President-Elect Debra Campbell opened the meeting and welcomed everyone in the absence of current President Ken Drummet. For our thought for the day, Moha Bouacha asked everyone to observe a moment of silence to remember Fred Schwimmer, who passed away last weekend.
Patti reminded everyone that June 2 is our next date to pack lunches for Connections for the Homeless. It’s a lot of fun with great camaraderie, and we’d love to see some new faces this time around!
Visiting Rotarian Don Crost from the Evanston Lighthouse Rotary and past president of this club was here to share information on a raffle – they are raffling a car this year! The raffle is limited to 100 people, and the ticket is $1,000 for a chance to win a Volkswagen Tiguan or $30,000. All are invited to participate – information is on their website.
Happy bucks were shared by Liz Taylor, Robert Mardirossian, and Debra Campbell.
Today’s speakers were “Rotarians Behind the Badge” Bill Leske and Moha Bouacha.
Bill shared memories from his youth, family life, interests, and career – noting that his banking career started as a teller at age 17. He also shared how he came to join Rotary and stories about his Rotary experience over the years.
Moha shared his family background and stories about his youth in Morocco, how he came to the United States, and the experiences he’s had through his career and travels, along with how he came to join Rotary!
Many thanks to both Bill and Moha for sharing their stories!
The meeting concluded with our usual recitation of the Four-Way Test.
MONTHLY LUNCH PACKING FOR CONNECTIONS FOR THE HOMELESS
Pleasesign up to participate. Our monthly service project preparing 160 lunch bags forConnections for the Homeless is at St. Joseph's Church, Lake and Ridge in Wilmette, on the first Tuesday of the month at 6:00pm. Enter through the east lower entrance off the parking lot.
This is a collaborative project with members joining us from theWilmette and Evanston Lighthouse Rotary Clubs.
Our Club’s charitable foundation, the Winnetka-Northfield Rotary Charitable Foundation, recently completed our annual Community Grants process. We are pleased to report that this year with a budget of $18,000, we awarded 12 grants to local non-profit organizations that serve our community. Links to these those organizations are:
312 626 6799; Meeting ID: 198 435 237; Password: 798428 (note, if asked for User ID, press #).
Reminder- you can give happy bucks, dig n grin, birthday donations and other donations to our foundation at https://wnrotary.org/page/donate/ or by texting DIGNGRIN to 44-321.
The Rotary Club of Winnetka-Northfield is teaming up with The Rotary Foundation and the Rotary Club of Rabat in the capital city of Morocco to establish a women's clothing cooperative in the village of Tomoulilt. This will be a project funded in part with a Rotary Foundation Global Grant (GG#2571461).
The program's objectives are to:
Create a revenue-generating cooperative run by stakeholders of village women/girls;
Empower women to run and manage a long-term sustainable and profitable business operation.
The project funds new equipment and training for the cooperative's participants. Training will encompass technical use of the equipment, entrepreneurial skills, business planning and management, sales and marketing planning, and financial management. The program's vision is to create a self-sustaining long term business enterprise for the participating women in Timoulilt.
Overall program budget is $100,000. The club is seeking cash and District Designated Funds (DDF) support from Rotary Clubs and Districts.
At the March 6 meeting, Rich Lalley presented an overview of the work of our two foundations- the Winnetka-Northfield Rotary Foundation (WNRCF) and The Rotary Foundation (TRF) of Rotary International. You can review that presentation here.
The club's board has set a goal of achieving 100% participation in supporting TRF this Rotary Year. To reach this goal, every active member needs to donate a minimum of $25 to The Rotary Foundation. You can do this online by clicking here.
We also aspire to be a 100% Paul Harris Fellow Club. For member who are not yet a Paul Harris Fellow, once your donation level reaches $250 and you have made a contribution this year, our club will celebrate you with a Paul Harris Fellow Award.
We appreciate all of our members who have contributed generously to The Rotary Foundation and to our club's WNRCF foundation. Thank you!
Paul Harris Fellows
Bob Baker, Wes Baumann, David Birkenstein*, Moha Boucha, Debra Campbell, Ken Drummet, Tom Evans, David Grant*, Tony Kambich*, Marie Kuipers, Rich Lalley, Bill Leske, Robert Mardirossian, Ned Meisner, Chuck Norton, Lee Padgitt, ArLynn Presser, Fred Schwimmer*, Heidi Sibert, Peter Skalski, Liz Taylor, Barb Tubekis, Patti Van Cleave.
Bold indicates donation made this Rotary Year. * indicates Major Donor.
The club's board has set a goal of achieving 100% participation in supporting TRF this Rotary Year. To reach this goal, every active member needs to donate a minimum of $25 to The Rotary Foundation. You can do this online by clicking here.
