It was a beautiful fall day for a Rotary Zoom meeting! President Mark started the meeting off with the Pledge of Allegiance, visiting Rotarians and guests were introduced and former club president Homer Nye offered up the Gratitude and Reflection.
Matt McDonough responded to an article in the Record-Eagle regarding GOREC. GOREC is currently closed during the day and is currently reviewing zoning requirements for their activities that need township approval. The goal is to be fully open by next summer. If you have questions, please see Matt.
Ramona Pleva reminded the club that we have our Second Annual Halloween Blood Drive on Friday, October 29 from 10 am – 5 pm at Kirkbride Hall. Blood supplies are still low throughout Northern Michigan so please donate if you can. All donors will receive a coupon for a free pint of blood at a local Northern Michigan brewery. Costumes are encouraged and the baked goods will be plenty! This is a joint service project with our Kiwanis and Optimist Clubs. To sign up, click on the link: https://donate.michigan.versiti.org/donor/schedules/drive_schedule/135645
Miriam Owsley announced a Rotary Charities “Connecting with Changemakers” event on Thursday, October 27 from 4:00 pm – 6:30 pm at Jacob’s Corn Maze.
Allison Beers wants everyone to mark their calendars for our club’s Centennial (plus a year or two….) celebration on Saturday, Dec. 11 at the City Opera House. Tickets are $65/person and will include a dinner and fabulous entertainment. The event is a Roaring 20’s theme so get those flapper dresses and 20’s -esque suits ordered! Or you can simply go Black Tie! And the entertainment is coming in from out of town and Allison looking for Rotarians who can help put them up either in their home or in an Airbnb. She needs four bedrooms total.
Next week, our meeting will be returning to the Park Place! It is imperative that we have a quorum. We will have a special meeting of the corporate membership and announce the slate of candidates for the upcoming board positions. November 16 will be the election day so you need to show up that day as well.
Madison Ford introduced our program speaker Seth Johnson. Seth is the executive director of the United Way.
The United Way has many areas of service and one area of focus is with the current housing situation.
ALICE is an acronym for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employee. These folks are above the national poverty level but are before the Household Survival Budget. They tend to have low-wage jobs and no savings.
Sixty percent of the Northern Michigan population is self-sufficient leaving 40% in the extremely poor, very poor and poor income levels. These individuals and families struggle with meeting their needs for food, housing, healthcare and public assistance isn’t available for some of them.
The United Way promotes the spirit of: Give, Advocate, Volunteer.
VOLUNTEER:
The United Way’s online volunteer portal shows what’s going on in the community, tracks volunteer hours and allows one to sign up for volunteer activities offered through nonprofit organizations and service clubs.
GIVE:
Gold for Good! Do you have a random cuff link laying around or an earring that lost its mate? You can turn in those gold nuggets to Bay Precious Metals and the proceeds from that piece will assist children with vision screenings and eye glasses!
ADVOCATE:
Great Start Collaboration allows child care providers to offer higher quality services and allows them to tap into state resources.
Tri-Share grew from an emerging needs grant and provides affordability, access and quality of child care through implementing a model by which the state, employer, and employee can share equal responsibility for child care by contributing to one-third of the cost. Local businesses that are currently participating in this program locally include Munson Child Care, Skilled Manufacturing, Inc., TentCraft, Cherry Republic, and Traverse City Tourism.
Tri-Share can be used for any licensed child care provided to children age 0-17, and includes preschool child care, after-school care and summer programs.
211 is a program for health and human services. This program was first implemented to assist with scheduling COVID-19 vaccinations earlier this year. It is now used to track data as to what services and assistance people need. The biggest needs are for COVID-19 information, assistance with housing, transportation and food sources.
The United Way has a huge role in advocating for the needs of our community at a very basic human level. Thanks to Seth for leading such an amazing organization. Today’s writer gives you a Five Star Google Review!
With that, Madison presented the Wheels of Hope certificate to Seth virtually. President Mark finished the meeting with The Four-Way Test!
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