Stories

Last Week at Rotary - September 12, 2024

Update on the Palisades Nuclear Plant

Health and safety are the main goals of this nuclear plant. According to our speakers, clean energy from this plant is extremely important. An incredible team is working to get the plant going again. The nuclear industry is extremely excited about this project. This is the biggest project of the United States Department of Energy now. Getting the plant up and running again will show the world that a retired plan can be successfully reactivated. The project is of extreme international importance.

Small Modular Reactors (SMR) are expected to be online by about the 2030s. The first two SMRs will be at Palisades. This will be in our backyard. The team wants to get the plant safely opened before there are SMRs.

The Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan would be the first U.S. nuclear plant to restart after shutting down. It is supported by a $1.5 billion conditional loan commitment from the DOE Loan Programs Office to Holtec Palisades, LLC, to finance the restoration and resumption of service for an 800 MW nuclear generation station in Covert Township, Michigan. The project aims to bring back the Palisades Nuclear Plant online and upgrade it to produce clean, baseload power through at least 2050.

September 12, 2024 Meeting

Posted on Sep 06, 2024

Update on the Palisades Nuclear Plant

Representatives from the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant in South Haven will present an update on the plans to restart the plant.

Last Week at Rotary - September 5, 2024

New Family Justice Center of Ottawa County

Chief Judge Jon Van Allsburg gave us a history of court jurisdiction in Michigan and how it enabled Ottawa to combine services for families in one location. Michigan has 3 courts: District, Circuit, and Probate. Circuit courts have general jurisdiction, district courts handle criminal misdemeanor cases, and probate courts handle wills, estates, and competency hearings. Eventually, the state moved all cases regarding families to the circuit courts. The goal was to have "one family, one judge". This gives better service to families because the judge can understand all of the factors when rendering judgments.

The circuit court jurisdiction originally covered Muskegon, Ottawa, and Allegan counties. Plans for a new courthouse to handle the Family division began in 2016 after the court was changed to serve only Ottawa County. The court system is separate from the county government, but funded by the county. There were several different plans proposed before the budget was set for the new courthouse. The new Family Justice Center opened on July 23rd.

September 5, 2024 Meeting

Posted on Aug 30, 2024

New Family Justice Center of Ottawa County

Ottawa County has just begun using the newly built Family Justice Center, which combines all county services in one location. Chief Judge Jon Van Allsburg will tell us about this new center.

August 29, 2024 Meeting

Posted on Aug 22, 2024

Rotary District 6290 Governor Visit

Our current District Governor (DG), Brianna Scott, will make the official DG annual visit.

Last Week at Rotary - August 22,2024

PFAS, Arsenic & Lead (A Quick Overview of Emerging Contaminates)

Kelly Thompson of Moti-Vitality has worked in water purification for 27 years. He earned a college degree in education and theatre and also served as a Navy Seabee. He intended to become a High School Theatre teacher. He realized that he didn't enjoy teaching and took a temporary job with a water softener company.

What was supposed to be a temporary job turned out to be an industry that he enjoys. He is a member of the Water Quality Association that regularly advises governments on water issues. Water treatment and distribution systems in this country are very old and costly to upgrade. Our ability to measure contaminants has been increasing along with our awareness of the damage to human health. Before the problems in Flint, there were no standards for acceptable lead levels in municipal water.

Last Week at Rotary - August 15, 2024

Pickleball!

Jason Parks has been an ultra runner for many years. In 2018 he founded Egress Endurance to manage running events.

He developed back problems from running and his father-in-law suggested he try Pickleball. Jason found that he loves Pickleball. So last year his company added pickleball tournament management. Since the pandemic, 32 million new people have started playing pickleball.

Egress Endurance is managing the tournament part of the Holland Rotary Charities Paddle Fest.

Magali (van Ossel) Courtial from Naute, France visited our club today. She was a high school exchange student from Belgium who stayed with Bill Batjes 25 years ago. She brought her husband and 3 children to see Michigan. She talked briefly about how being in another country gave her a different perspective on the world.

Any high school student between 15.5 and 18.5 years of age can apply to be an exchange student. Email Catherine Ristola Bass to learn more.

August 22, 2024 Meeting

Posted on Aug 15, 2024

PFAS, Arsenic & Lead

Kelly Thompson will present a quick overview of emerging contaminants in our environment.

Last Week at Rotary - August 8, 2024

Children's Advocacy Center

Rachael DeWitt, Executive Director of Ottawa County Children's Advocacy Center (CAC), was our speaker today. The CAC works with the 10% of children who are sexually abused. They provide prevention and intervention services for the county. The center was started in 1997 to centralize services to victims and caregivers of abuse. The center coordinates law enforcement, judicial, and counseling teams. Their education services reach 19,000 children and 1500 adults. They teach in 97% of the schools in the county. The center is funded half by government money and half by private donations.

Prevention

Learn the facts. Most abusers are people known to or are family members of their victims.
Minimize opportunity. Never allow a child to be in an area where they can't be seen.
Talk about it. Kids need to have the vocabulary to describe events. The center makes a distinction between a secret and a surprise. A surprise is something you don't tell about for a while, like a birthday present.
Recognize the signs.
React responsibly. If a child confides in you remain calm, listen carefully to what they report, and ask open-ended questions.

Intervention

The center provides combined services to minimize the trauma a child experiences when telling their story. In the last 2 weeks, they handled 18 reports of abuse. They have special facilities that allow interviews to be conducted so that all parties involved (police, child protective services, counselors) can have the information they need all at once. Children will often express things using art, so art areas are available. CAC has about 200 counseling sessions a month for victims. They also offer financial and other support. This is particularly important if the abuser provides the family income.

Book House Maintenance 2024

John Helm and Gary Bogle perform maintenance on Holland Rotary Book Houses.

Last Week at Rotary - August 1, 2024

The Momentum Center

Visiting Rotarian Mike Cansfield was born in Grand Haven but spent 40 years in the Chicago area fundraising for non-profit organizations. He recently had the opportunity to take a position at the momentum center and move back to Michigan.

The Momentum Center provides social activities for the most isolated among the population: those with mental illness, physical disabilities, and addiction recovery. The location in Grand Haven will be moving into a new building and the Holland location will be looking for a new building soon. The buildings are designed to accommodate the specific needs of the target population. Every day there are 3 to 4 activities offered at each location.

August 8, 2024 Meeting

Posted on Aug 01, 2024

Ottawa County Children's Advocacy Center

This week's speaker, Rachel Dewitt, was newly promoted to Executive Director of Ottawa County’s Children's Advocacy Center. Learn how important of an organization this is to our area in bringing hope, healing, and justice to those who are affected by child abuse.

Last Week at Rotary - July 25, 2024

The League of Women Voters

Janet DeYoung talked about the history of the organization. The League of Women Voters (LWV) was founded in 1920 after the 19th Amendment passed and women were allowed to vote. Their mission is to "Empower voters, defend democracy". LWV is the largest voter registrant through 50 state organizations and 750 local chapters. Our local chapter has 140 members, both men and women. They study issues and adopt positions by consensus. They do not take positions on any candidates, but report candidate answers to questions on their vote411.org website.

Interestingly, when FDR was working on founding the UN, he asked the LWV to assist in writing the founding documents. The LWV continues to have a delegation to the UN. Local LWV chapters also have observers at local government meetings to report on the proceedings.

Paula Edwards talked about the changes in Michigan because of the voter-passed initiative. This established early voting, permanent mail-in ballots, an extension for counting military and overseas ballots, more disclosure of ballot contents, transportation to the polls, and best practices for certification of elections are now in the constitution. Absentee ballots are now postage-paid, the voter can track where their ballot is, and if there are any problems with how the ballot was marked the voter will be notified. Michigan now pre-registers any 16-year-old who receives a driver's license to vote. When they turn 18, they will automatically be on the voting rolls.

There is an important primary coming up in Ottawa County. There are elected offices where there will be only Republican candidates. For these offices, the primary election will determine who will be elected in the general election in November. In the 2002 primary election, only about 77,000 voters out of 224,000 registered voted. This means that the candidates and issues in that election were decided by only 34% of the voters.

Primaries in Michigan are open, meaning you can vote for any party. You must only vote for one party. There may also be non-partisan issues on the primary ballot.

August 1, 2024 Meeting

Posted on Jul 26, 2024

Pickleball!

Ryan Settlemyre and Jenna Timmer of PROmotion Pickleball will talk pickleball and maybe our upcoming tournament.

July 25, 2024 Meeting

Posted on Jul 20, 2024

League of Women Voters, Holland Area

Janet DeYoung and Paula Edwards will highlight new voting rights with the passage of Prop 2 of 2022 and the importance of the August 6 Primary Election.

July 18, 2024 Meeting

Posted on Jul 11, 2024

SMART-Secure, Model, Ask, Recognize and Tell

Carylon Buck will be giving the presentation.

Last Week at Rotary - July 11, 2024

Crew in Holland

Costas Ciungan shared his love of rowing with the club. His grandfather was a competitive rower when the boats were wood and much more like rowboats than the modern racing boats. Some joys of rowing are camaraderie, being outdoors on the water, and flying over the water when the team synchronizes perfectly.

Rowing as a sport started in England in the 17th century. Initially, the rowers sat on solid seats and moved their backs and arms back and forth with the oars. The oars were initially square at the end. Oars have evolved through mason oars (slanted ends), and now to cleaver oars which extend lower into the water. An Englishman also invented the moving seats which allow the rower to use their entire body weight, pushing with their legs.

Modern boats or shells hold from one to eight rowers. The rowing shoes are permanently attached to the shell. It is proper etiquette to wear appropriate socks while rowing! Rowers can continue the sport well into their senior years. Rowing is easier on joints than other sports.

Costas is currently certified as a rowing coach and would like to continue his certification to judge races. Competitive rowers will practice 6 days a week for 2-3 hours a day. Recreational rowers usually practice 2-3 times a week. In Holland there is the 42° N Rowing Club and nearby is the Grand Rapids Rowing Association.

July 11, 2024 Meeting

Posted on Jul 09, 2024

Crew in Holland - 42 Degrees North Rowing

Costas Ciungan (COE-stas CHOON-gan) recently moved here and is working to build opportunities for crew in the Holland area.

Last Week at Rotary - June 27, 2024

New Rotary Officers

Thanks were given to the board of directors and the committee chairs. Mike Moraw was inducted into the board of directors and Howard Fink was inducted as president.

President Howard's Direction for Rotary

Howard wants to emphasize living our values. He is challenging the club to focus on action items demonstrating our values. Our work will begin and end with local impact. Some of the values Harold listed are.

Empathy
Active Listening
Showing up
Being Present
Telling the truth
Don't anticipate the outcome
Letting the process play out

The power of individuals to change the world has been demonstrated. We should raise people up and not tear them down. Believe in service above self by focusing energy on the people we serve. Howard wants Rotary to be known as a group that says yes to connections, support, and fun.

Howard wants Rotary to be known in the entire Holland/Zeeland area, bringing together the 3 Rotary clubs, the Rotaract Club, and the Interact Club to work on projects. Howard said he is not organized or detail-oriented, so he will need Rotarians to work with him on these goals.

The major new initiative already announced is the Rotary Pickleball Tournament. This will take place 28-29 September of this year. It is intended that this will be an annual activity and will be a source of funding for our charity work.

The other initiative Howard unveiled is a Lakeshore version of the GR Festival of the Arts. He has contacted the GR Festival people about helping set this up on a date before the festival in GR. They are willing to work on this with the Rotary Clubs.

4 July 2024 - No Meeting

June 27, 2024 Meeting

Posted on Jun 20, 2024

New Leadership for the 2024-25 Rotary Year

Our new president Howard Fink will be sworn in.

Last Week at Rotary, June 20, 2024

Visiting Kenyan Rotarian and Self-Defense

Luka Ariko from the Rotary Club of Eldoret, Kenya was visiting. In 2016 we partnered with the Eldoret club on a demonstration farm project. This project involved buying a tractor and teaching silage practices to the area farmers. Luka reported that the project and their follow-up work have greatly raised the standard of living in the community. More children are now attending school and families are better prepared for financial emergencies.

Jeff Jones, the sheriff department community policing officer for Park Township, gave some self-defense moves to try. Jeff grew up in Chicago and then on the US East Coast. After serving in the Air Force, he moved to West Michigan to become a firefighter and EMT.

Later he went to the police academy to join law enforcement. When he started learning jujitsu, he realized that what he had been taught at the academy was not really helpful. The academy taught them to yell orders at the citizens and then use force if they didn't comply In Jeff's opinion this might work if the people encountered were in a rational state of mind, most people in a police situation are not acting rationally. Jeff developed methods to calm people down and keep them from getting hurt. He is on the West Michigan Training Consortium, a group of 94 police agencies that train officers in these techniques. The club members got to practice some techniques.

June 20, 2024 Meeting

Posted on Jun 14, 2024

Self Defense

Officer Jeff Jones will talk about self-defense. He will teach us some strategies.

Last Week at Rotary - June 6, 2024

Seniors Helping Seniors

When Brian and Mollie Gaggin retired and moved to Holland they soon discovered they missed being involved in a business. They had cared for relatives and something in the caregiving field was appealing. They discovered the company Seniors Helping Seniors, founded 28 years ago in Bucks County PA by an Indian emigrant. Her daughter and son-in-law turned the concept into a franchise and there are now 250 franchises throughout the country.

In the decade 2010-2020 there was a 38% increase in the population of seniors. The last decade with a similar increase was 1880-1890. A growing problem in this population is loneliness and isolation leading to mental and physical health problems.

Seniors Helping Seniors Lakeshore is a for-profit company started by the Gaggins on March 1st of this year that matches caregivers and care receivers with similar interests. The caregiver spends between 12 and 18 hours a week in companionship and light housework. The goal is to build long-term relationships that will benefit the care receiver.

Before acceptance, the caregivers are interviewed for 1-2 hours, undergo background checks, and have extensive training. There are 2 caregivers assigned to each client. This provides consistency in care but allows the caregivers to have time off for travel or other recreational activities. In a care facility, the state mandates that a caregiver can care for no more than 15 people. According to Mollie, the best care facilities only reduce this ratio to 12-1.

June 13, 2024 Meeting

Posted on Jun 06, 2024

Leaders for the 21st Century

Rotary Leaders for the 21st Century is an annual leadership conference conducted at Hope College the second week of June for middle schoolers entering 7th and 8th grades who have been selected by their schools as potential emerging leaders. It continues with further engagement in regular follow-up meetings in the participating schools throughout the school year. More information at http://leadersforthe21stcentury.org

This has been for the last 24 years Holland Rotary's signature project, and it depends on the active involvement of Rotarians and other volunteers. This year we obtained a District Grant (Remember those donations to The Rotary Foundation (TRF)? This grant is from funds returned by TRF to the District, used as a match) to establish a website, streamline registration, increase the number of participants, and return the event to a three-day/two-night event.

At this meeting, the participating students will be having lunch with Rotarians, one of the highlights of the conference for the students. The meeting will be at the Maas Center on the Hope College campus, on the west side of Columbia Avenue, right where Eleventh St. would cross. Parking is available on street or behind Martha Miller Center; handicap parking specifically in the Martha Miller lot and lots east off Columbia between 11th and 13th. Dropoff can be done on Columbia just outside the door to Maas Center.

Heartsafe City Designation 2024

Holland Heartsafe

Holland’s efforts to become a Heart-Safe Community began in September 2022, when retired paramedic Steve Stegeman (left) approached the Holland Fire Department. Firefighter Angela Lound (right) is now the Team Leader of HeartSafe Holland. In 2024 Holland officially became a HeartSafe Community.

The designation comes from a national preparedness program that measures 13 criteria — each demonstrating a community’s commitment to improving sudden cardiac arrest outcomes and saving lives. Those requirements include establishing an organization to guide local efforts, training 15% of the community in hands-only CPR annually, developing strategies to improve public awareness and bystander intervention, and placing AEDs.

HeartSafe is sponsored by the Holland Fire Department, Holland Hospital, American Medical Response, Ottawa County Department of Public Health, the Ottawa County Central Dispatch Authority, Evergreen Commons, and Holland Rotary Charities.

Left to Right: Rotarians John Shea, Andrew Bissonnette, and Kent Fry along with Paramedic Steve Stegman.

Last Week at Rotary - May 30, 2024

GH Musical Fountain how they do their shows!

The Grand Haven Musical Fountain first performed in 1962. A fountain in a dance hall in Berlin inspired a WW I veteran and then Grand Haven Mayor to propose building a similar fountain. A group of citizens stabilized the sand on Dewey Hill by planting dune grass, designed and built the fountains, and programmed the songs. Patents were even awarded for some of the devices designed for the fountain.

The fountain plays nightly from Memorial Day through Labor Day. A non-profit organization now runs the fountain. For the 60th anniversary in 2022, new water features were added and controls were upgraded. Every song is individually choreographed and one minute of performance will take between 1 and 3 hours of work.

In recent years much of the work has been around expanding the musical repertoire of the fountain. The team engaged the public via social media to understand what would interest people. They offered a class on choreography and how to use the custom software that creates the programs that run the fountain. More than 60 people showed up to take the class! From this effort, there are now 9 certified choreographers creating songs for the fountain. They have produced 75 new songs for this year. The themes and songs performed each night can be viewed on ghfountain.org

June 6, 2024 Meeting

Posted on May 31, 2024

Seniors Helping Seniors

Brian Gaggin will be talking about his business that connects seniors together.

Rotary's 17th Bookhouse

Lakeshore Elementary School Rotary Bookhouse

Rotarians John Helms and Gary Bogle are in the back of the group from West Ottawa Lakeshore Elementary School. This is the 17th bookhouse installed by the Holland Rotary Club in partnership with Herrick District Library.

Last Week at Rotary - May 23, 2024

Interact Student El Salvador house building Trip

For 24 years Interactors from the US have been traveling to El Salvador to partner with the Rotary Club of San Salvador and build houses. The original goal was to build 100 houses. That number was surpassed a couple of years ago.

Kona Ly from the West Ottawa High School Interact club was one of 40 students who went on a trip earlier this year. He raised the money to pay for the trip himself. This year's trip built 6 houses while working alongside the eventual homeowners. Kona described the construction methods using large bricks with mortar.

Kona felt the trip helped him to understand how much we take for granted in this country. He had to be very careful with drinks and food to avoid sickness. The Salvadoran Rotarians made sure that the Interactors were cared for.

May 30, 2024 Meeting

Posted on May 23, 2024

GH Musical Fountain how they do their shows!

Join us for Rotary this week, as the speaker is Jerry Troke, Chair of the Grand Haven Musical Fountain Committee. We will learn how they create the musical fountain shows that dazzle summer visitors in Grand Haven.

May 23, 2024 Meeting

Posted on May 18, 2024

Interact Student El Salvador house building Trip

The Interact students who worked building a house in El Salvador will be talking about their experience.

Last Week at Rotary - May 16, 2024

Rotary Exchange 20 years later

Alex Vriesema grew up in Wisconsin near the Michigan border. In 2004 they were sponsored by the Marinette WI/Menominee MI Rotary Club for a Rotary Youth Exchange to Warsaw Poland.

Alex first stayed with a single mom who owned a small medical supply company and was also on the Warsaw city council. The host mom's sister had fled to Sweden during the Societ rule of Poland. Alex had the opportunity to travel to Sweden with the host aunt. Portions of the city of Warsaw still were the stark architecture of the Soviet era. Other areas were bright and colorful. Warsaw has excellent public transportation and it was easy to travel around the city.

Many high schools specialize and Alex was enrolled at Copernicus High School, which specializes in science.They got to participate in many memorable social events. At a Polish wedding everyone stands in a circle, drinks a toast, and then throws their shot glass behind themselves to break the glasses. Easter eggs are died brown using onions. The Easter basket is taken to the priest for a blesssing. All Saints Day is a day to decorate family graves.

At the Rotary meetings the exchange students got a different meal than the Rotarians. The Rotary Clubs in Poland sponsored a tour around Europe for the exchange students.

Alex was in Poland when Pope John Paul died. He was a beloved Polish Pope (the first one) and the streets lined with mourners. The streets were also lined with thousands of candles to commemorate the Pope.

May 16, 2024 Meeting

Posted on May 09, 2024

Highlights from My Poland Exchange 2004-2005

Alex Vriesema talks about his experiences.

Foundation Participation Award 2022-2023

Bob Nida accepted our award for meeting the Rotary Foundation giving target for the last Rotary year. This was awarded at the District 6290 conference.

