Happy November, District 5190! There is joy in my JOurneY as District Governor. Many people have come up to me and said, “Oh, I’m so sorry you are District Governor during this crazy year.” NO, I say! Is it crazy? Yes, but I am NOT sorry! I have seen first-hand the resilience, adaptability, and service-minded commitment from SO MANY ROTARIANS! I have visited forty-four of our fifty-eight clubs so far, and every one has welcomed me, whether via Zoom or in-person, or both. Every one has had stories to tell and accomplishments to share.
Yes, I have heard the gamut of emotions regarding this pandemic year, from frustration and disappointment, to enthusiasm and hopefulness, and excitement and pride. More importantly, I’ve heard about or seen the accomplishments that COVID hasn’t been able to stop our clubs and our People of Action from doing. Obviously, I won’t be able to list them all, but here are a few. Food baskets with kind notes tucked inside from Interact students for shut-in seniors. Mini-loans for small businesses impacted by the economic shut-down. School gardens for children from which to learn and to enjoy the fruits of their labor. Boxes filled with snacks and games and books for our overseas military. Safety guards installed at a local tourist attraction. Little Lending Libraries added in multiple locations. Community buildings repaired, re-furbished and re-painted. Four-year collegiate scholarships with on-going Rotarian mentorship. High quality air purifiers for every teacher, in every classroom, in every school across Carson City (see article in this newsletter!). Thank you all. Keep on turning challenges into opportunities with projects that have such a positive impact on our communities.
More than ever, I am proud – and grateful - to be a Rotarian. Listening to WHY ROTARY stories from many members, so often what I have heard is that “my Rotary Club is like family.” Camaraderie, collaboration, support, encouragement, fun, family. Those are the words that describe their experience. What an amazing organization we are engaged in. One of the silver linings of this pandemic year is that we can appreciate Rotary and each other even more than before. Keep making membership meaningful and we will continue to grow Rotary and improve our communities.
Thank you all for ALL your hearts of service.
-DG Berta
Please e-mail Wyn Spiller (wyn.spiller@gmail.com) or Matt Cruse (ar15pres@yahoo.com) if you have signed up or increased your current giving so your 250 points can be credited to you!
What’s Happening in Area 10
DG Berta recently visited five of the clubs in Area 10. Great meetings, great conversations, a great way to get to know our rural clubs. Congratulations to the Quiet Rotarian and Heart of Service Recipients and to the new Paul Harris Fellows.
While visiting the Rotary Club of Tonopah DG Berta visited the local cemetery where the club recently honored the club’s founding members by placing markers on their graves. Tonopah is the second oldest club in our district, chartered in 1924 with a rich history of service to the community. Another project the club helped support was the Tonopah Army Air Field Airmen’s Memorial Wall honoring the memories of 120 airmen killed in training incidents in and around Tonopah. Thanks to an ongoing project someday in the future the basketball court will be updated thanks to the Jim Butler Park Project, the sale of engraved bricks which are placed at the park. DG Berta found her brick.
The Rotary Club of Fallon continues to support Fallon Daily Bread each Tuesday and Thursday, a hot meal to anyone who walks through the door. This is a labor of love of these members, not only through donations but also giving of their time. The club also held a Christmas in July for the folks at a local senior center handing out essential items and also room fans to help with the summer heat. With the changes and restrictions, the club’s annual crab feed fundraiser became more of a social event, a great way to spend time together. The Fallon club is doing its best to keep those members that cannot attend regular members informed by holding hybrid meetings.
The E-Club held a hybrid meeting for DG Berta’s visit with President Bob and AG Lorie in person and the members spread from Vegas to somewhere in the south. The members are able to meet each other, stay in touch, stay in Rotary and have a good time along the way. President Bob always has something up his sleeve to keep the meetings interesting. This was a “Mugglers” meeting so everyone shared their favorite mug and why. The club also kicked off its ONLY fundraiser, a 50/50 raffle. The members of the club are selling tickets and the AG left the meeting with roll in her bag!
The Rotary Club of Yerington has come up with idea to make a little money, have some fun and bring joy to someone in their community. They are decorating “Simply Elegant” Christmas tree and displaying in at a local business on main street. There will be a raffle the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. The members will then deliver and set up the tree for the winner. The club has gone big this year for Polio Plus. A beautiful quilt made by the club president herself, Jan Recanzone will be raffled, all proceeds will go to end Polio.
