UPCOMING SOCIALS & PROJECTS & EVENTS  

For more details and additional events, see the Announcements section below.

More socials, projects, & events coming soon!

Please note: The bulletin committee could use more writers.   

Opening Ceremonies:

“Welcome to the Rotary Club of Santa Rosa where the magic happens and we continue to do good in our world while having fun.” says President Casey D’Angelo

Heather Thurber led us in the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance and the Four-Way Test.  Her Reflection was the most fun!  She decided to us Chat GPT to write a one-minute speech on leadership and threw some Rotary verbiage too.  It was great!

Visitors:

Jessica Pollitz and Norm Hantzsche, today’s guest speakers, Robert Simmons and Salana Whitehead (both guests of Heather Thurber).

Sunshine Report:

All is good!

50/50 Drawing:

We had 8 marbles in the bag and $41.00 in the pot. Sean Kelsey had the ticket this week, but he pulled a yellow marble.  The pot rolls over!

Rotarian of the Month for July:

That honor goes to Charlie Howard Gibbon for his service as the head of the Hands-On committee for this past year.

Announcements:

1. Keven Brown could not make it to today’s meeting, so we will celebrate September birthdays next week.  September birthdays are:  Doug Chase, Cecil Humes, Ryan Thomas, Eric Butterfield, and Laura Stephens.
2. Jeff Kolin received his official District Governor Elect badge!  Woohoo! (Plus, I saw what looked like the long-awaited Rotary Club of Santa Rosa brochure in his hands).
3. 

   Jeff Kolin – Receives his District Governor Elect badge

   The SCARC meeting for September is being hosted by the Rotary Club of Petaluma. Their topic is RYLA, Rotary Youth Leadership Awards. It will be on September 26 at the Miracle League North Bay Pavilion Patio at Lucchesi Park, 320 North McDowell Blvd, Petaluma.  The cost is $40.00 and is being catered by the Casa Grande High School Culinary Students.  It is outdoors, so bring a jacket.  RSVP by September 20 to Gail Cardaropoli at [email protected] or call (707)322-1188.

4. The Meat Auction and Social will be on September 28 at Kim Murphy’s home, 4:00 – 8:00pm. Please see the flyer for your assigned food to bring.  Burro and Horse rides available.  RSVP to Nona Lucas. Kids are OK to come.
5. Ann Gospe says that Saris, our new Youth Exchange student, arrived Friday night, 9/6/24, from Indonesia. On September 13 there will be a welcome party for her at the Gospe’s.  See flyer for details.
6. The next Giro Bello is on for July 12, however President Casey would like a committee to get together to discuss a new fund raiser for the future, should we ever wish to do something else.
7. The board will be discussing the Dolly Parton Imagination Library at the next board meeting. This is potentially going to become a Sonoma County Rotary project.
8. Ann Gospe is chairing the Hands-On committee this year. She will be working with Sean Kelsey/Salvation Army on Bell Ringing for December.
9. We will be working at the Food Bank next Wednesday from 5:00 – 6:45PM.

Recognitions:

Nicole Le just ran her first 10K (6.2 miles) and came in the top 10 for her age group.  Excellent job, Nicole, for your first 10K.  She donated $50.00 to the club.

Today’s Program:  Water and Sanitation Projects in Fiji

Do any of you recall that we had two engineers from Engineers Without Borders come speak to us a few years ago about the water projects they were doing in Peru on the Amazon River?  Well, Jessica Pollitz, who is a civil engineer, went to work on another Engineers Without Borders in Fiji. In 2008 there was a major typhoid outbreak in Fiji.  The water on many of the islands was contaminated.  In this case they used biosand filters to clean the water. They provided the villages of Buca, Loan and Vunikura  with safe water systems.  The water is filtered through sand and it removes 95-99% of the contamination. She ended up living there for a year to help build the filters, train the community how to build and repair them.  Partners in the project were Navutlevo Village Sanitation, Rotary Pacific Water. Besides the biosand filters, they built new septic tanks and leach fields.

Banana plants were planted in a ring for cleaning grey water.

Norm Hantzsche is also a civil engineer who found out about Fiji’s water issues on an airplane.  He got involved with the Taveuni Water Apprenticeship Training program in 2012-2015.  Though he is not a Rotarian, it was the Rotary Club of Redondo Beach that did the work to get the matching and global grants for this program. The Taveuni Rotary Club was the local partner Rotary Club in Fiji. Other partners in the program were Rotary Pacific Water for Life Foundation, Fiji Ministry of health, Fiji Department of Education, numerous local business and community leaders.  Norm’s company Questa Engineering brought in additional volunteers.  First, they did a community assessment to figure out what needed to be done and meeting with the local people with skills to do the project.  The local people got really involved once their water was tested and they could see the contamination.  Biosand filters were also a part of the solution in Tavenuni. They also made spring water catches, built septic tanks, leech fields, grey water treatment. All together they completed 90 projects for 100 villages and 7000 villages. They even had back up for the Taveuni Hospital. In 2017 Cyclone Winston caused a lot of damage and they were back repairing.  High school Industrial arts programs started to include biosand projects in their curriculum.

Even today, only 40% of the people on the many islands that make up Fiji have clean water.

And yes, Fiji Water is from Fiji and the bottled water from that plant has the highest standards that you will find, just like in the United States.

Additional Pictures: