June 20, 2022

Club President Klark Swan presided over the meeting.

Thought of the day: With summer solstice nearly upon us, President Klark sang the praises of summertime for our thought of the day.

Guests: Many guests joined us today, including Kelsie of Lost Coast Rotaract, Molly of Arcata Main Street, Domingo, an exchange student, and former member Kathy Gardiner.  We also enjoyed the company of a gaggle of young future Rotarians enjoying their summer break.

Local Events: Arcata Main Street announced that Oyster Festival is this weekend, Thursday-Saturday, June 23-25.  Oyster Fest celebrates Humboldt County’s wonderful Aquaculture, Beverage Makers, and Culinary Artistry!  Arcata Main Street is seeking volunteers to help with the event, primarily on Saturday the 25th.  Do volunteers get paid in oysters?  We forgot to ask…

Rotary Socials: save the date for two upcoming Rotary socials!

Rotary International: Nancy Dean described her recent visit to Houston for the Rotary International Convention.  She described the event as a fun and valuable opportunity to meet people from around the world, share ideas, and learn about all the diverse projects that Rotary clubs are involved in.  Most of all, she reiterated just how much Rotarians like to party!

Rotary projects, now and then:  Tom Schallert reminded the club that about 10 years ago, we partnered with Safe Blood Africa, our local Blood Bank, and other blood banks across the State of California to provide training and equipment, including 3 bloodmobiles.  The goal of the project was to support local blood collectors as they implemented programs to improve the safety of Nigeria’s blood supply.  Fast forward to a decade later: those bloodmobiles are still in use today!

 “Why I joined Rotary” Past President Mindy Sehon shared how she fell in love with Rotary.  It began with a passion for volunteering.  When she joined Rotary, she immediately got involved with the Backpacks for Kids program, helping to address food insecurity among our county’s schoolchildren. She eventually took charge of that program and has been running it successfully for almost 10 years now.  What a big job! Thank you Mindy for sharing your story.

The story of Bali: Past President Gregg Gardiner shared with us about his recent trip to Bali, Indonesia with his wife Kathy. Bali is a beautiful place full of warm, friendly people.  It is also a still-developing 3rd world country.  While there, Gregg and Kathy noticed that grade school and high school is very expensive for the average family, and that schools tend to be very far away from many homes.  For these reasons, sending children for an education is difficult for many.  Gregg and Kathy are interested in establishing a foundation dedicated to funding education for schoolchildren in Bali, and shared their ideas for how to make it self-sustaining and smoothly administered.  We look forward to learning more about how our club can help make that vision a reality.