Selinsgrove Area Rotary Club
Rotary Newsletter
Rotary Opens Opportunities
Vol. 93, No. 28 – President – Dan Mahoney – Editor – Carol Handlan
Next Meeting – February 18th – Club Assembly, President Dan Mahoney presiding.
February 11, 2021: 18 Rotarians joined us via zoom to hear Steve Strumbris, Director of Bucknell’s Small Business Development Center (SBDC) speak on the state of small businesses as a result of the pandemic and what free resources are available for the business community. Steve was introduced by host, Don Summers. As director, Steve promotes an entrepreneurial mindset and a culture of innovation in central Pennsylvania. He initiated the Startup Lewisburg entrepreneur incubator program and also founded BizPitch, a business pitch, a Shark Tank type, competition for student startups. Steve shared how much he is personally missing the downtown restaurants and looking forward to the day they will be fully be reopened. It has been an extremely busy year in assisting businesses in navigating through all of the state and federal funding programs. In spite of the pandemic, they assisted a total of 27 new businesses in opening and he referenced our own Deo’s restaurant in downtown Selinsgrove, as one of them. The SBDC is a major resource serving private entrepreneurs for startup businesses and assisting established businesses with knowledge, skills and resources to be successful. They provide educational programs and one-on-one consulting assistance and guidance, to help businesses grow and remain viable. SBDC is known as a trusted advisor in our business communities; offering educational advice and programs all at no cost. Steve also shared that they are expanding their professional staff at SBDC and how they aided over 500 clients in 2020, delivering over 5,000 hours and helping secure over $7 million dollars in COVID relief and sustaining 800 jobs for our small businesses. Steve spoke about the incubators in Danville and Lewisburg and how these play a big role in helping young entrepreneurs get started and how these incubators are made possible through unique and diverse funding sources. Very interesting program and we are very fortunate to have this resource in the Susquehanna Valley. For more information on the workings of SBDC you can check out their website at:
https://www.bucknell.edu/azdirectory/small-business-development-center
Announcements: 1) President Dan mentioned that the club received notice that our international dues were being reduced by 50%. 2) Dan also announced that we are moving forward on our planned events for 2021; those being the Golf Outing, Golf Ball Drop, Mallet Madness, Wheels in the Grove. 3) Marv Rudnitsky shared that the 4-Way Rotary Speech Contest will be done virtually this year on February 23.
Sergeant at Arms: Marv Rudnitsky provided a bit of humor. He collected happy fines from Carol (speaker); Marv (vaccine); Malcolm (speaker, students back on campus); Hal (speaker); John F. (speaker, flowers); Donna (happy to be back, events, Wheels in the Grove). Sorry if I missed any!
Future Programs:
Feb 18 – Club Assembly, President Dan Mahoney, Presiding
Feb 25 – Konrad Kempfe, host. John Taylor, International Services
March 4 – Melissa Laniewski, host. Jodi Cope’s Classification Talk
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