Last Week at Rotary - May 2, 2024

Ottawa County's Vulnerable Adult Abuse Task Force

Sarah Matwiejczk is the Ottawa County Chief Assistant Prosecutor. She started the talk by pointing out that a prosecuting attorney doesn't represent a client but represents the State of Michigan against an individual. The goal of a prosecution is to achieve justice and safety for the citizens.

The Ottawa County Prosecutor's Office is unique in multiple ways. One distinction is that the prosecutors possess extensive experience serving the county. Ottawa County also has dedicated prosecutors for family law matters, which is unusual. The office has a very high conviction rate.

Sarah worked to establish the Elder Abuse Task Force to advocate for citizens who are older than 18 years old. It is similar to the Children's Advocacy Center for child victims. Those served have experienced theft or physical abuse.

Vulnerable adults are defined either by having a significant physical disability or by consenting to activities that would be unusual. Determining whether an adult can make a rational decision by themselves can be difficult.

For the prosecutor's office to be involved, a crime must be committed under the victim's rights law. Only then can they move to charge an individual. Most cases come as referrals from Adult Protective Services. There is some money that the prosecutors can use to assist victims with safety items such as cell phones or cameras.

May 9, 2024 No Meeting

Posted on May 02, 2024

No Meeting During Tulip Time

Enjoy the Tulip Time Festival.

May 2, 2024 Meeting

Posted on Apr 29, 2024

Ottawa County's Vulnerable Adult Abuse Task Force

Sarah Matwiejczk, Ottawa County Chief Assistant Prosecutor, will talk about the task force.

Last Week at Rotary - April 25, 2024

Human Trafficking

Ottawa County Detective Dave Bytwerk works with the FBI, local police departments, Michigan State Police, and other Sheriff departments in a task force to combat human trafficking. Their goal is to provide rapid, proactive, comprehensive response to threats of violent crime against children.

He gave some useful definitions. Federal jurisdiction often applies because interstate commerce includes moving people, making phone calls, and other activities that traffickers commonly do. Trafficking is determined by force, fraud, and coercion being involved. For example, smuggling is not human trafficking because there is no coercion. Labor trafficking is when a person is lured or forced to move to work with little or no pay and no control over their life. Labor trafficking is by far the most prevalent form of human trafficking and is investigated by the Homeland Security Department.

Sex trafficking is what the task force is exclusively involved with. When a person is under 18 and forced to perform sexual acts, it is automatically treated as sex trafficking. Street prostitution and escort services are not sex trafficking.

If you encounter a person who appears to be under the influence of someone else, who lets others speak for them, who lies about their age, or who seems to be coached when speaking, then you should call 911 and report a possible trafficking victim.

The law enforcement task force partners with many non-profit organizations that can offer victims safety, housing, food, and other necessities.

April 25, 2024 Meeting

Posted on Apr 18, 2024

Human Trafficking

According to the National Human Trafficking hotline, 295 human trafficking cases were identified in Mi in 2021, involving 429 victims. Of those 295 cases, 238 involved sex trafficking. Our speaker this week is Detective Dave Bytwerk with the Ottawa County Sheriff's Office who is involved in investigating trafficking in the county. This will be a very informative topic!

Last Week at Rotary - April 18, 2024

Challenged Student Luncheon at West Ottawa Lakewood Elementary

The annual luncheon was just as much fun as every year. The Lakewood students sang "We Appreciate You" and Rotarians met and ate with many of the WO students. After the meal, the Park Township Fire Department discussed Fire Safety and demonstrated the fire fighting gear.

April 18, 2024 Meeting

Posted on Apr 11, 2024

West Ottawa Challenged Students Luncheon

This meeting will be at Lakewood School 2134 W. LAKEWOOD BLVD. HOLLAND, MI 49424 The school will be ready for us to start by noon. An early start may help some students with limited attention spans. This lunch is a real highlight for them. Staff and students are excited to have us in the school on that one special day each year.

Last Week at Rotary - April 11, 2024

Using AI in business situations

Andy Bass from NetNerd Ventures talked about the history and current state of Artificial Intelligence (AI). His company does consulting and software development. He is currently working on 2 AI projects. He is doing data analysis with AI and 3D graphical room layout software.

The term AI was originally coined at a Dartmouth conference in 1956. The initial goals defined at the conference were to develop software to help in problem-solving, learning, and natural language processing.

The current large language model of AI can tackle problems with huge time savings. Some of the areas that benefit from modern AI are:

Create content
Summarize documents
Audio narration
Language Translation
Strategic planning
Software development
Data generation

There are many specialized AI tools. Andy demonstrated ElevenLabs.io which can be trained to mimic an individual's speech, Midjourney.com which can generate pictures from a textual description, and suno.com which generates music given directions.

Last Week at Rotary - April 4, 2023

Leaders of the 21st Century

The Holland area Rotary Club's middle school leadership program, Leaders for the 21st Century, was established in 2000. Bob Armour has headed the program the entire time. Graduates of the program who are in high school or college have served as counselors. The program was paused for 3 years due to the pandemic. Last year we were able to offer a 2-day conference for a reduced number of students. This year the conference will return to a 3-day conference with a target of 60 students attending.

Joseph Torres, who is now a Junior at Holland High School, is a Leaders graduate and will be a counselor for this year's conference. He talked about being a shy middle schooler who learned to use his voice by involvement in the program. He learned that he could speak publicly and lead other students. While he was a counselor last year he watched students who didn't want to leave their parents on the first day become confident leaders.

David Beattie has been creating a website for marketing the program and registering participants. One of the difficulties was the dependency on school personnel to collect information for the conference. There are now cards for the school to hand out to selected students giving information to their parents about the program and a QR code that will take them to the website. The parents/students can fill out the registration online and it will be available to the conference organizers. The conference is being held June 12-14 this year.

Last Week at Rotary - March 28, 2024

Becky Schmidt, Head coach of Hope College Women’s Volleyball

Last year the Hope College volleyball team was the national runner-up and Hope player Addie Vanderweide was named the co-player of the year. Becky started by talking about her coaching philosophy and the team culture. The volleyball team claims the motto "Inspire hope". They remind themselves that even though there is a good chance of failure it doesn't deter trying.

Becky has decided that she will never nominate an individual player for an award because it is against her team philosophy. When the volleyball team started using social media 5 years ago, they decided that what they would emphasize would be fun, connection, and growth. NCAA Division III has always emphasized academics and Becky appreciates that. She will only schedule team activities between 2:30 and 6:00 PM because she wants her players to be able to choose other activities. Players who are choosing between DI and DIII schools will often choose DIII because of the environment. There have also been transfers to Hope of DI players, which leads to the story of this past season. But the story starts the previous year.

2022 Season

7 players graduated and only 1 returning player. This young team made it to the national championships and was defeated by the number one-seeded Juniata. The team talked about meeting standards instead of meeting expectations. Expectations are placed upon you by external entities, while standards are internal. In the off-season, the team learned that 4 Division 1 players were transferring to Hope. What would that mean for the continuing players? 6 months before the season started the team sat down and talked about what this would mean.

Last Season

After Hours Rotary Invitation

The Holland After Hours Rotary Club invites you to join them in volunteering.

Date: Thursday, March 28
Event: Volunteer at Community Action House
Location: 8th St & Paw Paw Drive, Holland
Time: 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm

Come anytime and bring a friend. The link to sign up is below:

Food Club March 28

Spring 2024 Highway Cleanup

Our first Highway Cleanup of the year is April 13th. If you can help, meet at the Veldheer Tulip Farm parking lot at 8:00 AM. If we get rained out, we will attempt it a week later at the same time and location. Anyone is welcome, you don't have to be a Rotarian as long as you are 12 years old or older.

Mike Moraw will bring coffee along with the cleanup supplies. Click here to sign up. (Sign up will help Mike to bring enough coffee!)

Challenged Student Lunch 2024

2024 Annual West Ottawa Challenged Student Lunch

The April 18 meeting will be at Lakewood School 2134 W. LAKEWOOD BLVD. HOLLAND, MI 49424 The school will be ready for us to start by noon. An early start may help some students with limited attention spans. This lunch is a real highlight for them. Staff and students are excited to have us in the school on that one special day each year.

There has been a bit of a tradition that Rotarians help with supplies like Kleenex, Play-Doh, Pop-its, fidgets, toys, puzzles, Velcro dots, markers, cleaning wipes, etc. We are happy to continue to receive those.

Last Week at Rotary - March 21, 2024

How journalism has changed over the years

Sarah Leach is the Executive Editor of The Holland Sentinel, Petoskey News-Review, Charlevoix Courier, Gaylord Herald Times, Cheboygan Tribune, Sault News, and Ionia Sentinel-Standard. Sarah started by talking about journalism being essential to a functioning democracy. The media is loyal to the citizens and holds power accountable. She quoted Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black from the decision for the New York Times "In the First Amendment, the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors."

The press does this by explaining government actions to the public. To do this, journalists must ask questions of all concerned until they understand the issues well enough to explain them. Truth is facts in context and journalists must understand the context. Journalists occupy an interesting position. They are members of the community, but must also view from outside the community.

Journalists are taught consistent methods of testing information for accuracy. As individuals, they have opinions but consistent application of journalistic methods removes bias from reporting.

March 28, 2024 Meeting

Posted on Mar 22, 2024

Becky Schmidt, Head coach of Hope College Women’s Volleyball

Becky Schmidt will talk about the amazing career she has had with the Hope College Women’s Volleyball team!

March 21, 2024 Meeting

Posted on Mar 15, 2024

How Journalism Has changed over the years at Holland Sentinel

Pulitzer Prize nominated Executive Editor of the Holland Sentinel Sarah Leach will be our speaker. Sarah will be talking about how journalism has changed over the years and her coverage of local news events.

Last Week at Rotary - March 14, 2024

John Gronberg

John's father moved the family to Holland in 1943 to head up the Carr Spring mattress company. Ties to the area went back another generation because John's grandfather built a house in Macatawa after he emigrated from Sweden.

John grew up close to water, giving him a love of boats and water skiing. The Sligh family promoted water skiing along with their power boats. They ran 2 schools in Holland and one in Chicago. John taught water skiing as well as performing in shows. The national water skiing competition was in Holland in 1949. He loves both hard and soft water sailing (ice and water).

John joined Carr, which sold internationally while their licensee Spring Air sold in the US. Because John traveled so much for his work, he became a pilot and flew planes around the country. John joined the Holland Rotary in 1973 but was traveling and wasn't very active.

Carr was bought by Spring Air and then by Leggett & Platt. John stayed working for the company through these acquisitions, eventually leaving in the early 2000s. John purchased a supplier of the mattress business, Omni Die. He has become more active in Rotary, particularly working in our district with the assistant governors.

March 14, 2024 Meeting

Posted on Mar 09, 2024

John Gronberg

John will tell the story of his "Sexy Journey from Champion Water Skier to Business Owner". Come and hear what that is about.

Last Week at Rotary - March 7, 2024

Re-New Mobility

Re-New Mobility was started with the idea that they would raise money and purchase new mobility equipment to give away. Under this model, they assisted about 100 persons a year. They changed their model and now accept donations of used mobility equipment, refurbish the equipment, warehouse it, and distribute it. In 2023 they assisted 2,000 people acquire 3,000 pieces of equipment in the eight counties they serve. They have service locations in Grand Rapids and Muskegon.

They work with all ages, but especially with pediatric clients. They distribute equipment through the Intermediate School Districts, who help to identify children in need. Health insurance can limit the amount of equipment acquired simultaneously and often only allows replacement every 5 years. Especially for pediatric patients, the equipment needs may change more rapidly than 5 years as they grow. People without insurance or with high deductibles may struggle to acquire equipment.

Persons who require equipment can call, stop by either of their locations, or make a request on the website. Applicants will be screened for need and fitted with the correct size of equipment (at least by height and weight).

Re-New Mobility is the only organization in the area that handles power wheelchairs. They refurbish equipment and repair equipment for their clients. The population with disabilities is the most diverse and mobility means independence. They can pick up donations anywhere in their 8-county area.

March 7, 2024 Meeting

Posted on Mar 05, 2024

Re-New Mobility

Jo Foley & Coleen Davis will speak about Re-New Mobility. Renew Mobility enhances independence for persons with disabilities through access to mobility equipment.

February 8, 2024 Meeting

Posted on Feb 01, 2024

Update on Tulip Time 2024

In her annual visit, Kim VanderMolen will tell us what is new for this year's Tulip Time. And, of course, we will have the opportunity to volunteer.

Last Week at Rotary - January 18, 2024

Scams and Fraud

Detective Joseph Monger joined us to complete his presentation from last fall. There were so many questions previously that he didn't get through all of his points, so he was back.

Electronic records mean that there is always the chance of a breach. Since almost everything is stored electronically, you must monitor your critical information. Check your bank transactions frequently and report anything suspicious.

Romance scams are a prevalent way of stealing money. The caller will play on the emotions of lonely people and tailor their approach so that the victim trusts them. They will say they need money to visit in person, but something always delays the visit and requires more money. If the victim is asked to accept money and then transfer it to a third party, they are most likely helping in some kind of money laundering scheme.

A prevalent form of fraud is altering checks. Checks can be stolen from outgoing mail in a non-locked box or from an unattended wallet. The check can be scanned and the information reprinted on check stock with a different amount and payable line. Robbery of USPS employees has happened to get the keys to postal drop boxes. This gives the thieves access to large quantities of mail in which to look for checks.

If enough information is gathered, your bank account could be taken over by a thief. When this happens they will have complete control of your finances. Leaving identification and financial information (like a debit card or a check register) visible in your car can invite a break-in. The thief now has enough information to impersonate you at the bank and remove funds. You should always keep IDs with you or lock them in a secure area in your vehicle, like a trunk.

It is easier and faster to recover from fraud on a credit card than a debit card. If a fraudulent transaction is made on a debit card, the money is gone from your bank account and won't be returned until after an investigation concludes.

If a charitable organization requests donations, you should check their legitimacy and whether the money is used efficiently. The Charity Navigator website is a good resource.

If you have been scammed, you can report the incident to your local police or FBI. Reporting to the Federal Trade Commission, Facebook, PayPal, eBay, or other organizations used to commit the fraud can help prevent others from the perpetrators.

January 18, 2024 Meeting

Posted on Jan 11, 2024

Scams and Fraud Part 2

Karla Monger & Detective Joseph Monger will give part 2 of their talk from last October.

January 11, 2024 Meeting

Posted on Jan 06, 2024

Holland Public Schools superintendent

Nick Cassidy will be giving our program this week.

Last Week at Rotary - January 4, 2024

Lighthouse Immigrant Advocates

David Lee, the Advancement Director at LIA, told us his immigrant story. His family moved to the US from South Korea when David was 6 years old. His dad attended New Brunswick Theological Seminary and is a Reformed Chuch pastor. His parents modeled service while he was growing up and this influenced his eventual interest in non-profit work.

David graduated from Hope College with majors in English and Music. He went on to receive a Masters in Viola Performance from Northern Illinois University. After performing in the Chicago area he decided to come back to Holland to figure out his next move. He accepted the job of directing the Holland Area Youth Orchestra. David started volunteering at Community Action House and ended up working there for 7 years before joining Lighthouse doing marketing in 2021.

The Mission of Lighthouse is to bring stability to West Michigan immigrants through legal services, education, and advocacy. The organization grew from its attorney founder giving legal services to a multi-lawyer practice of 10. Soon after David joined Lighthouse changes to DACA and the influx of Afghan refugees caused them to pivot in their services. David took over as interim director in 2023 and now is one of 3 people who share executive responsibilities.

Lighthouse receives 70% of its funding from the community with the remainder from service fees. They have a fixed fee for each service, which is on a sliding scale according to income. Most immigration lawyers charge hourly and Lighthouse's fees are about 10% of the market rate. Clients often require help in acclimating to the culture and many have been scammed by people claiming legal expertise. The average time working with a client on a case is 281 days.

January 4, 2024 Meeting

Posted on Dec 30, 2023

Lighthouse Immigrant Advocates

David Lee will be telling us about the work of Lighthouse. The organization works to make our area welcoming to immigrants with legal services, education, and advocacy.

Last Week at Rotary - December 21, 2023

Reindeer Games

We had our Holiday Party with our last meal for the year at MBYC. We played the games that poor Rudolf wasn't allowed, such as picking up M&Ms with straws, bouncing balls into a bowl, keeping balloons in the air, stacking/unstacking cups, and passing cotton balls around the table with spoons. Table 4 seemed to have the best players, but everybody had a good time.

December 21, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Dec 14, 2023

Holiday Party

We will celebrate the holidays and then take the following week off from meeting.

Last Week at Rotary - December 14, 2023

Leading Collaborative Meetings

John Canfield has helped companies worldwide lead meetings in ways that get things done. He says a productive meeting is a decision-making meeting that comes from being collaborative. Improved performance comes from good implementation driven by improved decision-making created by collaboration giving improved ideas.

Traditional meetings are BOPSAT (bunch of people sitting around talking). This doesn't allow everybody to get involved and only lets the people who talk the loudest have their ideas heard.

A collaborative meeting has data accessible to all participants and allows more contributions. Where a traditional meeting usually has conflict, a collaborative meeting sees differing opinions as options that can be explored. Sharing in a traditional meeting is like an iceberg where the ideas above the water are the acceptable ones for the organization. Underneath are ideas that people won't share, ones that were forgotten when the meeting started, and any new thoughts that might have been generated by collaboration.

A collaborative meeting starts with the group defining the goals to be accomplished. Everyone is required to write options down and share them with the group. The options are placed on a scoreboard and scored for how well they meet the goals defined. John presented many good tools and encouraged us to search "good meetings" to discover meeting tools that might work for us.

Last Week at Rotary - December 7, 2023

Not your usual Case!

Retired judge and Holland Rotarian Andrew Bissonnette told about cases over which he presided which had unexpected happenings.

A 16-year-old was charged with reckless homicide because he caused the death of his friend after driving into a power pole. Andrew presided over the hearing to determine whether the case would be tried in adult court. The mother of the boy who died described hell as never being able to hear her son's laughter again.

A man walked into the Waupon police station to report that he had just killed his wife. His wife was a paranoid/schizophrenic and they had moved to Waupon to be near her family so they could help care for her. Unfortunately, the family had a falling out and the husband lost his job because he had to spend so much time leaving work to help his wife. He was desperate because he knew that his wife would get even worse living in a homeless shelter. At the trial, the wife's sister, who didn't live nearby, testified on behalf of the husband saying that he truly loved his wife and thought he was doing his best to care for her.

During a child visitation case, the mother argued that she would not allow the father to take the son for visitation. She reasoned that the father lived in Milwaukee where there was too much crime and the father refused to follow the mother's directions on what foods were allowed for the son. She only allowed him to eat cheese pizza, white bread with the crusts trimmed, hot dogs, and macaroni and cheese.

December 14, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Dec 07, 2023

Leading Collaborative Meetings

Productive collaboration requires more than just putting people in the same room. In my experience just getting people together hasn’t helped all that much. Done poorly, "normal" collaboration builds half-baked ideas, half-heartedly supported by some team members. When productive collaboration isn’t taking place, there is too much noise or too much quiet, too much argument or too little discussion. Too much time is invested for such poor results.

This presentation will suggest ways to manage productive decision-making meetings.

John Canfield is a corporate trainer, meeting facilitator, speaker, and author who develops and presents custom on-site seminars, meetings, and keynote speeches.

Last Week at Rotary - November 30, 2023

Annual Club Assembly

Andrew Bissonnette (left) completed the requirements as a new member to replace his red badge with a blue badge. Jim Crozier (right) became our newest Rotarian. Congratulations to both of them.

Howard Fink was elected as President-Elect and Loren Meengs was elected to serve on the board of directors. Other officers continued their terms.

Some highlights of service reported were:

Bookhouses around town are being stocked with books and well-used.
We are a sponsor of the Heartsafe Holland initiative and we have almost met our goal of the number of people CPR trained. Ottawa County Central Dispatch is working on a database of AED locations.
The West Ottawa High School Interact Club works on water safety projects at Holland State Park, American Samoa, and Thailand.
Rotary Youth Exchange will be sending 2 students from Holland High School to somewhere in the world for the next school year.
Our Leaders of the 21st Century conference for incoming middle schoolers is recruiting corporate sponsors to help fund this long running program.

December 7, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Dec 04, 2023

Not your usual Case!

Club member Andrew Bissonnette relates a few stories from his 24-year stint as a Circuit Court Judge in Wisconsin.

November 30, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Nov 27, 2023

Annual Club Assembly

We will hear from all of our committees concerning their progress and plans.

We will vote on the following nominees.

