It was a real treat to meet and talk through interpreters with Miriam Cerillo Perez, the Project Amigo college student our club is sponsoring. We learned more about her major, metallurgical chemical engineering, her family and her part-time jobs. Miriam was joined on the Zoom screen by Executive Director Kirk Dretzka, Donor Guidance Director Dora Zuniga and Abel Vargas Manzo, Director of Queseria Education Program.

Supported by donations from Rotary Clubs, individuals and one corporate sponsor, Project Amigo makes it possible for children of poverty to attend elementary school, junior high, high school and college by covering all costs of their education, including tuition, uniforms, backpacks with school supplies, and laptops for college students. To date more than 900 students have graduated from 12th grade, and many have achieved college and advanced degrees. Kirk related some amazing success stories. 

The organization's formula is simple. "It takes more than money," Kirk said. "Project Amigo takes a kid by the hand and makes sure she or he succeeds. In addition to attending classes and doing their homework, our students are required to give back ten hours to the community and to write letters to donors. They learn responsibility. We also have a psychologist on staff who works with students who need help and their families. Kirk noted that five members of the Project Amigo staff are graduates of the program.

Kirk and Dora thanked the club for its generous support of Miriam and urged members to consider visit Project Amigo for an upcoming Service Week. To learn more about Service Weeks: 

https://www.projectamigo.org/serviceweeks

During our Oct. 27 meeting, Anna Mai, a 2013 graduate of Galileo High School and recipient of a college scholarship from our club, charmed members with her humility and effervescent enthusiasm. 

The daughter of immigrants, Anna grew up in Chinatown and because her family was poor, she got her first job while in middle school. She described herself as insecure and shy while attending Galileo. After working hard and graduating from UC Berkeley, she first worked as a consultant but didn’t find the job personally rewarding. She then got a job in San Diego with Tokuyama, a Japanese manufacturer of high quality dental equipment. 

Anna convinced her supervisors that it’s good for a company to give back, and through her determined persistence, Tokuyama instituted a social responsibility program that has donated more than $500,000 in supplies to free dental clinics serving impoverished patients.

Anna says that she has learned, “You cannot change the world alone.” With the help of Tresa Eyres, a former member of our club who Anna describes as her mentor, Anna started Books for Prosperity, a nonprofit that empowers and educates underserved children in Mexico. The program has expanded to teach English to children in orphanages.

With a passionate interest to protect the environment, Anna’s goal is to become an entrepreneur and start a company that produces biodegradable every-day consumer products, such as bamboo toilet paper.  Having learned of Anna’s accomplishments and witnessing her infectious drive, several club members offered help, and we invited Anna to stay in touch.

“I have the hardest working cops in the city. They take pride in being the protectors of iconic spots in San Francisco.”

Central Station Captain Douglas Farmer exuded confidence in his officers and enthusiasm for his job as the guest speaker for our annual First Responders Recognition meeting on Sept. 15. 

Earlier that day, the entire Central Station staff was treated to a lunch of sandwiches, chips and ice cream provided by our club, Fisherman’s Wharf Community Benefit District and Roger Kaufman’s Ben & Jerry’s.

Farmer moved to San Francisco in 1987, and graduated from SF State and the Police Academy. He began his 30-year career as an officer in the Mission District and rose through the ranks as a tactical team instructor, sergeant in the Bayview area and Central Station lieutenant. 

“On June 30 this year, I was ready to retire when I was asked to become Central Station’s acting captain” he said. “I love my job and will stay as long as needed.”

Capt. Farmer noted that in addition to hundreds of businesses and residences, Central Station is responsible for 35 hotels, 34 consulates and eight top tourist attractions. He said car break-ins and burglaries have become the most prevalent crime on Fisherman’s Wharf, and they are happening in broad daylight by perpetrators who are often armed and violent. Illegal vendors and illegal alcohol sales are ongoing problems.

Capt. Farmer said that police visibility aids crime prevention and arrests. He urges business people and residents to immediately call police when they witness a crime.

The First Responders Recognition was arranged by Aline, who received the following email from Capt. Farmer:  "Thank you for having me as a guest at the Rotary meeting. It was a pleasure meeting you all. I am extremely grateful for the gift of having a book dedicated to Galileo High School in my name. That is truly awesome!   Looking forward to future meetings."

Club members were treated to an insider’s view of NASA’s space program from our March 10 speaker, Cristy Kumasaka, the principal quality assurance engineer for Aerojet Rocketdyne of Redmond, WA, and is part of the A-Team working on both the Orion and Artemis projects for NASA. 

Joining Cristy for our Zoom meeting were her parents Steve and Maria Mathews, longtime members of the Rotary Club of Peoria North and Mill Creek Rotary Club.

Cristy has worked for Aerojet for 22 years, starting with an internship while working toward her degree in engineering. As a side note, Cristy credits her career to the day that she attended a meeting of her mother’s Rotary Club and learned about Aerojet from the meeting’s speaker.

NASA’s Artemis program will land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon to explore the lunar surface like never before. This bold endeavor will begin with the Artemis I launch - an uncrewed flight test.

