August 4, 2021

Selinsgrove Area Rotary Club
Rotary Opens Opportunities
Vol. 94, No. 5 – President – Robert Bertram – Editor – Carol Handlan
Rotary Newsletter

Next Meeting – August 12 – Earl Ferster, host. Earl will speak on his work with the Gideons.

August 4, 2021: 20 fellow Rotarians and 1 guest (Linda Turner) joined us at Isabella’s.  President Bob Bertram, introduced fellow Rotarian, Kelly Feiler, who provided us with an update on all of the REC’s activities and plans for the future. Kelly shared that the Regional Engagement Center (REC) opened its doors in October 2017 and since then, over 600 youth have come through their doors for supervised play, mentoring and other educational, recreational and service-based programs.  Their other community programs also include: exercise, a dog obedience club, as well as, room rentals for special occasions.  The REC has been fortunate to receive $84,517 in grants and $173,934 in community donations during 2020-2021.  A big part of this past year, was the REC’s involvement and support in the area’s food distribution; distributing more than 200,720 pounds of food. In addition to the REC’s food pantry which served approximately 316 unique households and more than 868 people since October 2020. The REC also had more than 100 youth visit, on a regular basis, during the COVID-19 pandemic.  It goes without saying, the REC plays a huge part in our Selinsgrove and surrounding communities.  Kelly stated that they are in the process of working on securing some major grants to expand the REC and move to a much larger facility as they move to intergenerational programming which is the way of the future.  Kelly expressed her sincere appreciation and gratitude to everyone for all of the financial and personal time many have given to growing the REC to where it is today.

Announcements:  1) Marty Blessing introduced her guest, Linda Turner; 2) Tom Gates gave an update on Wheels in the Grove and shared they have far surpassed their goal and now have 102 cars signed up. The committee will be having a traffic control meeting on Saturday with those volunteering to work the day of the event; 3) President Bob announced that Marv would not be with us today because he and Raven are away celebrating their 55th wedding anniversary. 4) President Bob also stated that we received a membership application from Linda Turner that was accepted at today’s Rotary board meeting. If anyone has any concerns about Linda’s membership please contact Bob within the week. 5) President Bob also shared that he and Carol Handlan will be taking the grant writing seminar on 8/17 and mentioned that we will have a booth at the Market Street Festival on 9/25.

 Sergeant at Arms:  Dave Lawer filled in for Marv and made a humorous comment and also collected Happy Fines from the following (sorry if I missed any) Tom (Wheels event, appreciative of all the support); Art (Wheels); John (Wheels); Mike (Wheels, guest); Stacey (guest, Wheels); Carol (speaker, guest, great day); Jodi (Wheels); Toby (guest, Wheels); Charlie (cheesecake); Earl (meeting goal, great day).

Future Programs:
August 19 – Ken Miller – host; speaker will be Selinsgrove Grove Police Chief, Tom Garlock
August 26 – Ken Wagner – host
September 2 – Charlie McCuen – host
September 9 – Wesley Knapp – host

Birthdays:
August: 11 – Javier Videla, 16 – Earl Ferster and Konrad Kempfe, 30 – Jay Lemons

Quotation:  “Yesterday you said tomorrow. Just do it.” – Nike