Howard Fink - President-Elect

Loren Meengs - Board of Directors.

Last Week at Rotary - November 16, 2023

Sarah Sanderson Doyle

Sarah grew up in Holland and graduated from Holland High School. She started to be interested internationally when her family hosted an exchange student. When she was a student at Hope College, she intentionally took international courses in Africa and the Caribbean and studied for a year abroad. After graduating she worked in many different countries, including Ecuador, China, Japan, and Mozambique.

After studying with two Fulbright Scholarships, Sarah applied for the Rotary Peace Scholarship program. She received a Master's Degree in public policy and peace and reconciliation from International Christian University in Tokyo, Japan. While working on this degree, she did an internship with the US State Department. This helped secure a diplomatic position with the State Department after graduation.

Sarah's first assignment with the State Department was in China and she is currently stationed in Sweden. She is in Holland on maternity leave and has just learned that her next assignment will be in Papua New Guinea. Her specialty is consular work. This means that she deals with immigration interviews, visa applications, and citizen services. In New Guinea, Sarah will be working as the Public Affairs Officer.

Observations on Living in Sweden

November 23, 2023 - Happy Thanksgiving

Posted on Nov 17, 2023

Happy Thanksgiving - No Meeting

Mike Moraw reports that we collected more than $700 for Community Action House last week. Thanks to all who donated.

November 16, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Nov 11, 2023

Sarah Sanderson

Sarah is a Rotary Peace Academy graduate who was sponsored by our club. She is now a US diplomat currently stationed in Sweden.

Last Week at Rotary - November 9,2023

The Rotary Foundation

Kathy and Ed started by explaining the organization of Rotary. Members are part of a club, clubs belong to districts, districts belong to zones and zones make up Rotary International. Zones are legislative entities, with each zone having a representative on the Rotary Board of Directors.

In the same manner, our Holland Rotary Charities is related to The Rotary Foundation (TRF). Locally 61% goes to youth projects, 36% to international projects, and 3% to community service work. Some of our local money is eligible for matches by TRF.

TRF has three funds.

Polio Plus which funds our global disease eradication efforts.
Endowment which generates interest to be used for charitable projects.
Annual Fund is where the annual Rotarian donations are held for 3 years. The interest from the fund pays for the administration and then the principal is returned to the district. Half is for district use and half is for the World Fund. Our district uses the money returned half for local projects and half for international.

Only clubs that meet the minimum donation of $100 per member per year are eligible to receive matching funds.

There are also special distinctions for donors. Donating $100/yr for polio qualifies as a member of the Polio Plus Society. Donating $1000/yr qualifies as a member of the Paul Harris society.

Last Week at Rotary - November 2, 2023

Lakeshore Habitat for Humanity

Dave Rozman from Lakeshore Habitat for Humanity talked about the local chapter of the international organization. Habitat's chapter in Holland started in 1990. Since its founding, they have built 160 homes and many home repairs. More than 670 people have been able to live in affordable homes because of this. Every year people from our community donate between 12,000 and 15,000 hours to help build housing.

Families that qualify for housing through Habitat have an income of between 30-80% of the Average Mean Income of the area. Many families are not able to afford safe housing, nutritious food, healthcare, and reliable transportation. They have to choose between those needs. Each family contributes 250 hours to Habitat before moving into their house. Habitat mortgage payments are no more than 29% of the family income.

Habitat has found that home ownership leads to strength, stability, and self-reliance. Families in Habitat homes stay in the home, on average, for 20 years.

Lakeshore Habitat has been focusing on larger projects in recent years to try and alleviate the housing crisis. Current projects are:

Buttermilk Creek Townhouses in Hudsonville.
Vista Green Neighborhood in Holland City. This is a joint project with Jubilee Ministries which is building 42 homes.
Haven Townhouses in Holland Township. This is a development specifically for people with disabilities, who are often the most discriminated against in housing.

November 9, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Nov 04, 2023

Rotary Foundation

The Rotary Foundation is the financing vehicle that enables Rotary to do so much good in the world. Ed Swart, Bob Nida, and Kathy DeVries will tell how Holland Rotary Club, Holland Rotary Charities, Rotary International, and The Rotary Foundation all fit together to impact our immediate community and beyond. Come and hear more.

CAH Thanksgiving Donations 11/16/2023

We will have our annual "pass the hat” for Community Action House on Nov 16th. Donations will go towards funding Thanksgiving Dinners for local families.

Last Week at Rotary - October 26, 2023

ODC and the Carbon Sequestration Fund

Dave Nyitray, CEO of the Outdoor Discovery Center (ODC), first gave us an overview of the ODC. The ODC works to protect natural ecosystems and is pioneering nature-based education. As they looked for new areas to explore, they thought about carbon offsets.

Most carbon offset programs are confusing, have mixed reactions from the public as to their effectiveness, are far away, and the rules are very convoluted. ODC worked on a program that wouldn't have these difficulties. They approached the Community Foundation of Holland/Zeeland to act as a fiduciary for the funds. An advisory board was recruited to evaluate local projects and encourage organizations to apply for funding.

Organizations who have an idea for a carbon offset project follow these steps.

Develop ideas and create a presentation.
Pitch the advisory board on the project.
Receive the funding for the project.
Implement the project.
Share the outcomes.

The projects could be to reduce carbon usage, such as to increase efficiency, replace carbon-intensive activities, or share resources. They might also lower carbon usage by proposing renewable energy or electrification.

The next stage is encouraging the community to buy into the carbon offset fund. Dave displayed a list of activities and the cost of the carbon from each activity. Some of the ideas are:

The average annual emission for an individual is $850.
For a household, annual emission is $2,000.
A round-trip economy flight between GRR and LA costs $25.
Between GRR and MCO the carbon cost is $15.
The average annual carbon cost of a vehicle is $250 or about $0.02/mile.

You can learn more at thecommunitycarbonfund.org

November 2, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Oct 27, 2023

Lakeshore Habitat for Humanity

Building Community Together, update on Habitat's affordable housing program and projects and how the community is helping to build hope and homes for individuals and families in the community. Dave Rozman, Senior Development Director Lakeshore Habitat for Humanity, will be presenting.

NEA Big Read Lakeshore 2023

Big Read Book Discussion Invitation from After Hours Rotary

The After Hours Club is participating in the Lakeshore Big Read and inviting our Club for a book discussion on this year’s Big Read Book. The book is entitled Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. This will be held at Grace Episcopal on Michigan Ave. from 6 PM to 7:30 PM on Thursday, November 16th. A Hope College student will facilitate the discussion.

Below are a few of the other Big Read events scheduled throughout November. The complete schedule is at NEA Big Read Lakeshore.

Nov. 20, 7 pm Lynda Lowery Lecture at Hope College, Winants Auditorium (Graves Hall)
Nov. 21, 6-8 pm Movie Screening: 12 Years a Slave Howard Miller Library (R-rated film)

October 26, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Oct 23, 2023

ODC and the Carbon Sequestration Fund

Dave Nyitray from the Outdoor Discovery Center will talk about carbon offsets created locally in your own community and funds given to local non-profits so they could get solar panels, as another example alongside tree planting.

Last Week at Rotary - October 19, 2023

Karla Monger & Detective Joseph Monger spoke mostly about being careful on social media about getting taken for money. Q&A took over and we asked them to return in 2024 to cover more of their material for us

Last Week at Rotary - October 5, 2023

Historic Ottawa Pump House Museum

In 1886 a group of railways formed the West Michigan Park Association and purchased land on the northside of Lake Macatawa. The building that is now called the Pump House was built in 1901 as a generating facility to provide the Hotel Ottawa with electricity. The railroad tracks were removed in 1913 and the rail bed became Ottawa Beach Road. In 1915 the cottages were electrified when lines were run from Grand Haven. After the hotel burned, the building was turned into a water pumping facility for the area until 1984 when Park Township connected them to water.

The Historic Ottawa Beach Society (HOBS) was formed to preserve the history of the area. In 1995 HOBS succeeded in listing the Pump House on the US Historical Register and in 2002 a state historical marker was installed. After Park Township built a walkway along the Lake Macatawa shoreline, discussion began in earnest on restoring the building.

In 2014 the restoration of the Pump House began. The initial restoration was finished and dedicated in May 2015. The Michigan Historical Society recognized the restoration with an award in 2018. The building couldn't be open to the public on a continuing basis because there were no bathrooms. In 2018 a historically accurate bathroom was added and a permanent occupancy permit was issued.

So far, the museum has worked with Valerie Van Heest to produce the following exhibitions.

Big Red Exhibit. This exhibit was later turned into an electronic exhibit that is now at the Pump House.
Hollands Earliest Amusements Exhibit about Jenison Electric Park and Lakewood Farm and Zoo. This was also turned into an electronic exhibit.
For a number of years, West Ottawa Elementary School students have collected historical artifacts and advised the museum on how to make exhibits more accessible to their age group. The artifacts that they have collected have been used to create another electronic display.
This year's exhibit was about the effect of electrification on the Ottawa Beach area.

October 12, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Oct 05, 2023

Patriot Promise Foundation

Our speaker this week is Author Bob Taylor Founder of the Patriot Promise Foundation from Grand Rapids, to hear about his book that he has written: From Service to Success: New Mission, new Purpose, and a New Journey to a Great Life.

Last Week at Rotary - September 28, 2023

Good Samaritan Ministries

Gary Beyer, the President of the board of Good Samaritan Ministries (GSM), presented about housing issues in Ottawa County. GSM was founded in 1969 by local churches and organizations. For the last 12 years, it has been the local Housing Assessment and Resource Agency (HARA) in Ottawa County. There is only one HARA in each county in Michigan. 53% of the staff at GSM have experienced poverty and/or homelessness.

GSM works primarily with the ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) population, which earns between $15-18/hour. Many in this population are spending 50% of their income on housing.

GSM works to prevent homelessness, create housing solutions, form sustainable partnerships, and offer supportive services.

The Ottawa County Eviction Prevention Program (OCEPP) works with tenants and landlords to prevent eviction and bring the tenants to self-sufficiency within 3 years. GSM works with landlords to promote renting to tenants who qualify for their supportive programs. These tenants are low-risk renters because of the support that they receive. The Circles program is one of the supportive programs where participants regularly meet with mentors.

Another GSM program is the Empowered Housing Program which tries to divert people from the area shelters by finding alternate housing.

In the past year, 162 clients found permanent housing, 33 rentals were created, 1859 children were helped, and 4313 housing assessments were performed. 75% of people participating in the Circles program reduced their debt.

October 5, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Sep 28, 2023

Historical Ottawa Pump House Museum

Please join us for our speaker this week, as Daniel Aument, gives us a history lesson on the Pump House, a great way to learn about our area.

September 28, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Sep 24, 2023

Good Samaritan Ministries update

Laura Driscoll & Gary Beyer will be at our meeting to highlight new developments at Good Samaritan Ministries.

Last Week at Rotary - September 21, 2023

West Ottawa Public Schools Bond

Jeff Malloch told us how West Ottawa (WO) decided what would be on the bond proposal. WO personnel compiled a list of everything desired to improve the facilities within the district. The average building age in the WO district is 47 years, so repairs are needed to keep the buildings in service. There are 2 pools within the district and the oldest was built in 1961. There are no longer any parts available to repair any of the equipment at the pool.

In addition, there are needs for bus replacements, safety upgrades, air filtration, air conditioning for the 5 elementary schools without A/C, and upgrades for instructional equipment. All of this was detailed and the district hired Epic/MRA to conduct a poll of the taxpayers in the district. Some items that were not supported by the majority of the respondents were dropped.

The average home value in the WO district is $400,000 and the millage for school facilities has been 7.75 mills for a number of years. The new request will be 0.25 mills less than this.

Last Week at Rotary - September 14, 2023

Update on Lakeshore Advantage

Lakeshore Advantage (LA) was founded in 2003 as the economic development agency of Ottawa and Allegan Counties. They have 13 staff and are funded by 160 firms. Their main goal is to maintain a robust base of employers. The focus is on "primary employers" who sell more outside the region than within the region. These firms provide 30% of the jobs and each job provides 2-3 other jobs in related areas. Our region is highly diversified.

Grow - LA is continually surveying industry to make data-driven decisions. Every year they prepare a report on industry trends.

Plan - Long-term planning is key. In 2015 the region became a recognized Smart Zone allowing support of new and developing technologies. The Next Gen program is housed in the Riverview Building in downtown Holland. The SURGE incubator program has developed new companies. In the first year, the entrepreneurs in SURGE raised $300,000 in funds while last year $31 million was raised.

LA will be moving to the Next Center on the corner of College Ave and 7th St when it is completed in 2024. Ground was just broken for the construction of this building. It will contain incubator space, a 50-person learning lab, a pitch stage, startup support areas, and the offices of Lakeshore Advantage.

Solve - Talent is a major focus of LA. Attracting, developing, and retaining talent are all necessary. The biggest challenges in our region are housing, childcare, and transportation.

September 21, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Sep 16, 2023

West Ottawa Public Schools

Jeff Malloch, CFO, will be at Rotary to tell us about the upcoming West Ottawa milage request.

International Festival of Holland Sep 30, 2023

Saturday, September 30, 2023, 2-7 pm

Holland Civic Center Place

The annual festival has art, music, food, shopping, a soccer jamboree, and for the first time a parade of flags. Help is needed with the festival.

For more information and to sign up to help visit International Festival of Holland

September 14, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Sep 09, 2023

Update on Lakeshore Advantage

Join us for Rotary this week to hear about Lakeshore Advantage's new Next Center that broke ground a few weeks back in downtown Holland. Beth Blanton, VP of Engagement, will be our speaker to fill us in on this project and others going on in the West MI area.

Last Week at Rotary - September 7, 2023

My Exchange Year in Taiwan

Brisa Sanchez Vasquez spent a year in Taiwan with the Rotary Youth Exchange (RYE) program. She was a guest of the Rotary District on the north end of the island of Taiwan. At the start of her year, the COID restrictions were stricter than in the USA and Brisa spent the first week in quarantine. She started Chinese language lessons while quarantining.

The first host family had a daughter that spent time in the US. Brisa attended the local high school 3 days a week and took university classes in Mandarin Chinese for 2 days. High school classes met from 7:30 AM until 5 PM. There were 3 meal options in the high school: a 7-11 store in the school, heaters for home food, or you could order food from Uber Eats.

The RYE program arranged tours and fun activities. The university had trips and her host families went on family trips including to the Matsu Islands, historical locations, and camping. Brisa particularly enjoyed celebrating the Chinese New Year when red envelopes are given out containing money. The exchange students celebrated Christmas and birthdays by themselves because they are not observed in Taiwan. After the school year, RYE students went on a tour of the entire country,

Brisa's two most cherished memories are being part of the winning track relay team at school and earning her certification in Mandarin.

Last Week at Rotary - August 31, 2023

The Quiet Power of Humility

Daryl Van Tongeren from Hope College started his presentation by asking us "Do we really need humility?". From his research, we currently have a narcissism epidemic in our country. When people are entrenched in a single way of seeing, it makes them lonely and isolated. Given that our nature is always pulling us toward selfishness, how do we combat this?

Dr. Van Tongeren says the way to think of humility is like Goldilocks, being just the right size. On one extreme lies arrogance and on the other lies servility. The middle allows everyone to contribute to society. People who aren't accustomed to having a voice tend to the servility end. There can be great benefits in hearing from everyone. At an interpersonal level, humility has a lot to do with restraining your ego.

There are four different areas where humility can be practiced.

Relationships - sharing praise and accepting blame are key here.
Ideas - being open, curious, teachable, and realistic are evidence of humility in this area.
Cultural - being thoughtful, learning, and respecting diversity helps in this area.
Existential - a sense of awe and smallness, knowing limits, and being grateful are attributes.

The key to developing humility is psychological security so you don't need the approval of your culture. To see how you are doing, you can ask someone who knows you well "How humble am I?". You should work to reduce your defensiveness (Is the other person right?) and build empathy.

Myths of Humility

Humble people lack conviction.
Humility is being wishy-washy.
Humility is the same as servility.
There are no costs to being humble.

Pitfalls of Not Being Humble

Everything becomes non-negotiable.
Rather than re-evaluating opinions the exercise becomes rearranging prejudices.
Seeking existential comfort because change is stressful.

September 7, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Sep 01, 2023

Rotary Youth Exchange Rebound from Taiwan

Brisa Sanchez spent a year in Taiwan with the Rotary Youth Exchange program sponsored by our club. She will talk about her experiences.

August 31, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Aug 26, 2023

The Quiet Power of Humility

DARYL VAN TONGEREN, PhD, is an associate professor of psychology at Hope College. A social psychologist, he has published over two hundred scholarly articles and chapters on topics such as meaning in life, humility, religion, forgiveness, relationships, and well-being.

His research has been covered by numerous media outlets, including The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, Huffington Post, NPR affiliate radio stations, Scientific American, and Men's Health. He has also coauthored The Courage to Suffer (with Sara A. Showalter Van Tongeren). Van Tongeren has been supported by numerous grants from the John Templeton Foundation, and his research has won national and international awards.

Currently, he is an associate editor of the journal of Positive Psychology and a consulting editor for Psychology of Religion and Spirituality and the journal of Social Psychology. He enjoys running, biking, and hiking near where he lives with his wife, Sara, in Holland Michigan.

Last Week at Rotary - August 24, 2023

Best and Brightest Organization

The "Best and Brightest Companies to work for" and the "Best and Brightest in Wellness" are lists of companies that score the highest in the B&B organization's scoring. Companies with 20 or more employees can apply to be ranked. Surveys of employees and management are conducted to determine company culture and rank the applicant companies. The applicant companies are presented with comprehensive reports on employee environment and corporate culture. In western Michigan there are 185 winners out of thousands that applied.

For more than 25 years the B&B organization has tried to raise performance, leverage tools, share knowledge, and engage leaders to continue to improve the workplace. The initial application, which includes the surveys and the reports, costs between $200 - 400, depending on the size of the applicant. The organizations that make the list can access resources in DEI, wellness, team building, hybrid work, leadership, talent recruitment, best employment practices, and more.

This information is offered through webinars, speakers, peer groups, discussions, and town halls. Some of the presentations qualify for Continuing Education credits. There is a national conference that offers all of these in person.

There are 20 different markets in which organizations can apply to be the "best and brightest". Best and Brightest started in the Midwest, but is expanding. Nationally they only publish the top 101 organizations and the Wall Street Journal is their partner.

August 24, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Aug 19, 2023

Best and Brightest Organization

Alicia Wilson & Anna Trsic will be with us to tell us about this organization.

Last Week at Rotary - August 17, 2023

Woman's Literary Club 125th Anniversary

The Woman's (yes, singular) Literary Club of Holland was founded in 1898. There was a precursor, the Bay View Reading Club, that started in 1894. Bay View Reading Clubs were formed across the country with a 4-year curriculum focusing on literature, history, and science. The women would study and present papers from the material.

After the 4 years was completed, many of the women wanted to continue with a similar experience. Anna Coatsworth Post was the founder of the literary club. She was also a charter member of Hope Reformed Church. The organization was modeled after the Ladies Library Association of Kalamazoo. The Literary Club selected a topic for discussion every year and checked out 50 books from the state library of Michigan. The books covered history, arts & literature, science, education and misc., and music. There were committees that developed programs for each of these areas of the topic over the course of the year. In 1905 the club joined the Michigan General Federation of Women's Clubs.

Alice Kremers, the wife of Dr. Henry Kremers, was a member of the Lit Club. They bult an annex on the back of their house on 12th and Central that the club used for meetings and their public health activities. This is the same house that was the location of the first hospital and later the museum. The Lit Club bought and sold multiple properties before securing the property on which the building was finally built. Each time they sold property they made a profit. Since women were not allowed to own property at this time, they formed an organization that included men for the purpose of buying property and building. The building was completed in 1914.

The Lit Club building was the location of many activities as the club rented it out to pay for its upkeep. The club was very active in health work, including maternity classes. In 1916/1917 they loaned money to women wanting a college degree at Hope College. The expenses were then $125/yr. Later this was turned into scholarships. The club sold trees at cost to residents living on 9th through 16th streets to provide shade. When WW1 started the women registered men for the military, became active in the Red Cross, and continued their hospital work.

It was at a Literary Club meeting that Lida Rogers proposed what would become Tulip Time. Currently there are 119 members who still work on beautification projects, discuss books, and have the annual conference.

Last Week at Rotary - August 10, 2023

Flourishing in the Third Third of Life

The Rev. Dr. Jill Ver Steeg, CEO Evergreen Commons, started her talk by telling of touring Evergreen in 2021 when she was considering applying for the job. She saw people exercising, connecting with each other, creating in the woodshop, volunteering to help each other, taking classes, performing, and many other activities. She thought that his was a place where people were flourishing and she was excited to be a part. She observed that our society often glorifies youth, but older citizens have the possibility to make a difference.

The first third of life is the learning phase and is from birth through formal education. The second third is called framework and is when career and relationships are formed. The third third is the finish stage and can be all about giving back to society from the experiences of a lifetime. When all aspects of your life are good it is defined as flourishing. Currently, there are 10,000 people a day who turn 65-years-old in the USA.

Evergreen Commons started 40 years ago by giving older residents who had never been on a boat in Lake Macatawa pontoon boat rides. It progressed from there to purchasing the current buildings for programs. Currently the senior center is 70,000 square feet and the day center is 12,000 square feet. Both locations provide services for the 4500 members who come primarily from Ottawa and Allegan counties. The day center provides respite care with therapy tailored to each individual. There are many programs offered such as the Parkinsons exercise program that is based on the latest research into delaying the effects of the disease.

Currently Jill and her staff are evaluating the facility use, hours available, possible expansion, and bringing in more partners.

The dream is to create a "Blue Zone" in Western Michigan. These are areas in the world where people live longer than anywhere else in the world. Currently there is only one Blue Zone in North America. The way Evergreen describes this mission is by saying "we disrupt the way people age".

August 17, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Aug 10, 2023

Women's Literary Club 125th Anniversary

The Woman’s Literary Club is celebrating 125 years in 2023 in Holland and our speaker will explain the history of the club and the Legacy of Lida Rogers who was honored in May of this year with a plaque.

Last Week at Rotary - August 3, 2023

Rotary District 6290 Governor Jeff Coil

When people ask Jeff what a Rotary district is he tells them that it is just like a club. The head is the District Governer (DG) and the members are the clubs. Districts have exactly the same committees as clubs and work to provide resources in the areas of focus. Our district membership has stabilized and we have seen new clubs start.

Every year the DG is responsible for planning a conference for the district. Our district's next conference will be 3-4 May, 2024 and it will be at the JJ Resort. Families will be encouraged to come and there will be plenty of activities for kids.

The international theme for this year is "Create Hope in the World". Jeff talked about the ways in which our district is creating hope.

Creating Hope through local club projects.
Creating Hope through polio eradication.
Creating Hope through foundation giving.
Creating Hope through youth leadership.
Creating Hope through Haitian National Water, Sanitation, Hygiene (HANWASH). Our district has signed on as one of 5 champions for this project and we are working with the town of Lagon, Terre-Nueve Haiti.
Creating Hope through our new international emphasis on Mental Health.

August 10, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Aug 03, 2023

Flourishing in the Third Third of Life

Rev. Dr. Jill Ver Steeg, CEO Evergreen Commons, will talk about how to engage in activities that will help you flourish.

August 3, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Jul 30, 2023

District Governer Jeff Coil

Rotary Clubs are grouped into districts led by a governor. Every year the District Governer visits every club to hear what they are doing, ask questions, and make suggestions to the board of directors. Governor Coil will address the club meeting explaining our district's goals for the year.

Last Week at Rotary - July 27, 2023

I AM Academy

Lindsay Cherry is the co-founder of I AM Academy along with her husband Henry. Lindsay grew up in Zeeland and attended Zeeland Public Schools. Henry grew up in Holland and attended Holland Public schools. Lindsay remembers always asking advice of the single black employee in ZPS. People will gravitate toward leaders that are like themselves.

While Lindsay was teaching at West Ottawa Harbor Light Middle School, she noticed that there still were very few role models for people of color. "Just showing up as a leader provides guidance." When children see role models that look like themselves, they start to see possibilities.

While Lindsay was teaching in West Ottawa and Henry in Holland, they noticed that the advanced classes were not representative of the composition of the student body. At one point in West Ottawa Public Schools there were 7% black students, but none in advanced classes. So, Lindsay and other teachers started recommending students of color for advanced classes.

The Cherrys became convinced that there was more that could be done in addition to their individual efforts as educators. So, I AM Academy was started in 2020. The main goals of I AM are:

Represent students to the community.
Exposure of students to education and careers with which they might not be familiar.
Support students in their educational journey.

Every year there is a different theme. This year's theme is "I AM the Dream". Some of the activities which I AM sponsors throughout the year include.

MLK Day assembly
Juneteenth Celebration
This year they partnered with Rotary on the Leaders for the 21st Century conference.
STEM camps throughout the summer.
Sponsor students to attend the Hope College science camps.
College trips to HBCUs as well as other educational institutions.
In cooperation with a Holland area dentist, they started an accredited dental assistant program.

Last Week at Rotary - July 20, 2023

City of Holland Parks and Recreation

Andy Kenyon supervises the city Parks and Recreation department. The department is responsible for 423 acres of city land including 23 parks, 17 playgrounds, 30tennis/pickleball courts, and about 12 baseball fields. The year-round crew totals 20, but this expands by more than a hundred in the summer.

The City of Holland has been named a "Tree City USA" for 43 consecutive years by the Arbor Day Foundation. This designation is awarded for excellence in tree management.

When the tree crew has to take down a tree they always try to repurpose as much of the tree as they can. They have provided ODC with logs for their outdoor playgrounds. The ODC playground at Window on the Waterfront required 50 logs. The 165-year-old tree in Centennial Park was partially made into wooden bowls specially engraved with their origin. Wood is also milled into lumber. Several city offices have paneling made from city trees.

There is an app called TreeSap that was developed by Hope College for the city. Hope students and faculty surveyed every city owned tree and placed the information in a GIS system. The app geo-locates every tree and can tell you the type of tree, size, how much CO₂ is sequestered, how much water runoff is prevented, and what is removed for various pollutants.

Andy showed the latest design for the ice ribbon park on 6th street. There will be 800 linear feet of skating space.

The order for 547,000 tulip bulbs was just placed to be planted in October and November.

July 27, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Jul 20, 2023

I AM Academy

Lindsay Cherry of I Am Academy will be our speaker. I Am Academy is a local organization that is "Helping to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline systems within educational institutions through mentorships with students and community partnerships.".

Highway Cleanup July 15, 2023

Last Week at Rotary - July 13, 2023

City of Holland Social Media Platforms

Kristin Kirsch and Eric Bruskotter are 2/3 of the full-time staff of the City of Holland media team. City media was started when the public access cable channel was created. The department receives no tax dollars but is funded by city fees on cable.

The move to social media started with Facebook, which is still the platform that has all of the information. Initially, there were about 4,000 followers and currently, there are 34,000 followers (coincidentally the same as the population of the city). Interns were very helpful in the city's move to social media. The city maintains a presence on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Flickr, Vimeo, and Nextdoor.

The TikTok started with the mayor's Face Painting Video which now has millions of views. The video was in response to a TikTok challenge to paint someone's face as a minion while telling them you were going to paint something else. TikTok followers went from 800 to almost 13,000 today.

There are also many serious videos about things to do, places to shop, and attractions. One of the latest videos is titled Holland Hospitality.

July 20, 2023 Meetng

Posted on Jul 13, 2023

Holland City Parks and Recreation

Andy Kenyon, City of Holland Parks and Rec Director will be the speaker and will talk about how the city partnered with Holland Wooden Bowl when they had to take down a 150-year-old Elm tree.

Last Week at Rotary - June 29, 2023

Celebrating the end of the Rotary Year and Looking to the New Year

There were a number of celebratory activities that happened at this meeting.

We honored past club president Ed Stielstra for his service to Rotary over the years. The club presented Ed with a Paul Harris award to continue the service work of Rotary. Paul Harris was the founder of Rotary and the award signifies a gift to the Rotary Foundation.

Ed is shown here with his wife Sandy.

Outgoing president Elizabeth Giddings turned over the gavel to 2023/2024 president Kathy DeVries. The new Rotary Theme "Create Hope in the World" was introduced.

Paul Bowles became the newest member of our Rotary Club.

Incoming president Kathy was awarded a Paul Harris by Gary and Donna Bogle in recognition of her international work. Her husband Scott was with her.

July 6, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Jul 02, 2023

Rotary Committee Meeting Time

We will start the new Rotary year by using our noon time meeting to allow our committees to plan service activities. If you don't already belong to a committee, join one that interests you.

June 29, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Jun 22, 2023

Change of Rotary Leadership, Honorary awards

The new Rotary year starts for all clubs worldwide on July 1st. Kathy DeVries will be inducted as our president for the 2023/24 year. We will also honor some Rotarians for their service.

Last Week at Rotary - June 22, 2023

Renovation at Herrick District Library

Herrick District Library will begin renovating the main branch in July. All services will be available during the renovation, except for the bookstore. The current building is now 25 years old and part of the changes will be to remediate some structural problems. Some of the notable changes are:

The bookstore will be self-serve and open all of the time that the library is open.
The employee offices visible from outside will be moved and the view from outside the building will be of library patron areas.
The central spiral staircase will be removed and an information center will be in that location on the ground floor.
The ground floor will include Ground Works (a maker space for adults), lego lab, and meeting rooms.
The study rooms will be moved from the south to the north end of the building so the sun will have less effect on video display.
On the second floor there will be a new area for babies to crawl around safely.
An imagination area will be created for elementary school children. Items in this area will change frequently.
The teen area on the second floor will not change much except for the large gaming room.

The project will be complete in 12-14 months and is being funded by the existing Library mileage. There is a website just for the renovation here

Last Week at Rotary - June 15, 2023

Leaders of the 21st Century

Our leadership conference for middle school students returned after a 3-year pause. The leaders joined Rotarians for lunch and we learned from the students.

June 22, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Jun 15, 2023

Renovation at Herrick District Library

Sara DeVries from Herrick District Library will tell us what changes will be coming to the main branch.

Last Week at Rotary - June 8, 2023

En-Gedi Children's Home in Nairobi, Kenya

Margaret Njuguna is from Kenya. She attended Calvin University and worked for the US based World Renew for many years. Her expertise is microfinance and she worked for World Renew in Africa. While she was travelling through towns, she noticed that the beggars were mostly disabled persons. She didn't know much about disability care then.

Margaret was on the planning team for World Renew and every year she asked about starting a program for disabled persons. She was eventually told that no donor would fund a foreign disability care program because any results would be very long term. Yet Margaret still felt called to help children whose families had abandoned them. So, she gave World Renew notice that she would be quitting in 3 years and started planning.

Starting the En-Gedi Children's Home

Rotary Leaders for the 21st Century 2023 Conference

Rotary Leaders for the 21st Century

In Partnership with four area School Systems

Sometimes it is difficult to look at your sixth grader’s room and think that the occupant of that room is going out on his/her own in a few years earning a living, raising a family and determining what does and does not get done in our community.

Rotary members are concerned about young people. They are also concerned about what does and does not get done in our community. For years, Rotary Clubs have tried to nurture service, international understanding and scholarships for higher education. As successful as these programs were/are, we have come to realize that if we are going to really make a difference in developing community leaders for the 21st Century, we need to reach out to more students and provide them with opportunities for leadership and community service at an early age.

Rotary members would like to provide this opportunity to students who will be entering the 7^th or 8^th grade in the fall.

How do we propose to accomplish this?

Through the Leaders for the 21st Century program about 50 seventh graders from Holland, West Ottawa, & Zeeland Public Schools and Corpus Christi Catholic School will participate in two days and one evening of intensive leadership training at Hope College. Following the initial training, students will meet once a month at their local school. At the monthly meeting, students will apply the team building skills they learned to plan and carry-out student led service projects. Periodically, student leaders will be invited to attend local Rotary luncheon meetings to report on their projects. In the spring, we will have an evening reunion for Leaders and their parents.

When does the training occur?

Registration begins at 9:15 a.m. on Wednesday, June 14, 2023 and ends with graduation on Thursday evening June 15, 2023 at approximately 6:15 p.m.

If my son or daughter were chosen as a/Rotary Fellow what would he or she receive?

* 2 days & one evening of leadership training at Hope College – this includes staying in a Hope College dorm

* Leaders for the 21st Century syllabus and planning booklet

* A reception for Leaders and their parents

* A wide range of entertainment opportunities from swimming to team games

* The opportunity to learn from and interact with national and local leaders

What is the cost for participating in this program?

There is no cost to students or their families for attending leadership training.

We do, however, expect students to make a commitment

To abide by a code of behavior

To take an active role in the training

To make a commitment to helping other people in their school and community

June 8, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Jun 02, 2023

En-Gedi Children's Home in Nairobi, Kenya

Margaret Njuguna is the founder and director of En-Gedi Children's Home.

Last Week at Rotary - June 1, 2023

Kierian Overbeek's Year in India

Kierian spent a year in Jalgaon, India with Rotary Youth Exchange. He stayed with 3 different families. One family was Sikh and two were Jain. All were vegetarian and Jainists will not kill any living thing. Kierian had to learn to just shoo insects away rather than swat them.

There are many festivals in India. Some of Kierian's favorite are:

Ganesh, where large clay statues of the elephant god are created and lowered into a lake at the end.
Navratri, which involves a lot of dancing.
Diwali is celebrated with decorations and gift giving.
Holi is when everybody has colored water to throw at each other.

Kierian had a bicycle and rode all over the countryside with his friends. The Indian Rotarians sent the exchange students on two major trips, one toured South India and the other North India.

Last Week at Rotary - May 25, 2023

Fishing in the Great Lakes

Jon Osborne grew up in Holland fishing with his father on Lake Macatawa. Fly Fishing has grown to be his passion and he has written 4 books about various aspects of Fly Fishing. He started writing 12 years ago. Jon has worked for Holland Public Safety for 26 years and now does recruiting and training for the department.

He started his talk by defining passion. Passion is something that keeps you awake and makes you get up early. It is typically different than what you do to make a living, but not always. People who can articulate their passions generally know themselves well.

Jon is fascinated with Trout and loves to observe them. He releases the fish that he catches. He says that fishing is communal and teaches patience. Off-season he ties flies from all-natural materials.

June 1, 2023 Meeting

Posted on May 26, 2023

Outbound Exchange Student Life while in India

Kierian Overbeek has just returned from a year of living in India through the Rotary Youth Exchange. He will tell us about India and his experiences.

Pet Photo Contest 2023 Winners!

Pet Photo Contest is Finished

Thank you for all of your support for our Rotary Charity work. The fundraiser raised over $6600 to support developing youth leadership, eliminating polio worldwide, highway cleanup and park benches, global conflict resolution, neighborhood little libraries, providing clean water, and more.

And the winners are.

Paul B with his cat Shatara.
Emma H and her dog Clark.
Mike W with Larry the Lizard.

Last Week at Rotary - May 18, 2023

Posted by John Hoekstra

City of Holland Report

Keith VanBeek, Holland City Manager, gave a summary of what are the latest developments in the city. During the pandemic, the staff had a saying that they needed to "keep the trains running". They did that and planned for the future. The staff projects the city needs for 50 years in the future and has financing worked out for 20 years. Here is what is in progress.

City of Holland Projects

May 25, 2023 Meeting

Posted on May 18, 2023

Fishing in the Great Lakes

Jon Osborn will be speaking on the Joys of Flyfishing in Michigan. Jon is a Full Time Police Officer with our Holland Dept. of Public Safety working in training. He has written about his experiences flyfishing in a book.

May 18, 2023 Meeting

Posted on May 12, 2023

Holland City Manager

Keith Van Beek is the Holland City Manager and will talk about what is going on in the city.

West Ottawa Interact Water Initiative

Teens lead initiative (click on photo for story)

May 11, 2023 Meeting

Posted on May 05, 2023

No Meeting, Tulip Time

We are not meeting for lunch this week. Volunteers are still needed to help with grandstands. See below for details.

Last Week at Rotary May 4, 2023

Posted by John Hoekstra

School Based Mental Health

Amy Henry from the Ottawa Area Intermediate School District was one of a team that wrote a grant proposal to the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration last year. The grant was for developing a Positive Behavioral Intervention Support (PBIS) system to be used in school systems.

Initially the federal government was going to award only 3 grants and the Ottawa team thought there was little chance of being awarded one. It ended up that there were 9 grants issued and one was for Amy's proposal. The preparation started last year and the program will be started in the schools this fall. It is funded for 5 years.

About 20% of the population needs mental health services and only 2/3 will receive assistance. Schools are a primary delivery point for mental health services. Students feel comfortable at school and are away from any adverse environments. The program being developed is multiple tiered and links building, school district, and ISD resources. One goal is to link together observations on students from teachers, coaches, and other staff to provide early intervention.

The outcomes that will be tracked are improved academics, reduced discipline, and improved teacher outcomes.

May 4, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Apr 29, 2023

School Based Mental Health

Amy Henry from the Ottawa Intermediate School District is our speaker. We will hear about the new $5.5 million dollar grant from the US Department of Health and Human Services to help Strengthen Mental health in Ottawa County.

Last Week at Rotary - April 20, 2023

Posted by John Hoekstra

West Ottawa Challenged Students Luncheon

April 27, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Apr 14, 2023

Holland Rotary Kenya Vision Team

In February a 5-person team went to Kenya and Uganda to view past and current international projects and make contacts for future projects. They will report their findings.

April 20, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Apr 14, 2023

West Ottawa Challenged Student Program

Our partnership with the West Ottawa special education teachers and students goes back many years. Every year they invite us for lunch and the students present a program.

The meeting will be held at West Ottawa Lakewood Elementary School, 2134 W Lakewood Blvd, Holland, MI 49424

Last Week at Rotary - April 13, 2023

Posted by John Hoekstra

Managing a 120-year-old company - Holland Peanut Store

The Holland Peanut Store currently has 4 third generation siblings involved in management. Their grandfather (Joe Fabiano) was the first Fabiano who moved to Holland in 1902. Celeste related the story of when her grandfather went to a business organization, they switched from speaking English to speaking Dutch. He requested that they speak English so he could understand. In subsequent generations the relations between this Italian Catholic family and the Dutch residents were more congenial. One of the things that Celeste enjoys is knowing the many customers, some of whom are multi-generation customers.

Celeste's uncle Patsy took over the confectionary business in 1914 and added a soda fountain. This was located where the current Gazelle Sports store is. Her father started the peanut store. In 1973 the original store closed.

Current Day Peanut Store

Last Week at Rotary - April 6, 2023

Posted by John Hoekstra

Protecting Yourself Online

Rotarian David Steenwyk presented a talk about online safety. The primary thing to remember is that the human is the weakest link. You should always think before you click.

The acronym to remember if you are suspicious about an email, is SLAM. This means:

S - Sender. Look closely at the actual email to see if it matches up with the person.

L - Links. Don't click on any link that doesn't seem right. You can hover over a link on most non-mobile devices to see the destination.

A - Attachments. Don't open any attachments if you aren't expecting them.

M - Message. Does the message seem in character? Is your friend really in a Mexican jail needing money?

For all of your online accounts that contain sensitive information (financial, personal identifying info, etc.) make sure that you are using a multi-factor authentication that requires something you know and something you have. Using a password generating and storing program, such as lastpass can help you create and enter unique and complex passwords for all of your accounts.

Even if you store your files on the cloud, the responsibility to keep backups is yours. If a file of yours gets deleted (either by accident or someone breaking into your computer), it can only be recovered from a cloud service for a limited time. If you discover you need it after the retention period is over, it is gone forever if you haven't made a copy.

Lastly, make sure that all updates to your software are applied and that you have security software turned on.

April 13, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Apr 06, 2023

Managing a 120-year-old company - Holland Peanut Store

Celeste Fabiano-Porebski is one of the family members working at this beloved downtown store.

April 6, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Apr 05, 2023

Surprise!

As of this writing we don't know what the program will be. We do know that we will have a good lunch and fellowship.

Last Week at Rotary - March 30, 2023

Posted by John Hoekstra

Mt. Baldhead National Register Listing

Eric Gallannek of the Saugatuck-Douglas History Center and Russ Gardner of the Mt Baldhead Radar Station Work Group gave a presentation about the restoration and listing of the station.

Mt Baldhead has long been a high spot for viewing in the Saugatuck area. In the early 1900s there was an observation tower for tourists to climb to see Lake Michigan. The stairs were built in 1931.

During the Cold War the Soviet Union tested nuclear bombs and deployed them on bombers. The US was concerned about Soviet bombers coming over the Noth Pole unobserved. The Midwest was a particular target because of the concentration of manufacturing facilities. In the 1950s long range radar installations were built that watched thousands of miles to the top of the planet. There was concern that aircraft could fly lower than the long-range radar scans. This led to a network of 131 Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) gap filler radar stations.

Mt Baldhead Radar Station

Last week at Rotary - March 23, 2023

The West Ottawa Interact charter was formally presented to Raighen Ly, president, to acknowledge the newest member of the Holland Rotary Club family. The Interactors talked about their passion for service and their signature project of increasing water safety education for their community in order to protect people from drowning in our area. This charter was signed by Linda Falstad of the After Hours club, Aaron Atsaphanthong of Lakeshore United Rotaract, and Elizabeth Giddings of Holland Noon club.

Pictured Members of the West Ottawa Interact Club:

Raighen Ly : President
Andrew Elwood : Board Chair

Tia Peterson : Vice President

Joey Skerbeck : Director Social Media

Alex Wortman : Member

Matthew Harrison : Member

Andrew Spilotro : Member

Tim McDonald : Member

March 30, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Mar 27, 2023

Mt. Baldhead National Register Listing

Eric Gollannek is the Executive Director of the Saugatuck-Douglas History Center. Eric will talk about Mt. Baldhead Radar site, the history, and how it was just recognized for its historical significance.

Last Week at Rotary - March 9, 2023

Tulip Time 2023

Kim Vandermolen, who is in charge of volunteers for Tulip Time, gave us an update on what is in store for this year. Highlights are:

The Tulip Immersion garden will be back but on the grounds of Beechwood church.
The Artisan Market and Fair will have more than 300 vendors this year. It will move to the fairgrounds allowing for more parking and better traffic flow.
The Crescendo Bicycle Band from the Netherlands will be around for the festival. They perform while riding in formation. The video was amazing.
The usual mix of local and national musical performances.
Kinderparade and the Musikparade will be on Thursday and Saturday.
Fireworks will culminate the festival on the last Saturday.

Rotary has provided Grandstand Greeters for parades for a number of years. Greeters are needed starting at noon each parade day and will need to be around for 3. hours. The only grandstands will be on 8th Street by the Civic Center. There will also be seats next to the grandstands for people with mobility difficulties.

The special signup link for Rotarians and friends is R otary Volunteer Signup.

March 16, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Mar 10, 2023

Park Township Updates

Howard Fink, Rotarian and township manager, will give us another update on what is going on in the township. Park Township contains some of the most used waterfront parks, the county fairgrounds, and a large portion of the Lake Macatawa shoreline.

Rotary Charities Fundraiser

Click the image below to enter a pet photo in the contest or to vote for a photo.

Pets Photo Contest

Click the image below to enter a pet photo in the contest or to vote for a photo.

Last Week at Rotary - February 9, 2023

US Navy Submarine Experiences

Katherine Hoekstra grew up in Holland and graduated from West Ottawa High School. She decided to join the US Navy and received an ROTC scholarship to attend the University of Michigan where she majored in Physics and minored in Music. After graduating from UM, she was commissioned as an officer in the Navy. After commissioning, she moved to Charleston, NC. In Charleston, she graduated from the Navy Nuclear Power School of the Navy Nuclear Power Training Command and then the Nuclear Power Training Unit. The first school gave the theory of nuclear power operations and the second gave hands-on experience running Navy reactors.

After finishing the nuclear training, Katherine moved to Groton CT to attend Submarine Officer Basic School. In Groton, she learned about all of the other systems on a submarine. After completing this schooling, she was assigned to the USS Florida in Kings Bay Georgia.

US Navy Submarines

Last week at Rotary - Feb 16, 2023

Posted on Feb 09, 2023

Ophthalmologist Dr Bryan Huffman thrilled us with his tale of the risk, effort, and extensive preparation it takes to swim the English Channel. Because of the strong tides the faster you swim, the shorter your distance. He clocked in at 12 hours and 19 minutes, the fastest ever was 7 hours, 24 minutes. Bryan was swimmer number 301 from the US and only swimmer number 3 from Michigan to complete this challenge.

President Elect Kathy DeVries, President Elizabeth Giddings, Rotary Youth Exchange student Liz from Brazil, Secretary John Hoekstra and his wife Marj Hoekstra--Kenya bound!

We bade Bon Voyage to our International Service team on their way to Kenya to inspect potential water and sanitation projects. They got stuck in Paris for overnight on their way there and they did not seem to mind this delay.

Guests were Wilma Hart from Mediation Services and our Junior Rotarians were Julia Jung from WOHS and Maddie Brink from HCHS.

Last Week at Rotary - Mar 2,2023

Posted on Feb 09, 2023

Thompson Michigan Technical Education Center (M-TEC)

One corner on the north side of town, the Ottawa Area Intermediate School District, hosts a whole caboodle of educational opportunities for area residents: Careerline Tech Center opens exploration and training for high school students, Thompson M-TEC does career and corporate training for adults, and futurePREP'd works with local business to bring camps, training, and Early College to grades K through 13 and to meet their future employers.

Doug Bagley enlightened us to these programs that invest in our community. One story that grabbed us was a formerly homeless man went through M-TEC to both earn his GED and his welding certification late in life. He is now employed and has his own apartment at age 70.

These programs hire instructors straight from industry and welcome community member, particularly retirees, to work a few hours a week to teach anything from CAD to geometry, English to Business, Agriculture to QuickBooks or Keyboarding. Doug would love to recruit some instructors from our ranks.

https://www.oaisd.org/

Rotary Book Labelling - Feb 4, 2023

March 9, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Feb 03, 2023

Tulip time update and Volunteer Needs

Kim VanderMolen from Tulip Time will tell us about the 2023 festival and how we can help.

February 9, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Feb 03, 2023

Katherine Hoekstra, USS Florida

LTJG Katherine Hoekstra, USN will be talking about her experiences in submarine training and serving aboard the USS Florida. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan Naval ROTC program and the US Navy Nuclear Power School.

Last Week at Rotary - January 26, 2023

Inbound Exchange Student

Maria Eduarda Corsini Liz (Liz) is our exchange student from Brazil. She is from Três Corações in the state of Minas Gerais. This is an area with beautiful lakes, rivers, and waterfalls. It is also the hometown of the soccer star Pele and there is a Pele Museum there. Liz lives there with her mom, dad, grandma, and 2 dogs. She misses them all, especially the dogs. While Liz is here, her parents are hosting a Rotary Youth Exchange student from India. She got to meet him briefly before she left Brazil.

Liz reminded us that the land area of Brazil is larger than the continental United States. She showed us a picture of one of her favorite foods, a kind of cheese roll. They are eaten at any time of the day but particularly at the afternoon meal, which is eaten between lunch and dinner.

She thinks that the US schools are not as rigorous as Brazilian ones and was surprised that the US students get to select their classes. At her school in Brazil, she studies 15 different subjects every semester. The students have school uniforms and there are about 30 students in a graduating class. This class size is typical for schools in her area.

She loves to paint pictures as a hobby. During the pandemic she and her dad painted a mural of animals on a wall of her bedroom. She also enjoys festivals and, of course, carnival is the biggest festival in Brazil.

She is very dedicated to volunteer work and would like to continue by pursuing political science as a career. She is a member of the Latin American Leadership Academy, which is made up of young people throughout South America. They met virtually during the pandemic, but will begin meeting in person in different countries this year. Liz is a member of the Youth Parliament of her state which drafts proposed legislation and presents it to the state legislature. The last law that they worked on proposed changes to mental health treatment. She also volunteers with a local group that prepares and distributes food to local families. October 12 is Children's Day in Brazil and this organization hosted a party for the children they serve.

Here in Holland, she attends Holland High School and is taking some AP classes. She played on the volleyball team at Holland High. Her 18th birthday was after she arrived in the US, so she got to celebrate it here. There is no snow or ice in her area of Brazil and that has been a new experience. She tried to learn ice skating with the exchange students. That didn't go so well! However, she accomplished a life goal when she went to NYC and saw Funny Girl on Broadway.

After she finishes her exchange year, she will either go back to Brazil and study for the college exam or apply to colleges in the United States.

February 2, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Jan 26, 2023

Winner of the Magnolia Silos Baking Competition

Annie Paul won the Silos Baking Competition with her Summer Berry Bar. She will tell us about that experience and share her love of baking.

Bookhouse help for Spring 2023

A book house monitor is needed for the Rotary book house located at the Harbor Village Apartments (287 W. 40th, Holland).

If you are interested in this service project, please get in touch with Gary Bogle for details.

Last Week at Rotary - January 19, 2023

Outbound Exchange Students

Our club's outbound exchange students Kierian Overbeek, who is in India, and Brisa Sanchez Vasquez, who is in Taiwan, joined us by video chat to talk about how their yar has been going. Brisa deserves a special medal because it was 2 AM local time when she joined us.

Brisa is with her second host family. Where she lived first, she could walk to her school. Now she has to take an hour bus ride to school. Sometimes the bus is full and won't allow any more riders so she has to allow enough time to catch a second bus. She listed getting up on time as one of the most difficult things right now. The mandatory 6-day disease quarantine at the beginning of her stay was also really difficult.

Brisa's current family engages in more activities than her first family and she has been enjoying getting out into the community. She has also gone on some trips with Rotary. She was pleasantly surprised that her school classmates are very friendly and she enjoys having friends. About half of the class speaks English and they are helping her with learning Chinese. She is doing well learning the language and is hoping to pass the proficiency test in a while.

Kierian has school from 8-12 in the morning Monday through Saturday. This was unexpected. He has noticed how much the variety of religions in India shape the culture. His first host family were Sikhs and his current family practice Jainism. His hosts are not only strict vegans but have a reverence for all life that forbids even killing insects. The variety of religions means that there are festivals constantly. Kierian has really been enjoying going to the festivals. He has been travelling a lot. He was at the Rotary District 3030 conference and before that had a lengthy tour of South India. Kierian has been learning Hindi, but there are so many different languages spoken he has difficulty determining what language people are speaking.

Both students were asked what the most surprising things were that they had encountered. They both immediately agreed that the eastern style toilets take some time getting used to. Kierian noted that the festivals are community oriented and not commercial like our festivals. He also remarked on the terrible roads and that animals are roaming freely everywhere. Brisa remarked that on an island the weather app is never correct. She has learned to always carry rain gear. She also noted that she sleeps on a traditional Chinese bed that is a wooden surface with a very thin pad.

Kierian really misses having meat, but his favorite food is similar to a burrito. Brisa particularly enjoys a particular soup consisting of beef, noodles, and other ingredients. She also loves steamed buns.

January 26, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Jan 19, 2023

RYE Inbound Maria Eduarda Corsini Liz from Brazil

You have probably been introduced to her as Liz, which is what she prefers to be called. She has been with us since the fall and will give her official club presentation about her life in Brazil and what she has experienced in Holland.

January 19, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Jan 13, 2023

RYE Outbounds Kieran & Brisa

Our Rotary Youth Exchange students in India and Taiwan will be video chatting with us.

If you would like to join the chat with our exchange students via Zoom, use this link https://us02web.zoom.us/j/9994392473

District 6290 Foundation Raffle 2023

Last Week at Rotary - January 12, 2023

Energy Smart Program

Andrew Reynolds, Community Energy Services Manager with the Holland Board of Public Works (HBPW), outlined what is going on with electrification. Now the term electrification means switching from fossil fuel to electric equipment. He asked if any of us had a heat pump in our home. People were unsure until Andrew pointed out that refrigerators, freezers, and A/C units are all heat pumps. Heat pumps simply move heat, so your refrigerator stays cool by moving any heat into your house. There are even hot water heaters that work using a heat pump. Electricity generates less carbon into the atmosphere than other fuels and is generally cheaper. HBPW residential electric rates are 40% less than Consumers Energy and DTE.

The City of Holland approved an energy plan in 2011 that set a goal of reducing CO2 emissions from 24 metric tons per capita in 2010 to 10 mt by 2050. Last year the city achieved 17 mt and the goal has been revised to 12 mt by 2030.

HBPW assistance starts with their Home Energy 101 program, which is run by non-profits in the community. This is available to homes within the city limits of Holland. A comprehensive evaluation along with recommendations is made available. The homeowner can work with approved HBPW contractors to make improvements as desired.

HBPW has the energy smart rebate program and the federal government has rebate money allocated in the Inflation Reduction Act. The rules for the federal program are not written yet, but congress approved up to $14,000 per household for authorized improvements. Andrew showed an example where you might get more back in rebates than the cost of a water heater.

Loren Meengs Joins Our Club

Last Week at Rotary - January 5, 2023

Heart Safe Community

Steve Stegeman, who spent 40 years as a paramedic, is now on the Heart Safe Community board to promote citizen Compression only Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation (CoCPR) training. He started out by dispelling some myths about citizen assistance.

Only licensed medical professionals are required to offer assistance to individuals needing aid.
If you as a citizen are acting in good faith to assist someone in an emergency, you are not liable for any type of legal action against you.
All 911 operators are trained to walk you through administering CPR and other medical procedures. If you call, you will have assistance.
The average response time for emergency personnel in the Holland area is 4-6 minutes. A person choking will die within 2 minutes without aid. A severe case of arterial bleeding will die before 6 minutes. And sudden cardiac arrest requires CPR within 2 minutes.

After Steve retired he became a medical examiner investigator. This involved talking to people present when deaths occurred. In almost all deaths there was nothing done to render first aid. If nothing is done for sudden cardiac arrests, the EMTs arriving in the 4-6 minute time will have no chance of saving the person.

Heart attacks are characterized by sweating, radiating pain, and breathing difficulty. If these symptoms occur, you need to call 911 and put the person into a position where they are most comfortable.

There are about 1,000 sudden cardiac arrests a day in the US. This can happen among young people. Cardiac arrest can happen because of electrical disturbances that cause your heart to stop or not pump blood. It can also happen because of a blow to the chest at the time when the heart is empty of blood. The current preferred method for assistance is CoCPR. Only 5% of the population is currently trained. The Heart Safe Community has set a goal to have 15% of the population trained.

How to Respond to Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA)

January 12, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Jan 05, 2023

New Environmental & Energy Initiatives with BPW

Andrew Reynolds, Community Energy Services Manager with the Holland Board of Public Works, will inform us of new initiatives.

January 5, 2023 Meeting

Posted on Dec 28, 2022

Heart Safe Community

Steve Stegeman, a retired paramedic with over 40 years of experience, will introduce Holland City’s new Heart Safe Community Initiative, sponsored by the Holland Fire Department. Through the Citizen CPR Foundation, this program promotes training and the delivery of lay person CPR for Sudden Cardiac Arrest. The presentation will include a demonstration of compression only cardio pulmonary resuscitation (CoCPR) and the use of an automated external defibrillator. Steve will be accompanied by a member of the committee, Jay Peters, who has used this training to assist in saving his friend’s life.

Meeting Location for Jan-Mar 2023

The advisory vote of the membership decided that our meeting place for the next 3 months will be

Redrock Grille

4600 Macatawa Legends Boulevard

Holland, MI 49424

Macatawa Legends Boulevard is off New Holland Street between 144th Ave and 136th Ave.

There will be signs directing you to the meeting room for Rotary. Look for them starting in the parking lot.

Last Week at Rotary - December 22, 2022

Holland Chorale Dickens Quartet

Happy New Year - No Meeting on December 29, 2022

The Next Holland Rotary Club Meeting is January 5, 2023

December 22, 2022 Meeting

Posted on Dec 16, 2022

Holiday Party

The Holland Chorale Dickens Quartet will be singing for our meeting.

Last Week at Rotary - December 15, 2022

Rotary Club of Holland Club Assembly

The Club members present elected Mark Recoulley and Mike Moraw to serve on the board of directors. Congratulations!

Kathy DeVries gave a summary of the international work. The Homa Bay, Kenya market is a large public market that has no sanitary facilities. The Kisumu Rotary Club (who we have partnered with before) was doing a disease spread survey during COVID and identified this market as a major disease spreading point. Our club and Kisumu now have a global grant project to build bathroom facilities that include clean water distribution. Our Kenyan silage project, that was completed a few years ago, has raised the income of the participating farmers from 3-10 times. Our partnership with the Running Strong non-profit has completed many water and food projects on the Pine Ridge reservation.

Catherine Ristola Bass reported that the Life Leadership, Interact, and International Youth Exchange programs have been doing well. We are hoping to bring back the Leaders of the 21st Century program.

Gary Bogle reported that our book houses are being well used. We received a donation of 10,000 books this year for that program. The highway cleanup and Holiday bell ringing headed up by Mike Moraw continue.

Carol Swartz gave a summary of the Afghan family resettlement that we worked with this year. The family is doing well and is self-supporting.

Janet Huyser could use 2 people to help her with membership activities in the club. She thanked David Meier for everything that he has done to keep the club together by arranging meeting space and meals.

Dec 16, 2022 Bell Ringing

Last Week at Rotary - December 8, 2022

LifeCircles PACE

Jen Haak of LifeCircles PACE (Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly) shared with us their mission and vision - to help people live and age the way they want to. This program targets the 55+ community and draws together several focus areas under one roof: doctors, nurses, OT, PT, and more to deliver a wide range of healthcare alternatives. Jen spoke to Holland Rotary specifically about dementia.

LifeCircles also runs educational programs in the community. For example, they educate police and first responders on how to deal with someone whose symptoms are related to brain change. They help crisis intervention teams with a 40-hour training to recognize and deal with situations. This involves both classroom-style instruction and role-playing to teach soft skills.

Jen went on to give six functions of the frontal lobe of the brain to explain how someone may recognize signs of impairment or dementia in an individual.

December 15, 2022 Meeting

Posted on Dec 13, 2022

Club Assembly

The nominating committee is pleased to present two candidates for election to our two open board positions: Mike Moraw and Mark Recoulley. Thank you, gentlemen, for your willingness to serve. We still have our President-Elect (2024-25) slot vacant.

We look forward to hearing reports at this week's meeting from all of our various committees about their good work on behalf of the club over the last six months. Thank you, members, for carrying out our mission of service for others.

Dementia Fair - January 2023

December 8, 2022 Meeting

Posted on Dec 03, 2022

Crisis Training for Law Enforcement with Seniors

Jennifer Haak, LifeCircles Coordinator will talk about the new training that LifeCircles PACE has started with first responders' agencies in Muskegon on how to deal with the Elderly when they are called out on critical situations.

November 24, 2022 - Give Thanks (no meeting)

Posted on Nov 19, 2022

From President Elizabeth and the Club Board of Directors!

Last Week at Rotary - December 1, 2022

United Way of Ottawa and Allegan Counties

Brian Gaggin (President/CEO and Shannon Behm (VP of Development) talked about the United Way. The United Way was founded in 1887 as a partnership between corporations and non-profits. Globally there are 1.5 million volunteers and 7 million donors and 5000 corporate sponsors. United Way operates in every community in the US and 1100 communities outside of the US.

In our area 8,291 volunteers contribute 100,000 volunteer hours and $3 million in donations. The areas of focus of United Way are education, health, and financial stability. In Ottawa County, 31% of the residents are classified as ALICE (asset limited, income constrained, employed).

Last week at Rotary - November 17, 2022

Ottawa County Juvenile Restorative Justice

Our speakers were Paul Krause, Elizabeth Giddings, Tom Wolf, and Dotti. They are all involved in the year-old restorative justice program in Ottawa County. Elizabeth was involved in law school, then worked in juvenile justice in Detroit, and now heads up the Mediation Center in Holland. Paul was an Attorney General in Iowa, practiced family law, was a prosecutor in the family law division, and has just been elected judge in family court. Dotti and Tom have both been long term mediators in civil and family cases.

Repair Harm and Restore Hope

The purpose of the program is to address the harm done, to hold the offender responsible, and to make restitution to the victim. The program is available to first time offenders who are 19 and younger. The program has worked with youth from 11-19 years old. The victim must agree for the case to be handled by the restorative justice process. If the offender completes the program, there will be no court record. In order to successfully complete the program, the offender must take responsibility by writing a letter acknowledging the harm they caused, change their behavior, and make restoration to the victim along with community service. If there was physical harm to an individual, they must also complete counseling.

Stories of Justice

November 17, 2022 Meeting

Posted on Nov 11, 2022

Don't Forget Your Donations for Community Action House

This is the week before Thanksgiving and we will be collecting canned goods or money for Community Action House. If you want to bring a check, make it out to Holland Rotary Charities.

Mediation Services Juveniles Justice Restorative Project

Judge Paul Kraus will tell us about this important program of the court.

Last Week at Rotary - November 10, 2022

The Rotary Foundation

Rebecca Lamper is our Rotary Foundation chair and she gave prizes to people who knew the answers to her questions. We learned the following facts about The Rotary Foundation.

The foundation was founded in 1917 with money left over from the international convention.
Since its founding it has funded $4 billion in club projects.
It costs $0.60 for a polio vaccination.
$50 will provide clean water to a home.
The goal for donations is $100 from every Rotarian every year.
When a club reaches their giving goal, they can receive $3 back for projects for every $1 that they donated.
Charity Navigator rates Rotary as the very best charity
91% of money donated to Rotary goes to programs.

West Ottawa Interact World Polio Day 2022

The West Ottawa Interact club held their first activity even before they were officially chartered. They had a fundraiser for Polio Eradication on Oct 24th, which is World Polio Day.

Left to Right: Andrew Elwood, Marissa Sanchez, Raighen Ly, and Mariah Stewart raising money for Polio Plus

Left to Right: Raighen Ly and Kona Ly with the Interact banner.

November 3, 2022 Meeting

Posted on Oct 27, 2022

Fundraising Team Working Session

We will not be having a program on Nov 3, but will use our meeting time to allow our fundraising teams to work on ideas.

Club Updates for October 27, 2022

Rotary Updates

Rotarian Herb Dakin, a longtime Rotary After Hours Club member, died on October 24th. A service in memory of Herb will take place on Friday, October 28, at 1:00 p.m., at Third Reformed Church.

Help with Membership

The membership committee is seeking people with the skills/interests to do the following:

Record-keeping
Intake and process applications
Maintain membership category clarification (individual, corporate, etc.)
Orientation of new members, make sure they find a welcome and a place for service.

To indicate your interest, call or text Janet Huyser at 616-550-6837

Last Week at Rotary - October 27, 2022

Rip Currents

Two and a half years ago a particular drowning at Holland State Park caused Robert Ortman to write a letter to the editor about the lack of lifeguards and other safety measures at the park. From this the Holland State Park Safety Commission was formed and Robert started to investigate the causes of drownings.

Rescues

A particular problem to rescues at Holland State Park is the length of time to respond. If a swimmer is in distress, the sheriff either has to drive down Ottawa Beach Road or take the boat out the channel. The Coast Guard responds with their helicopter from Traverse City in 20 minutes, which is usually too late. Robert would like to see the state park have drone(s) and trained personnel to fly it. The drone could either be used to observe whether assistance was needed or drop a rescue device.

Prevention

While Robert was researching drownings, he noticed that almost all of the drownings at Holland State Park occurred at the same location and with similar weather conditions. He started flying his drones and video recording the currents under the conditions when drownings occur most. He showed videos from different years with currents forming in the same way. The currents curl back toward the beach from the pier and meet currents coming from the north. This causes what are called harbor influenced rip currents. Current measuring devices were placed underwater this summer to provide long term measurements. These devices have just been removed and the data will be downloaded and analyzed in a few weeks.

Last Week at Rotary, October 20, 2022

A Rotaract Story

Russ started his talk by emphasizing the need to present Rotary as a family of Clubs. The distinctions between Rotary, Rotaract, and Interact need to give way toward working together. When people are interested in membership we need to find out which of the area clubs would fit them the best.

He gave some vignettes of Rotaract Clubs in our district.

Sault St Marie had a very active Rotaract Club before COVID that didn't survive the pandemic.
Traverse City wanted to create a Rotaract Club from their community college, but the limited time of students working on an associate's degree was a challenge. So they expanded the club outreach to alumni of the college and then to young professionals.
Muskegon had a Baker College Rotaract Club that closed when the college closed in Muskegon during the pandemic.
Allendale and Grand Haven Clubs sponsor the GVSU Rotaract Club. They are thriving because they act as a connector between students who want to serve and campus/community organizations who need volunteers.
Grand Rapids Rotary has been very successful in incorporating minorities and younger people into its Rotary Club. They are the only club in the district that has a DEI committee. They are also looking into setting up a Grand Rapids area college Rotaract Club that would incorporate all of the area colleges.

Lakeshore United

October 27, 2022 Program

Posted on Oct 20, 2022

Rip Currents

In September we heard from the Holland State Park Safety Commission about the range of initiatives to stop drownings. Robert Ortman will tell us in greater detail about the research into rip currents near piers that convinced the Army Corp of Engineers to start a major study on pier design.

October 20, 2022 Program (NEW)

Posted on Oct 18, 2022

Our scheduled speaker, Aaron Atsaphanthong, has had to fill in at his business and won't be able to give his talk this week. Hopefully, we will find another time he can talk to us.

A Rotaract Story

Russ Miller will talk about the forming of one particular Rotaract Club and provide us with examples that will show where Rotaract is going today and what many Rotaractors believe will be their future.

The stated mission of this club is:

Our mission is to recognize various cultures both economically and socially. We promote and encourage our members to broaden their network by volunteering through community service and in relationships. We welcome and celebrate all backgrounds. We are united in our mission to recognize potential imbalances and bridge gaps, to directly impact the next generation of leaders in hope that they may be provided opportunity that we did not have.

Russ will outline why a Rotaract Club, what is the purpose of the club, and where to find members to build a club.

Last Week at Rotary - October 13, 2022

Fund-raising

The club was divided into 4 competing teams for the fundraising that will continue into February. Everything else that happened can't be said publicly.

October 20, 2022 Program

Posted on Oct 14, 2022

Journey of starting a new business in Holland as a Minority

Aaron is the founder and owner of Pro Low Moving LLC. He was born and raised in Holland and is 31 years old.

Went to Holland High and worked in manufacturing after high school.
Always had a passion for helping others.

Background on Pro-Low Moving

Started in July of 2017 with 1 16ft box truck, 2 business partners, and myself out of my garage.
Each year we added a truck and a couple of employees.
After 1 year in the garage, we moved to 136th ave
After our first year in business, we were voted the Best Moving Company in Holland.
We now have 4 trucks, 13 employees, an awesome office/warehouse on Lakewood blvd, and we plan to continue to grow our business with plans of a new location with a lot more services to offer.

October 13, 2022 Program NEW

Posted on Oct 11, 2022

Sadly, Steve Stegeman who was to be our speaker is sick. So Kathy DeVries will be launching

our Holland Rotary Charities fundraising initiative. She will be leading our club through the first steps of the fundraising campaign that will run through the end of February 2023. More information to follow!

Last Week at Rotary - October 6, 2022

Refugee Resettlement

Rotarian Kent Fry gave a quick update on the Afghan family that the Holland Rotary Clubs and Central Park Reformed Church sponsored. Our family arrived in January and our formal relationship just ended at the end of September. Three of five family members are working and they are self-sufficient. The sponsors spent about $10,000 for resettling the family. David Beattie said he calls his experience the resettlement adventure.

Kent introduced Katie Carpenter from Bethany Services. She is the social worker who worked with our resettlement team. Bethany works in the following areas.

Vulnerable Kids - This includes adoption and foster services.
Refugees and immigrants - Resettlement services.
Global Families - This is a relatively new area. Bethany works in 7 countries to try to keep children in their home countries rather than having international adoptions.

State of Refugees Worldwide

October 13, 2022 Program

Posted on Oct 07, 2022

Heart Safe Communities

Steve Stegeman, a retired paramedic with over 40 years of experience, will introduce Holland City's new Heart Safe Community initiative. This American Heart Association program includes citizen training in Sudden Cardiac Arrest, Choking, and Severe Bleeding. The presentation will include a demonstration of compression-only CPR and the use of an Automated External Defibrillator (AED).

Last Week at Rotary - September 29, 2022

Listening to Bird Songs: a story

Curtis Dykstra is the Parks Naturalist for Ottawa County. He grew up in Grand Rapids and travelled widely with his family. A particularly favorite place of his is South Manitou Island. He grew accustomed to listening to bird songs on the island.

October 6, 2022 Program

Posted on Oct 01, 2022

Refugee Resettlement

Kent Fry is a retired pastor and a member of the Holland Rotary After Hours Club (former member of our club). This year Holland Noon Rotary and the Rotary After Hours Club partnered with Central Park Reformed Church and settled an Afghan Refugee family. The family arrived in Holland in January of this year.

Bethany Social Services is one of the refugee resettlement agencies authorized by the US State Department. We will hear about the resettlement process.

Fall 2022 Highway Cleanup

Highway Cleanup Crew

Our leader Mike Moraw took this picture, so even though he is not pictured he was there.

Last Week at Rotary, September 22, 2022

Haiti National Clean Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (HANWASH)

Dr. Omar Keith Helferich, who works with HANWASH on sustainability, gave a quick overview of the current conditions in Haiti. The political unrest in Haiti is causing challenges, but HANWASH is committed to the goal of bringing clean water, sanitation, and hygiene to every person in Haiti. Dr. Helferich is helping to implement change theory in the program. One of the outcomes of utilizing this approach is that delivery will be performed as a pay-for-service.

Hope College Global Water Research Institute (GWRI)

GWRI has recently joined HANWASH as a partner. Dr. Helferich introduced Dr. Aaron Best and Dr. Brent Krueger from GWRI to talk about the institute's projects.

Last Week at Rotary, September 15, 2022

Holland State Park Safety Commission

Howard Fink, Park Township Manager, is on the Safety Commission and gave the presentation. The commission was formed about 2 years ago with the goal of reducing the number of drownings at the State Park to zero. Some of the changes that they have made already include the gate across the pier, life rings, water safety brochures at local hotels, and electric signs. The gate across the pier will prevent people from going out when there is danger. Howard noted that this design of pier is not intended for people to walk on. The life rings at the State Park automatically dial 911 when they are removed from their holders.

One of the major causes is rip currents and the inability of swimmers to correctly recover from being caught in one. The pier is under the control of the Army Corp of Engineers. The commission has convinced the Army Corp to do a major study on pier creation of rip tides. They have buried sensors by the pier to measure the water's behavior.

Last Week at Rotary, September 8, 2022

My House Ministry

Heather Rogers became My House Ministry's Executive Director after a marketing career. The Ministry provides residence and support for homeless women trying to move beyond abuse and addiction. Each woman is given a place to stay at one of the ministry's houses and assigned a Life Skills Coordinator who helps to customize resources. The women in the program are a wide variety of ages (average is around 40), some have children with them, some are situationally homeless while some are generationally homeless, but all of them are experiencing chaos.

The program is designed to help move women into being able to live on their own in 3 years. After 18 months in the program, My House's goal is to move the women to rental apartments. Initially, the rent is subsidized, but at the end of the transition, it will be at market price. The ministry can house 13 women, some with children, at their facilities. The journey is difficult. Leaving an abusive situation usually takes 7-10 times trying and recovering from addiction takes 3-5 years.

My House has 19 graduates of their program. There is an advisory group that includes graduates. The ministry works closely with other community organizations including Gateway Mission, Resilience, Good Samaritan Ministries, and 70x7 Recovery.

Solid Rock Ministries

Ben Rogers heads up Solid Rock Ministries, housed in the City on The Hill building. They provide volunteers to make repairs for homeowners who cannot afford the repairs. They also try to get acquainted with the families and support them. Some of the types of work they perform are ramps, roof patching, floor/ceiling/wall repairs, railings, and some plumbing. This year they have completed 70 projects.

September 15, 2022 Program

Posted on Sep 09, 2022

Lake Michigan

Howard Fink, Park Township Manager, will talk on the topic "New Acoustic Device in Lake Michigan". Come and find out what this is!

September 8, 2022 Program

Posted on Sep 02, 2022

My House Ministry & Solid Rock Ministries

Heather & Benjamin Rodgers will talk about these two ministries. Solid Rock Ministries provides affordable home repair services that empower individuals with hope and dignity. My House Ministries Provides safe housing and restorative programs for women breaking free from the chains of abuse, addiction, and chaos.

Last Week at Rotary, September 1, 2022

Windmill Island Gardens

Matt Helmus, manager of Windmill Island Gardens, told us of some exciting plans for the park. The city developed the park in the 1960s. The peak number of annual visitors was 100,000-120,000 people early on. Residents of the Holland area can visit the park for free. The park had been costing more than it brought in for years. Matt was hired seven years ago to manage the park. He has made many changes to reduce costs and bring in more visitors. Some of the challenges are the limited parking on the island and the long causeway.

The Island staff is looking at new attractions, mosaic sculptures, and winterizing the venue tent. Next week the Art Gala is happening. There are 48 garden plots for the community. Trees that died on the island because of high water levels were chainsaw carved into tulip sculptures.

Magic at the Mill

Last Week at Rotary, August 25, 2022

Western Theological Seminary

Rick Capotosto of Western Theological Seminary (WTS) talked about the changes in theological education and the involvement of WTS in the community. He started by referring to Alexis De Tocqueville's writing about the uniqueness of the United States. De Tocqueville notes that a major strength of this country is the ability to form institutions for good. WTS seeks to be an institution that forms whole persons, promotes deep thinking about theology, and prepares their graduates for service in congregations.

WTS has 382 students currently, both in-residence and distance learning. There are currently slots available for in-residence students. In Mat of 2022 WTS graduated 112 students from 16 countries and 18 states. Half were women and 35% were from RCA churches. WTS offers certificates, masters, and doctoral degrees in multiple areas.

Community Involvement

September 1, 2022 Program

Windmill Island Garden

Matt Helmus, the manager of Windmill Island Gardens will talk about "Magic at the Mill".

Last Week at Rotary, August 18, 2022

District 6290 Governor Paul Heroman

Our district governor is passionate about getting the Rotary story told. He said that you can history to life by telling a story. Sometimes we Rotarians lose track that we are 1.2 million people doing good. The goals for this Rotary year are

Increase our impact
Expand our reach
Enhance participant engagement
Increase our ability to adapt

August 25, 2022 Program

Western Theological Seminary

Rick Capotosto, the Associate Director of Development at Western Theological Seminary (WTS), will be our speaker. By the end of this decade, the most common student in theological education will be a racial or ethnic minority student from an evangelical-protestant tradition, equally likely to be male or female, equally likely to be enrolled in an MA program or an MDiv program, studying part-time as a commuter or distance learning student, attending a seminary that does not belong to the same denomination as their parents, or altogether non-denominational, not funded by a denomination, and not pursuing ministry in a denomination.

Rick will tell how WTS is responding to these changes.

Our 2022 Inbound Exchange Student Has Arrived

The welcoming crew on Saturday 13th of August for Liz from Brazil.

August 18, 2022 Program

District Governor Paul Heroman visits

Our current District Governor (DG) will be making the annual official visit with our club. DG Paul is from the Ada/Cascade club.

Before the meeting he will meet with the board of directors and the committee chairs to learn what we accomplished and what we have planned. DG Paul will introduce the district goals and comment on what he learned from meeting with our board.

Last week at Rotary August 11, 2022

Grand River Restoration

Steve Heacock, the President and CEO of the Grand Rapids Whitewater Project spoke about the plans for the Grand River through the City of Grand Rapids.

History of the Grand River

The indigenous people and the early European settlers talked about being able to navigate by listening for the rapids. Through what is now the City of Grand Rapids the river drops 18 feet. When the US Olympic committee built a training facility for Olympic white-water events, they created a drop of 21 feet. The Grand drops only 2 feet from its start near Jackson to Grand Rapids and only 4 feet from there to Lake Michigan.

Starting in the early 1800s the river was changed to suit human needs. First for the animal pelt trade, then for logging, and finally for industry. While industry was dumping waste into the Grand, citizens were getting their drinking water from the same location. A series of 6 dams were built to let the industrial waste settle to the bottom so drinking water could be taken from the top of the river.

Restoring what was lost

Book Sorting August 19th, 2022

A few weeks ago, a group of Rotarians moved 10,000 books from Eagle Crest School to a warehouse. Now it is time to sort those books in preparation for getting them into our bookhouses.

Friday August 19th at 3:00 PM is your opportunity to help sort. If you are able to help, meet at 500 East 8th Street (former Hart & Cooley building). John Gronberg has the following instructions:

Go to the eastern section of the parking lot and look for my Black Escalade. We will gather at that spot, and you can follow me to the section of the warehouse I have at the back of the building.

New 2022 Rotary Directory

New Directory Coming Soon

John and Catherine will have laptops available this week and next (Aug 11 and Aug 18) to update your photo and contact info in Clubrunner in preparation for a print directory, the first one in over 10 years!

You may also update all of your info yourself by logging into Clubrunner or email info & a photo to CatherineRB@yahoo.com for assistance.

Last Week at Rotary, August 4, 2022

Club Updates

This past weekend was the district Youth Exchange conference. It went very well according to our outbound students.

Resilience

Resilience identifies its mission to respond, reduce, and prevent sexual abuse. Beth Curley, Sexual Assault Program Coordinator, talked to us about the respond part. Beth is a forensic nurse and heads up the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) team. The team includes a full time Sexual Assault Survivor Advocate and 6 contracted nurses.

One in four women and one in six men will be/have been sexually abused. The Resilience SANE team works with 57 cases a year, mostly women. About 1/3 of the victims are 13-18 years old. In 80% of sexual assaults the perpetrator is known by the victim.

The Process of Working with the Victim

Last Week at Rotary, July 28, 2022

Club Updates

President Elizabeth continues to encourage every member to bring a guest every month.

Association for the Blind & Visually Impaired

Roberta Griffith founded the Association for the Blind & Visually Impaired (ABVI) in Grand Rapids in 1913. Roberta was blind and had many accomplishments, including working with Helen Keller to modernize the Braille writing system. In 2020 ABVI became a subsidiary of Mary Free Bed. Their services can be accessed by a referral from an eye doctor.

Vision impaired people's talents are underutilized. Only 10% of them with Master's degrees are employed.

According to polls people most fear losing their vision, even more than losing hearing, memory, or even a limb. There are approximately 142,000 people in Michigan with some form of vision impairment. There are numerous types of vision impairment and causes. About 65% of people who have a stroke will end up with some level of vision damage.

Services ABVI Provides

Rotary Book Pickup on July 8, 2022

Answering a last-minute call, Rotarians picked up lots of donated books and brought them to Herrick District Library for eventual restocking of our book houses.

Last Week at Rotary July 21, 2022

Club Updates

President Elizabeth encouraged every member to bring a guest every month.

Outdoor Discovery Center

What is now the Outdoor Discovery Center (ODC) began as Wildlife Unlimited. Director Travis Williams talked about the current operations of the ODC. About 55,000 students visit to take classes and over 50,000 people visit to tour the facilities to see things like the Live Birds of Prey exhibit. DeGraaf nature center is also operated by the ODC, even though it is a City of Holland facility. Forty percent of the electricity at the ODC is from solar. ODC has 75 employees. Their goals are the following.

Highway clean up--July 16, 2022

Thank you to our intrepid cleaner uppers from Holland Rotary and Grace Episcopal Church!

Last Week at Rotary July 14, 2022

Club Updates

President Elizabeth encouraged every member to bring a guest every month. Our highway cleanup is Saturday the 16th and we are encouraged to bring guests to help also.

Be Better Holland

Jill and Steve Miskelly are the parents of Ian who died by suicide when he was a student at the University of Michigan. They started the Be Better organization to try and close some of the gaps they found in our mental health system.

Ian was a swimmer growing up and at UM. Even though he struggled with mental health, he was always there to help people "Be Better". His uncle pointed this out in the eulogy at his funeral and it became the organization's name.

Some of the lessons that the Miskellys found out through their journey are

Assistance needs to be customized to the person to be helpful
It is challenging to find answers on your own.
Mental health care is fragmented and there is no follow-through between providers.
There can be major delays in trying to get help.
Parents, family, friends, doctors, and schools all need to be involved.

A recent US Surgeon General's report on youth mental health has pointed out many of the same problems.

Jill and Steve have founded the "Ian Miskelly Be Better Health Clinic" to try and fill these gaps. They registered a non-profit in December 2021 and are working to raise money and make connections with local organizations.

In Chicago, there is a coffee shop called Sip of Hope where all of the employees are trained in mental health intervention and care. There is also space to have meetings and counseling. This is the eventual goal of Be Better Holland.

The major goal of Be Better is to provide follow-through and rapid answers to people seeking care. They are helping care seekers make connections and ensure that there is a continuity of care. They are currently seeking people to volunteer to be care coordinators.

In closing, we were encouraged to "Hold Someone Up".

Holland Rotary 2022 Foundation Giving

Holland Rotary Club's Foundation giving for the 2021-2022 year was

Total Contributions for 2021-2022 $22,317
Annual Fund Giving per Capita $274 (district $123)
Annual Fund Contributions $18,625

Rebecca Lamper, Chair of the Foundation committee, sends her sincere thanks to all who have donated.

Last Week at Rotary, July 7, 2022

Club Updates

The members of the Lakeshore United Rotaract club will be skydiving for the fundraiser this Sunday morning at 9 AM. This jump was delayed because of rain and will take place at the Grand Haven airport.

