December 7, 2020

The meeting was opened at noon by President Mindy Sehon. 32 people were in attendance.

After our thought of the day we broke into small groups to discuss Pearl Harbor.

President Mindy announced that she is holding a Club Contest: take a picture of yourself or have a friend take a picture of you donating toy or food and email it to Mindy.  You will be entered into a drawing to win a special prize delivered by Mindy on New Year’s Eve. She will be sharing photos during upcoming meetings.

RECOGNITIONS:

  • Carly joined the meeting live from the Eureka Co-op where she is collecting food for Food for People’s Holiday Food Drive.
  • Jerry Reece’s birthday is Sunday. He has a Zoom birthday party planned with his family.
  • High five to Ted Loring and Rick Littlefield who volunteered to donate time to help set up the alternate COVID care site at Redwood Acres. Turned out there were so many volunteers work was done by the time they showed up.

Mindy turned the program over to Jeff Davis with Uplift Eureka.  5 years ago the City of Eureka started a program called CAPE. The focus was on youth program, literacy program, etc. As they grew they realized what a large portion of the community is homeless or living in shelters and are unemployed.   That’s how Uplift began.  In November 2018, the City of Eureka expanded its efforts to address and prevent homelessness by establishing UPLIFT Eureka.  Programs include Pathway to Payday a four-day employment workshop in partnership with Betty Kwan Chinn Day Center. They also offer job training, access to housing, mental health & addiction referrals and more.

The question was how can Rotary be helpful.  Jeff said housing opportunities are a big issue.  Looking for rooms or apartments for rent.  Looking for co-pilots who can help with housing searches.  They are currently assembling hygiene kits to help prevent the spread of COVID.  They have been contacting hundreds of folks each week.  They could use resources to help continue offering these kits.  They are currently not handing out tents and tarps as it has caused some issues for the police department who have had to organize pick up of the abandoned belongings.  They’ve also handed out thousands of masks, hand sanitizer and a lot of food.  Donations of clothing and furniture are needed as many people when they do move into an apartment have nothing but the belongings in their backpack.

Meeting was adjourned at 12:45pm.