With the club’s annual Lamb Feed and Fun Days being cancelled the members of the Rotary Club of Smith Valley got creative and are raffling off themed baskets. They used the sheep cutouts from the cancelled lamb feed, placed a raffle poster (and a mask) on them and displayed them at local businesses selling tickets throughout the valley. “Our lambs didn’t feed, Our Fun Days weren’t FUN, So we’re trying to make up, For What’s been undone!” You have to find the humor somewhere.
The Rotary Club of Fernley is defying all odds and exploding. During her visit DG Berta inducted a new member, one of eight since July and more soon to come. Several members are business oriented and are involved throughout the community. Their Back Pack Program which provides students food for the weekend who might otherwise not have enough got a huge donation from a local business ensuring the program for the year and a new member. But this year’s Claim to Fame has to be the Soles for Souls program! Thanks to member Humayoon Lodhi’s giving heart, the hard work of the club’s members, Rotarians throughout the District and a District Service Grant over 2500 pairs of flipflops and slippers are due to arrive in Pakistan the first part of November. Working with a Rotary club in Pakistan the flipflops will be distributed to nearby villages. Lodhi (as he is known) and members of his family will be there for distribution and will video the event. If the time difference permits, it may be live streamed. And a little frosting on the cake, the club members recently collected over $1000 happy bucks to send with Lodhi to purchase hundreds of additional “souls” once he arrives. Now that’s putting the true “JOY” in his JOurneY.
Check Out The Downlaod: a District 5190 Podcast
Tune in, on your time, to get all the district news.
Episodes are archived on the District website. You can also subscribe to the show on your favorite listening app (Spotify, Google Play, Apple Podcasts), or check out each episode when it's posted to all the District social media platforms (LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook).
You'll hear all kinds of great things on the show and experience the District in a whole new way.
Happy listening!
P.S. Have an idea for an episode? Contact Shauna Ganes at shauna@dmorris.com and let her know.
The Rotary Club of Carson City, Nevada Responds to
COVID-19 in a Big Way!
In an effort to help some often-overlooked essential workers in our community, fellow members of my Rotary Club recently purchased 911 factory new Winix 5500-2 Air Purifiers in order to provide one to every teacher, administrator, cafeteria staff member, janitor, school bus driver and other support personnel assigned to each of the ten individual schools within the entire Carson City School District.
Thanks in large part to an anonymous member of our community transferring nearly $135,000 to the Carson City Rotary Club’s local Foundation, this generous gift assisted our club’s purchase of Air Purifiers for each and every employee of our local school district. These funds were directed from his ‘Donor Advised Fund’ (DAF) that he’d previously established through The Rotary Foundation. Members of the club also made additional cash contributions to help support this worthy project.
Over two weekends in September and October, club members personally delivered air purifiers (each sporting a Rotary Club logo) to every one of the District’s 911 personnel. Recipients were invited to use the units as they felt most appropriate, either at home, in their classroom or office. Each unit became the personal property of the beneficiary!
Of course, these air purifiers are not necessarily intended to remove COVID-19 from the air, but much like wearing a mask, using hand sanitizers and social distancing, these units featuring a ‘Hepa’ filtration system with ‘active wave technology’ becomes just another proactive tool in a school teacher’ arsenal to help provide their classrooms and students with the cleanest air possible.
At Carson High School (CHS), the majority of boxed units were given out after an e-mail announcement notifying teachers that they could collect their Winix purifiers by simply signing for one. For teachers & staff who weren’t available at that time, units were set aside in each school principal’s office for pickup later.
CHS math teacher Monica Flinchum, who also teaches multiple sections of English as a Second Language and is a National Honor Society adviser, was excited that the community would support her and the staff, she said.
“This is a thoughtful gesture from the Rotary Club, so we’re really, really appreciative, and I’m appreciative,” she said. “I open up my e-mail (announcing the purifiers), and I’m like, ‘What! This is so cool.’ They’re taking care of us. This feels good that somebody else in the community is recognizing our efforts, and it feels good.”
Our Rotary Club president, Rachelle Resnick, said this is just one of many club projects that supports our local schools. The club, founded in 1938, has about 70 active members, according to its website, http://www.carsonrotary.org, and focuses on Rotary Youth Exchange, (RYE), Rotary Youth Leadership Academy, (RYLA), and other local music and speech programs featured at both Carson High and Carson Middle Schools.
