March 26
Club member, Jeffrey Mitchell, spoke about the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) program, and his experience as a mentor. RYLA is a unique annual leadership camp for students, where the young people are empowered through challenging courses, inspirational presenters and interesting, amazing activities. In accordance with Rotary tenets, the annual District 5495 Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) camp aims to create an inclusive, understanding, and welcoming community, fostering goodwill and peace, and realizing a world that achieves fundamental fairness and equality for all people regardless of personal circumstance.
For more information - https://www.ryla5495.org/
March 19
Christopher Guisto spoke to the Club about his experiences of being a Survivor from one of the towers on 9-11. He and his office mates heard the first plane crash, but at the time thought it was something other than a plane crashing into the building. They carefully climbed many flights of stairs to get out of the building. Chris spoke about the terrors of some people being in the 'wrong place' and the randomness of people experiencing flying glass, and other debris, in addition to other issues they faced as they did the best possible to try and get to safety. At one point Chris said he actually jumped over a mailbox - something he had no idea he could possibly do! Chris also talked about the challenges of getting home from Manhattan, in addition to his experiences during the following weeks as businesses struggled to pick up the pieces and begin handling business, along with coping the best they could with the tragedy that had happened.His speech brought back memories of the tragic event - a date of great sadness for our country and a date that anyone old enough to have been around back then remembers, and knows exactly where they were when the the tragedy struck of planes crashing into the World Trade Center Towers in New York City.
March 12
Club Member, Ray Trankle, spoke to the group about 'Crazy Horse'. The Crazy Horse Memorial (https://crazyhorsememorial.org/) is located in the Black Hills of South Dakota and honors all Indigenous people of North America. It is a reminder of the importance of reconciliation, respecting differences, embracing diversity, striving for unity, and appreciating life’s deeper meaning. These values have always been represented in Native American cultural values. The most well-known portion of the work at the Memorial is the colossal Mountain Carving of Lakota hero Crazy Horse. People are drawn in by the largest mountain carving in progress, but once they’re at the location, they’re able to discover the whole story of the Native American People. March 5
The focus of our March 5th meeting was to allow members to brainstorm and share ideas about future programs, club roles, fund-raising, and other aspects of the Club. A lot of information and ideas surfaced and were discussed.