lasting impact on later learning, health and success. Karen is proud of the work they do and the success of the program as demonstrated by the future successes of their children. Part of her job is to ‘beg’ for donations to help support the work.
 BCLC is open from 6:30 AM to 6:00 PM weekdays, providing healthy meals for the children and education for the parents. The waiting list to get into the program is long and there is much greater demand for services than is available in Bellingham and surrounding towns. Karen considers this a “crisis”.   The Ferndale community would benefit from a program like this.

Raffle:  Pati won the day prize (candle holders) and Linda drew the 50/50 raffle. She did not pick the ace of spades so the pot grows.  Winners take next week is $374.50