President Chris called the meeting to order and led the Club in reciting the 4-Way Test. President Chris introduced Joel Hoffman for the Reflection which focused upon the unsung heroes who work with our speaker at the MSU Surplus Store and Recycling Center. They have a remarkable impact to reduce, reuse and recycle and create a circular economy. They focus on stewardship, innovation and education in a non-flashy way. And, at the Surplus Store you can not only find furniture from MSU but also vintage signs and even hot dog carts through their treasure hunt array of items found there.
Hari Kern led Rotarians in singing the God Bless America.
We welcomed guests and visiting Rotarians including John Lundy from Haslett Rotary Club who serves as the Assistant Governor for our District; Pam introduced her office manager Mary from the Davies Project; and, Chris Holman introduced Amerika who is the Career & Education Director for Capital Area Michigan Works.
The health of the Club is good!
President Chris introduced the LCC Jazz Band as today’s special music. Director Jon Gewirtz introduced the 5 members of the group and announced two upcoming events.
1. On February 20 and 21, the Jazz Band will offer performances with Happendance Studio at Dart Auditorium at 7:00pm.
2. On March 6, the LCC faculty concert will take place in LCC’s Michigan Room at 7:00pm. This is a fundraiser for the LCC endowment to assure scholarships for students to participate in band and choir.
The Jazz Band performed In the Wee Small House of the Morning and It Don’t Mean a Thing.
A red badge was presented to Bernie Lucas and we officially welcome her to the Lansing Rotary Club!
President Chris announced that Lolo Robison will be our next President Elect starting July 1. Congratulations Lolo and thank you for your service!
Chris Holman came forward to announce the January birthdays. Surprisingly, there are only three Rotarians with January birthdays and there was a 100% contribution this month. The question posed this month was: What country would you want to include as the 51st state to our nation? Rich Schaberg decided that he’s not fond of ice and doesn’t speak Danish so not Greenland and with their great water and climate, he would choose Fiji. Janet Lillie thought a state that provided 82 degrees year-round, allowed for a good hair day every day, took away bad moods, she would choose Aruba. Chris has heard they have a Bad Bunny problem in Puerto Rico so he would choose them as the 51st state. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROTARIANS!
Two blue badges were presented today. The first was:
Tiffany Brown has been attending Rotary for about 1.5 years and we learned a lot about her busy life. She was born and raised in Flint and is a strong supporter of that community. She went to UM Flint and MSU. When she was 19, she experienced a violent incident that sparked her interest in public service. She started her career volunteering with Governor Granholm and became the Deputy Press Secretary. She worked in State Government as the Information Officer with MI State Police and MI DEQ under Governor Snyder during the Flint Water Crisis. Under Governor Whitmer, she was with the Transition Team and became the first black Communications Director for the State. Tiffany is currently the Director of Communications with the US Attorney’s Office. She has been a Big Sister for over eight years through the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program and she serves as a Board Trustee for the Ruth Mott Foundation. Tiffany has sponsored a child in Kenya and went to visit her. She loves adventure, is the youngest of 9, loves soccer and horses, and….just got engaged in December!!! And her Birthday is on Valentines Day!
Joseph Yang has also been a Rotarian for about 1.5 years but has been a guest and a speaker at our Club many times over the years. Joseph is the President and CEO of the Boys & Girls Club, a husband, a father of 3, and the youngest of 19 children in his family. Of the 19 children, he is the only son! Joseph has been at the Boys & Girls Club for 21 years and he is also a Criminal Defense Attorney for indigents and a Youth Sports Coach. He is a first generation American whose parents came here from Vietnam. He grew up in public housing/public assistance and his parents did not speak English. He has two sides to his life with his more traditional heritage and his American life. He is Lansing educated by attending Everett, LCC, MCU and Cooley Law School, lives on 2.5 acres in Leslie and is a heartbreak and a pickup truck away from being a country music song!
President Chris presented Tiffany and Joseph their blue badges and we thank them for the fun presentations to get a glimpse into who they are!
Thank you to our Chair of the Day and Month Janet Lillie who introduced today’s speaker Kris Jolley from the award-winning MSU Surplus Store and Recycling Center. Kris has been with MSU since 1997 when it was the MSU Salvage Yard and the building had no heat or water.
Kris oversees the operations for all of MSU’s solid waste by collecting, processing and reselling to create a zero-waste hierarchy. The focus of the operation is to reuse, recycle and regulate disposal.
There are bins and cans all around campus as well as drop-off centers. The biggest trash collections are the week of campus move-in. Tons of styrofoam are sent to recycle that week. 26.3 million pounds of trash were collected by MSU in 2025. 4.4 was refuse, 2.9 organics, 5.9 recycled material and 13.1 for landfill.
In 2009, the operation built a new building that combined trash, recycling and reselling through the Surplus Store which is the only facility with all three components under one roof. 96% of the materials at the recycling center are sent to Michigan companies to guarantee their future uses. The recycling items are all hand sorted!
The food waste and organic waste are processed by over 1 million worms and the organic compost is sold as a revenue generator for the facility. They also generate revenue from selling books and other items through Ebay and Amazon and the Surplus Store generates the most revenue. In 2009, there was $300K in revenue from the Store and in $4 Million currently.
The Surplus Store sells a lot of clothes and bikes left by students, but you can also find unexpected items like a train engine or a Zamboni. About the only thing they haven’t sold is an airplane. Everything being discarded from MSU facilities comes to the Surplus Store. Big events for the Store are the Teacher Sale, Clothes by the Pound Sale and Bike Sales. They even reuse the Spartan marching band uniforms by turning the material into pillows. The Store has a large role in ensuring data security on computers and electronics being disposed. The Store also has an academic mission to the University. The MSU Bike Shop receives over 1500 bikes each year.
Thanks to Kris for the fascinating presentation about the important work being done at MSU to be a leader in reuse and recycle!
Our next meeting will be on Friday, February 13 at LCC featuring a presentation by Mollie Woods, the Director of MSU's Product Center. See you there!
Email for Julie Pingston: jpingston@lansing.org
