At 5:15 pm on March 4th, Shelly Rucks, the President, called the meeting to order at the University Club. Shelly thanked the volunteers helping at the meeting, Susan Naughton, was the greeter, Heidi Fisher for her introduction of guests and Happy Dollars, Susan Schuster for the Inspirational Minute and Four Way Test, our amazing IT tech, Matt Majors, and the scribe Linda Mulhern.
Susan wanted everyone to know that International Women’s Day will be this Saturday, and she read a stanza from the poem by Maya Angelou called And Still I Rise. She said that we need to be inclusive, because we may find that we are excluded on occasion.
Michael-jon Pease introduced Rick Heidick, an Iowan native, with 3 years in the army while in Germany, retiree from 3M and a member of the Stillwater Sunrise Rotary Club who likes to travel. Rick spoke about his 13 trips to Nicaragua and wanted to give the annual update on the LIFT program. It is an evolution from the original Fast for Hope project within our Rotary district which started in 2012. The district wanted to address a need and look at causes of poverty, while fostering within the community a sustainable project to improve the lives of people within that community. He noted that Nicaragua has 6.6 million people of which 500,000 have emigrated to either the United States or Costa Rica due to the political revolution in 2018 and the subsequent crack-down by the dictator Daniel Ortega. The Nicaraguan immigrants have sent back receipts to the country to support their families and it has grown 500% since 2018 and the total receipts account for 7% of the total GDP for Nicaragua. The Nicaraguan government has shut down 5600 NGOs in the country because they are considered subversive. The people are living with overwhelming poverty and 2/3 of all the people live on only $120 per month.
The LIFT program which stands for the following:
- Listen – gather information from the local community
- Inquire – learn about the community strengths, assets and opportunities
- Facilitate – scope, launch and deliver programs to enable a community to improve
- Transform – the LIFT program loves to hear that they are not needed any longer!
Originally the Fast for Hope program from 2012-2021 was able to provide books, Covid care, a community pharmacy, community development and road repair. With the LIFT program from 2021-23, they were able to complete a water system which is owned by the community and with community water receipts, they were able to repair a pump under warranty that had broken down by renting a crane to remove and replace the pump. They have also worked with teenagers who were able to develop a liquid fertilizer, and they have been able to market around Nicaragua. Currently they are working with 10 farmers in the area to grow turmeric, a “natural” aspirin used by people around the world. Unfortunately, due to the political problems in Nicaragua, RI has cancelled all global grants currently and the LIFT program is operating, but on donations to continue using local agronomists to help nurture the farming communities with new crops. Last year, there was flooding and the farmers lost two crops of beans due to the water, while the farmers growing turmeric were able to net $500 which was a windfall. The LIFT program is working with people in Costa Rica to set up a seed bank and they also work with both Nicaraguans and Costa Ricans to help diversify their crops. A RI Global Grant will be used to build the seed bank in Costa Rica and as political changes occur in Nicaragua, they will help additional farmers and potentially set up a manual processing plant for the turmeric. More information can be found on the District 5960 web site about LIFT as well.
Shelly presented a certificate to Rick for his time at the meeting and a donation will be made to Youth Leadership in his name. There were a number of Happy Dollars from Shelly, Doug and Pat, Kathy and of course, Doug Bruce!
We continue to look for members willing to help at Camp RYLA, which will be April 25-29th this year. We need help with calling clubs to recruit students as well as reach out to parents of the participants for their consent forms. If you are interested, please let Pete Grayson know and we can find an opportunity for you to participate. It is a great opportunity to work with teenagers about leadership while having fun at the same time!
We will also be looking for help with Education Day, the club would like to have members go out to middle schools to show admiration to the selected students and their ability to overcome many obstacles.
We will also have a volunteer opportunity at the Science Museum on March 28 from 10 am to 2 pm and a Career Fair at Central High School on April 17th.
Our next meeting will be on March 11th with Dean Wegner, the CEO of Authentically American USA and he will be coming with 55 guests that hopefully will consider Rotary as an option for their time, so come early and mix and mingle with the additional guests. On March 18th, we will be meeting at our new 5:01 meeting location of the Pool and Yacht club and Joy McElroy and Monica Jones will talk about the impact of our service project on December 31st and the impact on homeless youth.
The meeting was concluded at 6:14 pm.
Linda Mulhern, Scribe.