“We always try to emphasize helping the community and this was a great way of doing that, but we’re also emphasizing helping the school teachers and the students,” Resnick said. “We honor local students every week and teachers every month. We provide various grants for different schools once a year, so this fits right into our mission of supporting education.”
CHS principal Bob Chambers said the community’s willingness to assist and support schoolteachers during this time is “super generous.”
“I think today is amazing,” he said on Monday, October 5th. “I think what the Rotary Club of Carson City is providing for our teachers is such a wonderful gift. I think it shows their understanding of what our teachers are currently going through, specifically within the classroom and just the health concerns that everyone has when you put all these teachers and students together in a building.”
Precalculus and trigonometry teacher Shanell Cavener also was thankful to have the new ‘fresh air’ supply in her classroom and demonstrated unboxing the purifier in her room, which activated immediately and quietly once she plugged it into an outlet.
Cavener said she’s been suffering headaches and a runny nose underneath her mask while trying to teach with the recent poor air quality created by all the recent wild fires in California, and she added that has also presented challenges trying to assist her students.
“It’s a really good show of support for us and it’s going to help us out a lot in the classrooms, especially with all the smoke and everything and all the allergies,” she said. “It’s really nice to feel like we’re appreciated.”
“It’s been a little stressful,” she said. “We’re completely changing the way we do things around here. I’m changing to a flipped classroom model, which is not something I ever though I would do. I’m missing that interaction with my students, so we’re kind of working out the kinks.”
Resnick said the purifiers are meant to help bring some peace of mind to the teachers, and while it’s not certain whether they’re completely effective in the fight against the coronavirus, they will be helpful in providing cleaner air in the classrooms from any lingering smoke from area wildfires.
I believe Carson City School District Superintendent Richard Stokes (a 12-year member of the club) sums it up best "As a Rotarian and Superintendent of our local school district, I have never been prouder when our local club elected to supply personal air purifiers for all 911 school employees. With concerns connected with COVID-19 and the poor air quality from regional wildfires, our school personnel were genuinely moved by the generosity of our Rotary Club."
Respectively submitted by District 5190 PDG Steve Lewis, (a 25+ year member & past president of the Rotary Club of Carson City), including a few excerpts from an October 8th article appearing in Carson City’s Nevada Appeal newspaper written by Jessica Garcia.
$$$$ - District Finance Committee Meetings - $$$$
As with many District meetings and trainings, the District Finance Committee is meeting virtually on Zoom for the foreseeable future. Finance Committee meetings have always been open to any interested District 5190 Rotarian and will continue to be. If any Rotarian from a District 5190 club would like to attend a meeting, please email Finance Committee Chair Tom Hardy at tlhardy66@gmail.com at least one day before the meeting so that you can receive the Zoom log-in information.
The next Finance Committee meetings are scheduled for January 8, 2021 at 3:00 PM. Meetings last for no more than two hours.
The final regular meeting for the Finance Committee is scheduled to be a live meeting held as part of RALLYE 2021, April 30 or May 1, 2021 (the exact meeting time and location will be coordinated with other RALLYE events).
Connect with District 5190 on Social Media
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All Area 8 clubs are meeting on a regular basis with 2 clubs meeting with a Hybrid format (Sparks Centennial Sunrise and Reno Centennial Sunset) with the other 6 clubs meeting virtually via Zoom. All the clubs are trying social events either monthly or occasionally. Most of these events are outdoors.
World Polio Day
Area 8 is having an all-Area World Polio Day Event where we will be gathering for a Zoom meeting to hear PDG Dave Bianchi talk about Polio Plus and its benefits to other diseases. We will then walk for one hour and then re-gather on Zoom to learn how much money was raised from the event. The club with the highest per capita giving will win a prize. All participants will be asked to seek donations and to donate themselves.
Virtual Foundation Celebration with PRIP John Germ
We will be holding our Virtual Foundation Celebration (normally Foundation Dinner) on Nov 20 and our Speaker will be PRIP and Current Polio Plus Chair John Germ (photo above). We will be asking everyone in attendance to donate at least $25 to Polio Plus. We will open attendance to all Rotarians in our District. We will be advertising this event in more detail soon.
Click here for the full highlights from all Area 8 Clubs!
RALLYE 2021 in coming! Hopefully it will be in-person and we can have a weekend full of fellowship and learning. Check the website for updated information as the date approaches.
