Be the Change

 

On Saturday, August 26, members of the Minneapolis City of Lakes Rotary Club volunteered at the Community Emergency Service (CES) Food Shelf in the inner city of Minneapolis. Food and hygiene item requests were fulfilled for 80 CES clients, and the items were all then loaded onto the CES truck for delivery.

 

This is an ongoing, family friendly, bi-monthly event for the Club and several members also provided food and hygiene products to help stock the shelves. The next event at CES will be on Saturday, October 28. Click "Read more" to see additional photos from this month's packing event!

 

On Thursday, July 13, the Garden at the Way to Grow Preschool had its official ribbon cutting and the students were given their own planting kits to take home to start this summer! The students and staff were very excited and they had a welcome party for the families of the children to have them see what they have been working on so far this summer. They painted us a wonderful, colorful poster — thanking City of Lakes Rotary Club — that you will see in the picture with the planting kits. The garden is going to expand and will be a project that will continue for years to come reaching even more children! It was a fun day and I am so proud of our Club for helping this project happen! Special recognition to Hugh for bringing this project forward!

 

Way to go, City of Lakes!

Looking for more weekly Rotary content? Minnesota’s Rotary Districts 5950 and 5960 have teamed together to host and produce a new podcast called “Searching for Service”. Hosted by new Rotarians Kelly and Joseph Kirk and produced weekly at the studio of AM950-KTNF Radio, “Searching for Service” airs from 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Sundays. Tune in wherever podcasts are found: online at www.am950radio.com or on Spotify, Google, or Apple Podcast apps.

 

Monthly podcast themes follow the calendar of Rotary International. Past shows are available for listening and include a variety of speakers: Tom Gump, District 5950 Past District Governor and Aide to Rotary International President-Nominee Stephanie Urchick; Joe Stahlmann, District 5960 Polio Plus Committee Co-Chair; Gayla Holmgren talking about “Preschool for Success”; and COL Rotarian and Past District Governor Jim Nelson talking about the Rotary Honduras service trip.

COL congratulates Julia De Georgeo who has been awarded the Rotary District 5950 Global Scholarship 2023-24. This provides $30,000 for a master’s degree at a foreign university in a major that relates to one of the Rotary six Areas of Focus and would enhance the scholar's future career.  Julia plans to receive an MSc in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London England.  Julia will be hosted by the Rotary Club of Golders Green, London England.

 

Julia is a graduate of Southwest Senior High School in Minneapolis and The University of Wisconsin-Madison with Bachelor of Science in Gender and Women’s Studies, and Health Promotion and Health Equity.  Julia also holds certificates in Global Health and Public Policy. Julia is a member of Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society. She currently works as a Research Analyst, Health Equity, at Advisory Board.

 

In 2022-23, COL sponsored Addy Cross who was the recipient of this scholarship and is attending University of St. Andrews, Scotland.

Of the nearly 9.6 million people living in Honduras, 1.5 million lack access to clean accessible water—1.2 million are from rural areas. Rural families lacking access to safe water consume water from streams or open wells—the same places where people bathe, wash clothes, and animals defecate—leading to disease. Honduras is the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.