Artemis I is the first integrated test of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion spacecraft. SLS and Orion will blast off from Launch Complex 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida to send Orion into a lunar distant retrograde orbit – a wide orbit around the Moon that is farther from Earth than any human-rated spacecraft has ever traveled. The uncrewed mission will validate the design and safety of SLS and Orion for human exploration missions to follow.

SLS is the nation’s next-generation heavy-lift rocket that will carry humans farther and faster into deep space than ever before. Aerojet Rocketdyne provides the four powerful RS-25 main engines used to help propel SLS with over 2 million pounds of thrust, as well as the RL10 engine that propels the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS), or the second stage, of the SLS. This engine provides the power to accelerate the Orion spacecraft to speeds more than 20,000 mile per hour and set it on a course for the Moon.

SF Chinatown members Liz Mark and Rhonda Pierce described the joy and rewards of volunteering with H2Open Doors during our virtual meeting on Feb. 10. Each has participated in multiple projects with the humanitarian organization, the most recent at a hospital in Guatemala.

They joined a group from the Santa Cruz Rotary Club, which funded a water filtration system for the hospital. Those volunteers along with H2Open Doors founder Jon Kaufman and local workers to install the system which daily provides 40,000 liters of purified water for the emergency and operating rooms, ICU, pediatric, neo-natal and other hospital facilities. The availability of clean water is expected to drastically reduce infections, sickness and deaths.

In a sister project, Rotary volunteers assisted local physicians to conduct a free eye clinic.”We tested 280 people and handed out 230 pairs of free reading glasses, plus 100 pairs of non-prescription sunglasses,” Liz said.

The two agree that participating in a H2Open Doors project is a life-changing experience. For more information, visit www.H2OpenDoors.org

Central Police Station Captain Julian Ng and Officer Chris Sabella were our special guests for the club’s 7th annual First Responder Recognition. This year’s event, which took place virtually via Zoom, focused on the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001,terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City and crashed an airliner near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The attacks resulted in 2,977 fatalities and over 25,000 injuries.

Captain Ng recalled that on 9/11 he was an officer in the Bayview district and had just gotten off the night shift when he saw TV coverage of the towers falling. “I couldn’t help but think, what if that happened in San Francisco?” he said. “But I know what would happen. Firefighters and police here would do the same — we wouldn’t run away, we’d rush towards the disaster. That’s our job.”

“We have to be prepared, and we are,” Ng said. 

Officer Sabella said he was a high school freshman and vividly remembers the morning of the attacks. “It’s one of the things that spurred me to become a police officer,” he said, adding that his older brother is a firefighter and another brother is an EMT.

Foundation Chair Riki Intner surprised Captain Ng with a special gift from the club, a $1,000 donation naming him a Paul Harris Fellow. He received a lapel pin and certificate from the Rotary Foundation of Rotary International what states, “In appreciation of tangible and significant assistance given for the furtherance of better understanding and friendly relations among peoples of the world.”

Noticeably moved, Captain Ng thanked the club for this “tremendous honor.” 

Co-President Aline Estournes reported that pastries, goodies and ice cream were being delivered to Central Police Station for all the officers and staff to enjoy. Our hope is that next year, our First Responder Recognition will be an in-person celebration.

Club members enjoyed an evening of conversation, awards, laughter and praise for successfully completing a Rotary year of virtual meetings during the Change Over Dinner on Friday, June 25.

The club returned in person to Fisherman’s Wharf ––  at Swiss Louis Italian Seafood Restaurant on Pier 39 –– where Co-Presidents Suzanne Varacalli and Roger Kaufman passed the gavel to  Aline Estournes and Erk Scheller, now serving as Co-Presidents for the 2021-2022 year. Pictured l-r: Roger, Erik, Suzanne and Aline.

Suzanne and Roger reported that despite the Covid pandemic, our club gained three new members, Yvonne Curley, Bettie Grinnell and Randall Scott, and created a successful online fundraiser.

Janelle Estournes, the Americorps Disaster Services Coordinator for Sonoma and Napa Counties, presented a Red Cross program on “How to Prepare for an Emergency or Disaster” for our April 15 online meeting. She is a niece of club member and Co-President Elect Aline Estournes.

Noting that every county in California last year was struck by wildfires and other disastrous fires, Janelle focused on what should be included in an emergency kit and how individuals and families should plan and practice escape from a building or residence.

Members attending our March 18 via Zoom got a primer on the Magnolia Collection at the San Francisco Botanical Garden, a 55-acre living museum within Golden Gate Park that showcases more than 8,000 different kinds of plants from around the world. Our knowledgeable speakers were  Steve Gensler, the Garden’s Geographic Information System (GIS) Manager, and Victoria Stewart, Plant Records Manager.

We learned that there are 7,300 species of magnolias, one-third of which are located in China, and more than 300 species are considered threatened. Eric Walther, SF Botanical Garden director from 1937 to 1957, introduced magnolias, and trees located throughout the Garden are now the premier collection in the world outside of China. The blooming season is January-March.

The Garden’s oldest magnolia tree, at 99 years, is this Magnolia Campbelli.