Lou Hallacy's son sent the club a copy of the book telling the history of our club from 1920-1959. He was sorting through his Dad's things and wanted to make sure we had a copy for our archives.

Pine Ridge Indian Reservation Water Project

Charles Elwood told us the story of how we became connected with the water project at Pine Ridge. First, he showed us a video that Olympian Billy Mills made for the Rotarians involved.

Billy won a gold medal for the 10K run at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. He was taught by Oglala Lakota elders that it was important to give back. He created a foundation called "Running Strong" to help indigenous people. When he went to Pine Ridge and asked the elders what would be their first priority need, they said water. The groundwater is contaminated with uranium and arsenic and it shortens the life expectancy by 15 years. He concluded the video by saying "Rotarians what you are doing is sacred".

How did we get involved?

Last Week at Rotary June 2, 2022

Club Updates

The golf outing is tomorrow and there is one slot open.

We have 3 students attending the Life Leadership Conference. They need a ride home from Ferris State University at 1 PM on Saturday 18 June. If anyone is able to help, please get in touch with Carol Swart.

There was a sign-up sheet for helping at the Jump!4Polio greeting the skydivers. There are 3-hour shifts from 9 AM until 9 PM. Talk to Ed Swart.

Incoming President Elizabeth Scott will be hosting a pot-luck and Rotary visioning time at her house on Tuesday 14 June.

Nick Cassidy, Holland Public School Superintendent

Nick traced the K-12 grade environment from 1994 when Michigan changed the funding model. 1995 was when charter schools started in Michigan. Holland Public Schools (HPS) has gone from an enrollment of 5,000 students in 14 buildings in 2000 to 8 buildings with slightly under 3,000 students currently. The pandemic and the changes in instruction that it caused led to a decline in academic and social development.

Last Week at Rotary May 26, 2022

Club Updates

Next week Ed Swart will have a signup sheet for greeting the Jump!4Polio parachuters as they land.

Gary Bogle reported that we need 2 more bookhouse monitors to keep our bookhouses stocked with books.

The son and 2 of the daughters of our refugee family are now employed.

Rotary Show and Tell

Ed Swart talked about being in the trials for the Salk Polio vaccine when he was in elementary school.

Catherine Ristola Bass showed a painted rock from Ontanogan that was a surprise gift for her mother from a co-worker.

John Helm showed a vaccination syringe that he used in the State Dept. He also had a Soviet Navy hat that he bought from a sailor who was abandoned when the USSR collapsed and he was selling belongings to get enough money to travel home.

John Hoekstra showed his shirt from India (above) signed by Mother Teresa.

Ken Austin showed a wooden gavel made by his father and related how he saw some furniture repaired by his father in Vienna.

Gary Bogle showed a picture of his head after he lost a bet on the World Cup. His hair was shaved so he looked like a soccer ball.

George Higginson brought a Minuteman statue that he was given after his retirement from heading up the National Guard. He spent 3 years in charge of the whole country.

Marving Younger told how at 4.5 years old he took his 3-year-old cousin on a bus to downtown Philadelphia for a whole day. He also showed some cigars he acquired on his recent stay in the Dominican Republic.

Ken Vos told about his enjoyment working at Windmill Island in his retirement. He likes to tell visitors about Mrs. Van Raalte who had money to buy all the land.

Larry Schuyler showed a gun powder holder that his Grandfather used in the US Civil War.

Last Week at Rotary May 19, 2022

Club Updates

David Steenwyk and Charlie Soria are planning a Rotary Golf outing for June 3rd at Clearbrook Country Club. There are still 5 open slots for Rotarians. After May 28th the slots will be open to non-Rotarians.

Rotary Dinner and Auction

We had a wonderful evening with our Rotary family. Some experiences were auctioned off. The winners have boat rides, dinners, and other activities to look forward to.

Holland Rotary Book Houses

The Rotary Clubs of Holland and the Herrick District library partner to provide 16 Blue and Yellow Book Houses in the Greater Holland area.

Gary Bogle
Rotary Club of Holland, MI

Last Week at Rotary May 12, 2022

Tulip Time Parades

Last Week at Rotary May 5, 2022

Club Updates

We will not be meeting for lunch for the next 2 weeks. On the 12th we will be marching in the Tulip Time parade as grand Marshalls. Meet on Columbia Ave between 8th and 10th streets around noon to get lined up for the parade.

On the 17th we will be having a dinner that will take the place of our Thursday lunch meeting. You will be getting an invitation in the mail. Carol Swart is looking for people to volunteer experiences to be raffled off.

David Steenwyk and Charlie Soria are planning a Rotary Golf outing for June 3rd at Clearbrook Country Club.

Signup for Tulip Time Grandstand Greeters is still open. If you're not marching in the parade Thursday with the area Rotarians, you can be in the stands having fun with the visitors.

Steve VanderVeen, Local Business Historian

Steve has taught business at the college level for 32 years and will be retiring this year from Hope College. He has always been interested in the history of businesses and the entrepreneurs in the area.

Over the years Steve has written two continuing columns for the Holland Sentinel. The first was about currently operating local businesses. The one that he is still writing traces the history since Van Raalte.

Before Van Raalte arrived, there were two areas where indigenous people lived in the area. One group was along Macatawa Lake and the other was near the Old Wing Mission. The federal government gave Chief Waukazoo a choice of being relocated to the west or to settle down and farm land that would be given to them. The Chief choose farming.

Steve uses the large body of historical information that Bob Swierenga has collected about the Holland area. Steve's Great Grandfather traveled from the Netherlands to New York City intending to continue on to Michigan. However, the size and activity of the city made him get back on the same ship and sail directly back to the Netherlands. His family did make it to Holland and joined a group headed by Marten Ypma.

Engbertus VanderVeen (no relation to Steve) ran a hardware store on the corner of River Ave and Eighth St. He was commissioned to build the Rooster for the top of Pillar church. He tried many materials to get the rooster mounted so it could pivot in the wind. He finally found that a wine bottle worked the best. Ironically Pillar church was becoming active in the temperance movement at the time.

James Huntley was a master builder from England who built many houses and factories around Holland. Reindert Werkman arrived in Holland when he was 12 years old. His father died soon after they arrived. Reindert was active in many lumber related businesses. He went bankrupt multiple times, travelled widely, and ended his career as a real estate agent in the western US.

Chester van Tongeren founded the Wooden Shoe Factory on the corner of River and Sixth St. He later purchased the tract of land from 16th to 24th streets by Waverly and moved the factory there. The Wooden Shoe Factory no longer exists, but his descendant Dave Geer runs the Holland Bowl Mill and even has some of the original tools.

Last Week at Rotary April 28, 2022

Club Updates

Don't forget that in 2 weeks we have no meeting because we will be marching in the Tulip Time parade as grand marshalls.

Signup for Tulip Time Grandstand Greeters is still open. If you're not marching in the parade Thursday with the area Rotarians, you can be in the stands having fun with the visitors.

And speaking of marching in the parade, did you know that your family is welcome as well? Robert Ortman is looking for a few more people to portray Wizard of OZ characters on the float. We need a tin man, scarecrow, and cowardly lion.

Annual West Ottawa Challenged Student's Luncheon

Every year we meet with the students and their teachers and aides. Students are brought in from every school in the West Ottawa Public School District.

About 25 Rotarians attended lunch at WOPS Lakewood School on April 28 with the Challenged Students from that district. Lakewood is the learning center for all elementary age special needs learners and the middle and high school kids were bussed in. We were greeted by Principal Ghareeb and Special Education Director Tanya Uganski and Rotarians, students, and staff had a nice gathering time of getting to know each other. We had a delicious lunch prepared by Chef Noelle and her team and the students sang a lovely song called Working Together. Also present were the Lakewood Links, 4th and 5th grade students that volunteer as learning partners with the Challenged students. Many students and staff wore red tee shirts for Autism Awareness.

Catherine Ristola Bass presented a check for $1,000 from the Club to the school to help defray the cost of snacks and cleaning items needed for this population of students and additional cash and other gifts were collected. Jim White, our returned snowbird, was presented with his two checks for having won 3rd and 6th place from the District Foundation raffle and he promptly offered one of those up as an additional gift to the program. It was a wonderful meeting, many thanks to Robert Ortman for shepherding this project every year.

Tulip Time 2022 Parade Fundraiser

Last Week at Rotary Apr 21, 2022

Club Updates

Don't forget about the challenged student luncheon at West Ottawa on April 28th (Next Meeting). We would like to have at least 30 Rotarians attending.

♣ Only 2 weeks ago John Helm drew the Ace of Clubs from a greatly diminished deck of cards. This week our Junior Rotarian from Holland Christian Grace Lappenga drew the Ace of Clubs from an almost complete deck of cards. Treasurer Bev needs to write another check and Sergeant-At-Arms David needs to buy another deck!

Signup for Tulip Time Grandstand Greeters is still open. If you're not marching in the parade Thursday with the area Rotarians, you can be in the stands having fun with the visitors.

April 23rd is our highway cleanup day. Let Mike Moraw know you'll be there to help.

The club is planning a social dinner event for members and spouses at the MBYC on May 17th. More details to follow.

Kate Boeve, Highland Games Competitor

Kate became a Highland Games competitor when she attended the Kalamazoo Scottish Festival in 1997 to watch. They had no women competitors and asked if she and her sister would like to compete. They did compete and both are still competing. Kate is currently ranked 2nd internationally in her age group. She shared this picture of the last 2 world championship competitors.

Last Week at Rotary Apr 14, 2022

Club Updates

Don't forget about the challenged student luncheon at West Ottawa on April 28th. We would like to have at least 30 Rotarians attending.

Signup for Tulip Time Grandstand Greeters is still open. If you're not marching in the parade Thursday with the area Rotarians, you can be in the stands having fun with the visitors.

And speaking of marching in the parade, did you know that your family is welcome as well?

Ed Swart was presented with a check for his winnings from the District Foundation Raffle. Jim White also was a winner and he will get his check when he returns to Holland.

The community service team is looking for drivers to take our Afghan refugee family to Dutch Village on community day. This is April 23rd. You can probably pick up the trash on the highway that morning and make it over to Dutch Village.

April 23rd is our highway cleanup day. Let Mike Moraw know you'll be there to help.

Gary Bogle reported that the little library group could use one more bookhouse monitor because we have installed another library.

Ottawa County Crisis Intervention Team

The Ottawa Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) was started in September 2021 and is unique on this side of the state. Ottawa county has two co-response teams. A co-response team consists of a law enforcement officer and a mental health clinician who respond to calls together. Holland Public Safety has a team and the Sheriff has a team. It is unique for an area to have co-response teams.

Rotary Refugee Resettlement April 2022

Holland Noon Rotary and the Rotary After Hours Club are partnered with Central Park Reformed Church for the purpose of settling an Afghan Refugee family. The family arrived at Ford Airport in Grand Rapids on January 26; therefore, we are moving into our third month of refugee resettlement. The family is comprised of a Dad and Mom, two sisters in their thirties, and a son in his late teens. The son speaks fairly good English, so we have not made use of a translator.

Tulip Time Kinderparade Grand Marshalls

Rotary t-shirt sales for Tulip Time Kinderparade GRAND MARSHALLS~~please march with us!

$10 each, please pay at the time of ordering. Orders are due by FRIDAY, APRIL 15. Unisex sizes: S-M-L-XL, 2X is $12.50

Checks to Catherine Ristola Bass, cash, or

Venmo: @Catherine-RistolaBass

Last Week at Rotary Apr 7, 2022

Club Updates

There is a special t-shirt design for all of the Rotarians/Rotaractors/Interactors marching in the Kinderparade as Grand Marshalls. An order sheet was passed around at the meeting. Orders will need to be placed by April 15th. Contact Catherine to order a T-shirt if you won't be at next week's meeting.

Robert Ortman reminded us again that the challenged student luncheon at West Ottawa is coming up on April 28th. We would like to have at least 30 Rotarians attending.

John Gronberg announced that our Rotary District 6290 has committed $10,000 to the HANWASH organization.

Rudy Vedovell was at the meeting for the first time since recovering from his heart attack. He spoke at the end of the meeting and mentioned that he joined the club in 1942. He thanked the club for making him an Honorary Member.

We Have a Winner!🎉

John Helm drew the Ace of Clubs in the weekly raffle. Congratulations and Treasurer Bev will need to write that check now!

Holland Tulip Time Updates

Kim Vandermolen from Tulip Time gave us an update on what is going on with this year's festival. There are two new exhibits from the Netherlands.

Zeeland Girl is a photography and dress exhibit by Rem van den Bosch. It will be at the Holland Armory.
Tulip Immersion Garden is a horticulture display that traces the history of the tulip from Turkey all the way to Holland MI. It will be designed by Ibo Gülsen at the Ottawa County Fairgrounds using 50,000 flowers.

The Artisan Market and the Quilt show will be at Beechwood Church this year. This will allow 50 more vendors at the market than could be handled at Centennial Park. There will be food trucks, Dutch Dancing, and lots more parking at the Beechwood location.

The Tulip Time organization has shrunk from 15 employees before the Pandemic to 4 employees currently. This has necessitated some changes in the scope of the festival and an increased need for volunteers. There are 940 volunteers needed and about 70% of those positions are filled. Tulip Time starts exactly one month from the day of the meeting!

Our Rotary Club has historically helped by providing Grandstand Greeters during the parades. There will only be 2 parades this year. The Volksparade will incorporate the bands and will take place on Saturday. The grandstands will only be on Eighth Street in the Market area this year. There will be 8 sections and a new, expanded seating area that will allow much more wheelchair seating than before. Grandstand Greeters are responsible for an area of the grandstands and will sell any remaining tickets, help visitors find their seats, and entertain visitors with trivia and other group fun.

There is a special online signup for Rotarians at http://rotary.tuliptime.volunteerhub.com. For volunteering, you will get a special t-shirt and a limited edition pin. And, of course, you might just have a lot of fun. To see what other volunteer opportunities are available, visit http://tuliptime.com/volunteers

Last Week at Rotary Mar 31, 2022

Club Updates

Robert Ortman is looking for people to portray Wizard of Oz characters on our Rotary Float for Tulip Time. Contact him if you are interested. We are also hoping that many Rotarians will be walking in the Children's Parade where we are the Grand Marshals. The float and Rotarians will be at the head of that Parade. And in other Tulip Time news, Tom and Heather Gough are still looking for Grandstand Greeters.

District 6290 Life Leadership Conference

John Noling from the Muskegon Rotary Club and the District chair for the conference told us about this annual event. This leadership program for high school students started in 1949. It brings students from throughout the district along with inbound and outbound exchange students. It is probably the longest-running youth leadership program in Rotary. Worldwide Rotary now has RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Awards) which was founded in 1971. Our district conference is affiliated with RYLA.

The program started in Muskegon when the superintendent of schools and the city recreation director started talking about leadership for high school boys. They were both Rotarians and the Muskegon club had property on Big Blue Lake that could be used. Since 1949 there have been 6900 high schoolers who have been through the program. Girls were invited to the program for the first time in 1989 and now the program better reflects the cultural diversity of our region. There are a number of top-notch speakers, exercises, and time to meet other students. The students are divided into family groups with an adult leader that lets them debrief on what they have learned. Visitors are welcome at the conference. The new home is Ferris State University. Contact Carol Swart, our club representative, if you would like to attend.

The Staff and Board of the Life Leadership Conference consists of graduates of the program, Rotarians, Rotoractors, and Interactors.

Last Week at Rotary Mar 24, 2022

Club Updates

We need drivers for our Afghan refugee family. As per custom, they must be gender specific because it is not appropriate for men to drive women or women to drive men.

Russ Miller reminded us of the Jump for Polio coming up on June 25th at the Grand Haven airport. This is both a fundraiser for the Polio Plus program and an attempt to break the Guiness record for the most people skydiving out of a single plane. Rebecca Lamper and Ken Vos are jumping for our club. The District Governor is hoping to have 100 jumpers and has about 50 currently. Rebecca reminded us that she and Ken are soliciting donations for the event.

We are anticipating the arrival of our inbound exchange students at the end of summer. We only have housing for one of the students. If we cannot find housing, we will have to send a student to another club and pay for their expenses. Please ask around if any of your contacts know of a family who could host a student.

Our luncheon at West Ottawa with the challenged student is set for April 28th. West Ottawa goes to great lengths to set up this annual event and Robert Ortman asked if we could all make sure to attend. Donation requests for the classrooms will be available soon.

Our next highway cleanup will be April 23rd with a rain date of the next week. Meet at 8am at Veldheer’s Tulip Farm---Mike Moraw to provide bags, vests, and extra gloves for those who don’t bring gloves.

Russ Miller collected enough cash at the meeting to buy a new computer for the club. Thanks, Russ!

Rotary HANWASH

Dr Omar Keith Helferich and John Gronberg were our speakers. Dr Helferich received an environmental engineering degree before most people knew what that meant. He spent time in the military supply chain and then taught at 5 universities. He was originally an advisor to the HANWASH organization and decided to join the organization to help with the education component.

Haiti National Clean Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (HANWASH) was created to provide every resident of Haiti with clean water. HANWASH is not a project, but a program designed to be a locally owned, sustainable development. In Haiti many projects have failed because they do not have a continuing program emphasis. A project delivers something and may not have support for the long term.

Access to water in Haiti is expected as a gift. Rotary aims to change this mindset by requiring payment. Each water project will be owned by a Haitian entrepreneur. Because local support is essential, a segment of the program is to recruit and train Haitian engineers. Local Rotary Clubs will be in charge of each project and will make sure resources are only spent on what is in the plan.

There are 7 communities that will be part of the current pilot project. They were chosen because they are a mix of urban and rural. It is hoped that these 7 areas will allow addressing any problem that will be encountered in the rest of the country. Partner organizations include Haitian government agencies, NGOs with experience in Haiti, and Haitian charitable organizations. Haiti has 45 communes (similar to our townships) and each will be tackled eventually.

Our district 6290 will be responsible for Terre Nueve. While the initial assessments were being performed, the citizens were asked how much time they spent getting water. The answer was 3 hours per day per person. There are numerous water sources, but only 15% are potable. There are about 200 homes with an average of 2.5 persons per home. The homes are widely dispersed so the current plan is to build centrally located water kiosks. Part of the reason for the low amount of potable water is that there are no sewer facilities. The waste problem will be tackled also.

The program approaches being developed are intended to be scalable and aplicable to anywhere in the world. This is the way that methods were developed for Polio Plus and it is hoped that providing clean water for everyone on the planet will be the next goal after Polio is eliminated.

Last Week at Rotary Mar 17, 2022

Club Updates

Unfortunately, our planned speaker was ill and unable to come. So, we heard updates on what is going on with club projects.

Ken Austin reported he represented Rotary at the 102nd year anniversary celebration of the American Legion Band. The band has many special activities scheduled this year and we are welcome to attend all of them. http://www.hollandlegionband.org/2022-concert-schedule.html

Carol Swart reported that the move of our refugee family into permanent housing went well. The dwelling is fully furnished. The only request is for 2 twin bed size comforters either new or in good condition.

Rotarian Response to Ukraine

Rotarians Respond to Ukrainian Crisis

More than half of the 2.5 million refugees fleeing Ukraine have arrived in Poland where Rotary members are organizing shelter, transportation, and basic necessities for the incoming refugees.

Rotary Club of Olsztyn is collecting and managing donations for refugees, primarily unaccompanied children, staying at Ostróda Camp. Within a few hours, four cars full of donated items were collected— including food, clothes, bedding, personal hygiene products, as well as some toys.

The Rotary Foundation has received thousands of donations, totaling over $1.1 million. These donations support efforts like that of the Rotary Club of Olsztyn as well as provide medical supplies in Ukraine and support refugees who have fled to neighboring countries. #RotaryResponds

Donate to Rotary's Disaster Response Fund to support refugees and victims of the Ukraine crisis here: https://lnkd.in/eQTexMPG. Or you can donate to (Rotary General Secretary) John Hewko's personal fundraiser https://raise.rotary.org/Ukraine-Refugee-Crisis/fundraiser

Last Week at Rotary Mar 10, 2022

Club Updates

We are anticipating the arrival of our inbound exchange students at the end of summer. If you know of anyone who is interested in hosting an exchange student, please let our Rotary Youth Exchange committee numbers know.

Our Afghan refugee family will be moving to their new house on Saturday. Call Carol Swart if you can help.

