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A little after 12:25 President Pat Hanes brought everyone into our weekly meeting from their virtual lunch tables. President Hanes noted today is Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery in the United States and this is of more importance than ever to reflect on this day due to the current events happening throughout our country. Donna Gardner gave the invocation followed by John Dale Smith with My Country Tis of Thee. Diane Sanborn reported that John Collins brother is having major surgery and asked that we all keep his brother in our prayers. Also, Kelly Rossman-McKinney is receiving treatment and more prayers were requested. Diane noted that all other club members are in good health. Joel Hoffman provided an update on our fellow Rotarian Don Colizzi. Joel noted that Don is a veteran of the Marine Corps. Before becoming a Senior Vice-President at Davenport College. Don is a recipient of the State of Michigan Distinguished Service Medal and is now retired and enjoying time spent on his 40 Acres in Charlotte along with woodworking. Joel shared one final detail about Don in that he was admitted to the first class upon the establishment of Cooley Law School along with his classmate our own President Pat. Barb Whitney announced a continuation of Lansing Art Gallery with the City of Lansing will continue the ARTpath 2020 with Paul Rathbun assuming the role of title sponsor. The ART path is a 7-mile loop and can be enjoyed in one round trip or by smaller trips to each exhibit through out the city. Included in this collection is a special mural honoring George Floyd. President Pat then announced that our club will be receiving the 2019-2020 Rotary Citation Award with the Presidential Gold Designation. This honor is being bestowed for the many accomplishments of our club in the past year, such as the Christmas Party, Hat and Glove Drive and the Rotary Park project. President Pat then turned the program over to Courtney Millbrook for the introduction of Philip Roragen and recent graduate of DeWitt High School and an already accomplished pianist, who after many opportunities has chosen to remain close to home to attend Michigan State University. Philip entertained with his incredible skills on the piano and I am hopeful he will be able to perform again for our club as he progresses with his education at MSU. On another note President Pat announced that the fundraising event at Urban Beat is rescheduled for July 28th at 7 pm. With that, today’s program the annual foundation meeting was kicked off with minor interference from Zoom Meeting Zombies that seem to creep into our virtual meeting world from time to time. John Person was given control of the meeting and reminded us of our commitment to support the foundation as part of our overall commitment to Rotary. He reminded us that our three main fundraising efforts are the children’s Christmas Party, Birthday donations and Paul Harris, John asked that we strive for 100% participation in the coming year to show our unilateral support for our club’s foundation. John passed on his thanks for the service of Kevin Schumacher and Rachelle Neal for the last three years as their term is ending. Donna Gardner proceeded to nominate John Collins and Heidi McNaughton to appointment to three-year terms to the Lansing Rotary Foundation Board of Directors. President Pat launched a voting poll to approve these nominations with the results overwhelming support for the appointment of John and Heidi to the Board, congratulations. John shared some amazing statistics about our foundation in that we have given out $3.3 million in grants since our inception in 1916 with $1.2 million in grants in the last 10 years. In our district our club is by far the largest supporter in terms of funding to our district. Jennifer Marsh proceeded to give the Treasurers report with a summary of projects and initiatives to which we provided financial support in the 2019-2020 fiscal year. Jennifer announced that even with the recent market losses the endowment fund has over $3.6 million in assets and expended approximately $145,000 in the current fiscal year. Next up, Orlando Gillespie provided a summary of local projects our club has supported with those aforementioned expenditures. Some of these grants went support such organizations as the Tri-County Office on Aging, Child and Family Charities, Ele’s Place, The Lansing Symphony and Highfields. Curt Sonnenberg took control to report on International Projects such as earthquake relief in Puerto Rico, building of a new school in the Sudan, low cost sanitary products venture in Bangladesh and the global dental relief project in Guatemala. After questions submitted via the chat feature in Zoom, President Pat brought the annual meeting to a close and comments of the outstanding efforts of our foundation board. Stay tuned for details on next week’s meeting “changing of the guard”. President Pat was especially “guarded” in this announcement as a look of worry went across his face in not knowing what Kevin Schumacher has in store for him. |