MSU Bioeconomy Institute (MSU BI)

Dr. Tom Guarr was with us to talk about MSU BI. When Pfizer shut down their Holland manufacturing plant, they donated the portion that was a pilot plant to MSU in 2007. In 2009 the university created MSU BI. Their mission is to provide manufacturing capabilities, incubator space for startups, and research. In 2016 a location in East Lansing was added to the MSU BI organization. The Holland location concentrates on specialty chemicals while the East Lansing location specializes in fermentation.

MSU BI has run more than 600 commercialization scale-ups for companies. The facility has a wide range of reactors, dryers, and other equipment. All environmental permits are kept and there is a fill-time safety officer.

MSU BI runs an internship program to allow college students to learn about working in research, to tour local industries, and to learn about business operations such as patents. They have had about 70 interns from 20 different schools. The interns go on to graduate school or into industry after completing their internships.

The research is concentrated on "green" technologies. In the last few years there has been a dramatic decrease in the cost of solar and wind generation. These technologies are now the least expensive ways to generate electricity. The challenge is to develop methods to store the energy until it is needed. Worldwide about a billion people have no reliable access to electric power. Energy can be stored by mechanical, thermal, chemical, or electrical methods.

MSU BI has concentrated on flow battery technology. In this type of battery, the chemical fuel moves through the cell to maintain the storage capability. Flow batteries can be scaled up to very large sizes for municipal use. The technology being pursued uses biological elements to replace the usual toxic and rare components. MSU BI has created a commercial venture called Jolt Energy to market the batteries.

Big Rotary Party! St Patrick's Day

St Patrick's Day Party

Join us for the first event where all the Holland, Zeeland, Allendale Grand Haven, Rotary, Rotaract and Interact Clubs come together to celebrate St Patrick’s Day. Hosted by the Lakeshore United Rotaract Club.

We start the event off with 30 minutes from the West Ottawa Jazz 1 Band – “One of the best kept secrets of the Holland/Zeeland area”. Members of this top Jazz band at West Ottawa are consistently accepted to U of M, Mi State, Western, Central Michigan and Interlochen band programs.

Then we finish with an hour of meeting and mingling with the coolest people doing wonderful things in our world!

Please be sure to register as a guest at the following link so that we can prepare to have enough food and drink for everybody!

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Afghan Family Requests

We have secured permanent housing for our Afghan family. A list of needed items for their living areas was mailed out earlier.

If you have items on the list that you wish to donate, please take a picture and send it to Carol Swart. Items do not need to be brand new but should be in good condition. Someone will contact you about donating the item.

Carol's email is carol.lynn.swart@gmail.com.

Last Week at Rotary Mar 3, 2022

Club Updates

20th Circuit Court

Our speaker was Holland Rotarian John Van Allsberg, 20th Circuit Court Chief Judge. John gave us a brief civics refresher course on the makeup of the US justice system. There are 3 levels of courts in both federal and state systems: Supreme court, Appeals Courts, and Trial Courts. In the state of Michigan the District Courts are the appeals courts and the Circuit Courts are the trial courts. However, District Courts handle civil cases and misdemeanors while felony cases start in the Circuit Courts but go to trial in the District courts.

Circuit Courts handle family and business cases with family being the largest division. Family courts handle domestic relations, child welfare, adoptions, juvenile trials, criminal and civil Personal Protection Orders (PPO), recovery of assets, and research.

The state of Michigan conducts periodic reviews of court operations. In the last review they determined that Ottawa County needed an additional Circuit Judge. A judge for this position will be elected in the November election.

From 2003-2021 there has been a downwards trend in the number of criminal and civil cases in Ottawa County. In the same period there was a large decline in juvenile cases. John attributes this to a large use of alternative resolutions other than court settlements. The courts work with non-profits in Ottawa County that offer mediation, counseling, substance abuse and other services. The remaining juvenile cases are extremely difficult situations.

The pandemic was an extremely challenging time for the Ottawa County Justice system. Trials continued during the pandemic; however jury trials were paused multiple times. The state of Michigan negotiated a contract with Zoom just before the pandemic started because they were exploring the use of on-line methods. When the pandemic hit every Judge in the state already had a license for the Zoom videoconferencing software.

There are positives and negatives to on-line hearings and trials. Having on-line capability has significantly increased attendance at court proceedings. Judges learned to look carefully at the background of the video to make sure that the person attending was not in a car driving down the road! Another challenge was to make sure that people who would ordinarily not be allowed in the courtroom were not able to hear the proceedings. A study found that on-line hearings take about 1/3 longer than in person hearings. A particular challenge is to display exhibits so they can be seen on every device that the participants might use. An advantage for attorneys is that they can attend hearings for clients in multiple courts without having to travel. A short video hearing does save time over an in-person hearing.

Ottawa County courts have been working hard to provide efficiency and access to justice for the citizens. Courts in Michigan are ranked on a number of factors by the state and Ottawa County has been at the top of the list. Last year there were 1700 cases in the trial courts and 56 actual trials. The courts collected about a half million dollars in restitution for crime victims. The Friend of the Court system is rated by the federal government and receives high ratings. 80% of child support due is collected in the month it is due. Ottawa County also has On-line Dispute Resolution software to help resolve disputes and connect with mediators when needed. Ottawa County has the only accredited juvenile center in the state of Michigan. The center offers many services, including schooling for those juveniles who are not welcome at any other school.

Last Week at Rotary Feb 24, 2022

Club Updates

Our Afghan refugee family visited the club today. We can use volunteers to help with transportation as they have many appointments. More permanent housing is coming soon and we will need help furnishing this space.

Penny Schuff, Development and Communications Director at Mediation Services talked about mediation as a technique to promote peace. Mediation Services in Holland is a 30-year-old non-profit organization and is one of 17 centers around Michigan. The Holland center serves Ottawa, Allegan, and Barry counties. The centers work with oversight from the court systems.

The purpose of mediation is to bring people together in a safe space to deal with their conflicts. There are 2 trained mediators that work with them, but the resolution is made by the parties themselves. This leads to more lasting resolutions and saves money as the alternative can be a resolution by the courts. About 70% of the time there is a complete agreement in a mediated case.

There are many different are at which the center provides services. Restorative Circles are being used in school and juvenile court settings. More behavioral health services are starting to be offered. Another service is mediating with older adults and their care givers concerning care issues.

The center currently has 58 trained volunteer mediators. They are always happy to have more. There is a 40-hour training to become a mediator.

Rotary Youth Exchange 2022

All D6290 RYE Outbounds along with DG Gary Chenoweth and RYE District committee members Megan Wigmore (chair), Catherine Ristola Bass, Lindsay Dickinson, and Kristin Salathiel.

Holland Outbounds Brisa (Taiwan) and Kierian (India) at the Rotary Youth Exchange conference this past weekend in Traverse City.

Last Week at Rotary Feb 17, 2022

Club Updates

We continue to look for housing for the Afghan refugee family being sponsored by our club, Holland After Hours Rotary Club, and Central Park Reformed Church.

Holland Rotary Website

Our club website has a wealth of information available for members and the general public. The information can be divided into the following areas.

Reference Information

The top menu contains links to stories, minutes, reports, bylaws, and our constitution.

On the right column are the old eBulletins for reference.

Upcoming Events

The calendar link in the top menu will take you to the full menu of club activities. You can link this into your own calendar, if you want.

A list of the upcoming speakers is listed in the right column of the web page.

Upcoming Meeting Information

The center column of the webpage contains information on the most recent previous meeting and the upcoming meeting. The names of the people who signed up for greeting and announcing visitors are listed in the left column.

New Member Recruiting

At the top of the left column is an "Interested in Holland Rotary?" box that contains links to items of interest to potential members. There are other items, such as the "Holland Rotary Snapshot" on the top menu.

Local and International Rotary Connections

On the left side are two boxes, "Rotary International Links" and "Nearby Rotary Clubs" point to information on the international website, such as the foundation, and to nearby Rotary Clubs that you may wish to visit.

These two links on the left side of the webpage will take you to the search page for any Rotary Club worldwide and our district website.

Communications

On the left side of the website is a list of club officers, directors, committee chairs, and others. If you click on their name, you can send a brief message. This is an easy way to ask a question.

In the upper right corner, there is a "Member Login" that will take you to a login page. After you enter your name and password, the link will change to "Member Area". Clicking on this will take you to another page where you can click "Membership" and then "Members List" to get to all the details on our club members.

Last Week at Rotary Feb 10, 2022

Club Updates

We are looking for volunteers to coordinate bleacher seating for the Tulip Time Parades and to help with running our Leaders for the 21st Century program. Contact Ed Swart if you are interested.

Russ Miller reported that we have a good number of students who have submitted their application to the Hope College Rotaract Club. We also have some Alumni who live in the area and will be active in the leadership. Way to go Russ!

We continue to look for housing for the Afghan refugee family being sponsored by our club, Holland After Hours Rotary Club, and Central Park Reformed Church.

Kathy DeVries was elected President Elect Nominee and is expected to server as our president for the 2023-24 Rotary Year. Thanks, Kathy, for your willingness to serve.

Ottawa County Department of Strategic Impact

Paul Sachs, Ottawa County Director of Strategic Impact, was our speaker. He described the county "Gateways for Growth" (G4G) program. The department works on planning programs that will ensure the quality of life and economic development in Ottawa County.

Ottawa County was incorporated in 1837 and has been the fastest growing county in the state for a number of years. The population increase between 2010 and 2020 was 12.3% or 32,339 new citizens. Our county population is currently just under 300,000. About 1% of that increase was due to immigration. About 5% of residents in Ottawa County are foreign born.

The G4G program looks for ways to foster inclusiveness in the county and receives funding from 2 non-profit groups, New American Economy and Welcoming America. The benefits of welcoming immigrants are great since 1 in 5 entrepreneurs are foreign born and in 2019 there were 700 new or preserved jobs due to immigrants. Nationally 44% of the Fortune 500 companies were started by immigrants.

The initial focus of the county was to collect detailed statistics that could be used to identify and develop needed assistance. The data pointed to the following areas of focus: healthcare, transportation, manufacturing, construction and IT. The data has been supplemented by personal stories from county residents. This research is now available to the county for developing strategies.

Last Week at Rotary Feb 3, 2022

Housing Next

Ryan Kilpatrick updated us on the work of the Housing Next organization. They are a 4-year-old organization that is part of the United Way. Housing Next works with municipalities, developers and other organizations to facilitate the development of needed housing in Ottawa County.

Because of the price of construction most houses currently being built address the high end of the market. In order to lower housing prices there needs to be either an oversupply of homes or subsidized housing.

Housing next is currently involved in 3 developments in Holland. Hom Flats in Holland Township and Lakewood Flats in Holland are targeted for families with incomes between 40% and 80% of mean income. Currently this is $25,000 - $65,000 annual income. Hom Flats on Waverly is targeted for 40% - 100% of mean income. These developments are funded using Low Income Housing Tax Credit. Housing Next is also involved in the Habitat for Humanity/Jubilee Ministries development that we heard about 2 weeks ago.

They have also developed housing in Grand Haven that can be replicated. This development has family homes with a selling price of $140,000.

With the large increase in jobs in the Holland area housing is still behind. Rental housing has increased so that it is almost keeping up with demand. However, new housing is lagging way behind what is needed.

Ryan showed statistics comparing homogeneous developments with mixed housing developments. Mixed developments have more housing units per area, a higher taxable value, more students, and a lower price.

As part of the LG Chem expansion there will be $10 million for long-term low-interest housing loans.

Last Week at Rotary - Jan 27, 2022

Outbound Exchange Students

Brisa Sanchez Valdez and Kierian Overbeek are our outbound exchange students for the next school year. They are both students at Holland High School. They (and we) learned from clues about the country where they will be spending their year. Brisa will be in Taiwan and Kierian will be in India.

Last Week at Rotary - Jan 20, 2022

Our speakers were Andy Bass and Gary Morris. Their families both power their houses using solar panels.

Andy gave an overview of renewable power sources. Renewable resources are currently limited as to the amount of energy generation. Some sources such as water and biomass have tradeoffs. Converting a house to solar use is the equivalent of planting 150 trees based on carbon reduction. Home solar systems are sized to provide 85% of the electricity needs.

Michigan is in 36th place in solar power generation of all of the states. Significant jobs are created by solar power as well as electricity.

Gary talked about the economic side of home solar energy. The cost per kW for a house is more than a commercial building because of economies of scale. The Morris home solar installation cost was about $19,000. This cost is offset by federal tax credits for installation and by energy offsets. Gary projected his payback to be 12-13 years with the policies in effect at the time. His solar system has a projected 20 year lifetime. Payback calculations are changing based on carbon fuel price uncertainty, decreasing federal tax credits, and changes in how utilities calculate credits for electricity generated for the grid.

special announcement: Marvin Younger wins award!

Join the City and Holland Public Schools online for a Community Celebration of the life and work of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday, January 17 at 12 pm.
Join the livestream at youtu.be/RFz1pAb9_Wo

Speaker Joseph Jones

Speeches from HPS students

first ever MLK Community Service Award presented to Marvin Younger!

Marvin Younger

2022 MLK Service Award

For your work removing barriers towards the advancement of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in the Holland area.

Last Week at Rotary - Jan 13, 2022

Our speaker was Don Wilkinson, the Executive Director of Lakeshore Habitat for Humanity. Lakeshore Habitat is the Holland-based chapter of the international organization. Our chapter is in the top 5-8 chapters in the state of Michigan for home production.

In the time that the Lakeshore chapter has been working in our community, they have built homes for 659 people (adults and children). This was made possible by 375,000 hours in volunteer time. The families living in Habitat homes have paid over $300,000 in taxes and more than 20 have completely paid off their mortgages.

According to research, a family living in a home that they own leads to more family stability, neighborhood connectedness, better education for the family, and more community interactions.

Lakeshore Habitat is switching its model from building homes on single lots to working on multi-residence developments. The current housing development is Vista Green off of 40th Street. This is a partnership with Jubilee Ministries. Habitat has the first 5 houses completed or under construction. They will eventually build 18 houses and Jubilee will contribute 23 modular homes to the development. The homes are centered around a common area for community gatherings. The development is expected to be completed in 3 years.

The first family to move in was the Rodriguez Matos family who are refugees from Cuba. Members of our Rotary Club helped with this build.

Last Week at Rotary - Jan 6, 2022

Our speaker was Kristin Armstrong from the Saugatuck Center for the Arts (SC4A). She is also a member of the Saugatuck-Douglas Rotary Club. The SC4A is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Their programs are run out of a remodeled industrial building, which they further modified during the pandemic to allow more outdoor activities.

Their main purpose is to connect people through the arts. They achieve this through entertainment, exhibits, and education. Their building houses an art creation space, a display gallery, a small theatre, and a 410 seat indoor theatre. However, their programming covers a 5 county area reaching both adults and children. They are also the only Michigan affiliate of the Mountainfilm festival from Telluride CO. She invited all of us to stop by and enjoy their offerings!

Meeting Policy from the Board of Directors

Dear Rotarian friends,

Our board took a long look at the Covid numbers for our region and with heavy hearts voted unanimously to suspend in-person club meetings for all of January 2022. Our desire to be together is only outweighed by our concern for all club members and those they love. The world is weary of this difficult situation that demands flexibility and forbearance.

The board is guided by the Ottawa County Health Department Covid risk assessment: we will reconvene our in-person meetings when the risk is lowered from High (currently) to Substantial (<10% positivity rate and < 100 cases/100K population). We will revisit the risk level according to the OCHD at our January board meeting and will then decide on how we will meet for the month of February. We hope for an improved situation in all respects--less illness and a safer possibility of meeting in person.

As a result of this decision, all dues will be billed at $220 for Jan 1 - June 30, 2022 and lunches will be cash or check with a weekly RSVP when we can be in person. Thank you for your understanding.

We look forward to seeing you on zoom starting at noon on Jan 6, 2022 and we can enjoy together the good programs lined up for your edification and entertainment.

On behalf of the board,

Catherine Ristola Bass, president
Rotary Club of Holland

January is Vocational Service Month

2021 Rotary Ornaments

Travelling Ornaments

Charlie Soria shared some pictures from people who had received our Holland Rotary ornaments as gifts. There is also an excerpt of an email from Past President Wendy Piper.

2021 Bell Ringing

Bell Ringing with Rotarians, Rotaractors, Interactors, and Exchange Students!

Mariah Stewart, Tia Peterson, Joshua Elwood, Michael Elwood, Charles Elwood

David Beattie, Auriz (former inbound from Brazil), Martha Beattie, Outbound Brisa Sanchez-Valdez, Catherine Ristola Bass

Link to the Vocal Dimensions show to enjoy at your leisure

While we were excited to see them live, here is the next best thing: the link so you can watch it as often as you would like! This concert was recorded at First Reformed - Holland on December 10, 2021. The sound will be better when you replay it yourself and not running through my laptop speakers.

https://vimeo.com/655488175

Mona Shores Interact!

Check out this great news story about Interact.

https://www.woodtv.com/sports/football-frenzy/mona-shores-hs-interact-club-promotes-community-service/

Thanks to Lori Varner for sending this on, please submit any stories of interest to CatherineRB@yahoo.com

HANWASH donations for Haiti Earthquake relief

Thanks to John Gronberg for the update, more info here: https://www.hanwash.org/

July 1, 2021 Changing of the President

Posted on Jun 28, 2021

Join our Meeting!

Please join us for a wonderful lunch and Rotary Meeting at the Macatawa Bay Yacht Club on Thursday, July 1.

Please don't forget your $15 to cover the cost of lunch, which includes tip.

Please encourage those from other Rotary groups that would like come to join us as well.

Registration is required, the sooner the better!

Please register no later than 9 a.m. on Wednesday June 30.

It is important to register before this time to ensure we have a lunch available for you.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/RHWCT6R

This week we will hear what plans Catherine Ristola Bass has in store for the Holland Rotary Club in her year as President.

Notice to Program Chairs:

A friendly reminder that if you need to schedule any dates in 2021 for doing presentation to the club, please get me your dates so I can add them to speaker calendar. January is full and part of February is filled up. Look at the calendar that is posted in the newsletter and any dates not listed means that it is open.

Please email Lori Varner: lvarner@suburbaninns.com with your date and topic

Corporate / Business Members:

May 13, 2021 Meeting - Betsy Freeman

Posted on May 11, 2021

Join our Meeting!

Please join us for a wonderful lunch and Rotary Meeting at the Macatawa Bay Yacht Club on Thursday 05-13-2021 Please don't forget your $15 to cover the cost of lunch, which includes tip.

Please encourage those from other Rotary groups that would like come to join us as well.

Registration is required, the sooner the better!

Please register no later than 9 a.m. on Weds. May 12, 2021.

It is important to register before this time to ensure we have a lunch available for you.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/VLMT2J2

We will also be holding a Zoom Rotary meeting at the same time.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

This week our speaker is Betsy Freeman CEO of Radious Advisory Group . Betsy will talk about how every business has or is part of a a supply chain. She is finding that's where cyber criminals are currently focusing a lot of their efforts.

Notice to Program Chairs:

Please email Lori Varner: lvarner@suburbaninns.com with your date and topic

The Heather and Tom Show:

We have decided to relinquish our Communication duties. We have certainly enjoyed our work as Publicity Chair, Club Service Chair, Newsletter / e-Bulletin Chair, and Web Site Committee Chair, but it is time for other, more younger people to step up. We are definitively not leaving Rotary! Please let Rebecca, Catherine, or us know if you are interested in all our duties or any individual piece.

Corporate / Business Members:

May 06, 2021 Meeting - Aaron Thelenwood

Posted on May 04, 2021

Join our Meeting!

Please join us for a wonderful lunch and Rotary Meeting at the Macatawa Bay Yacht Club on Thursday 04-29-2021 Please don't forget your $15 to cover the cost of lunch, which includes tip.

Please encourage those from other Rotary groups that would like come to join us as well.

Registration is required, the sooner the better!

Please register no later than 9 a.m. on Weds. May 5, 2021.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GB6S37L

We will also be holding a Zoom Rotary meeting at the same time.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

This week our speaker is Aaron Thelenwood, West Michigan Airport Authority and new Director. Aaron will will talk about the airport and update on how it is doing and how it did during the pandemic.

Notice to Program Chairs:

Please email Lori Varner: lvarner@suburbaninns.com with your date and topic

The Heather and Tom Show:

Corporate / Business Members:

April 29, 2021 Meeting - Brian Morsehouse

Posted on Apr 29, 2021

Join our Meeting!

Please join us for a wonderful lunch and Rotary Meeting at the Macatawa Bay Yacht Club on Thursday 04-29-2021 Please don't forget your $15 to cover the cost of lunch, which includes tip.

Please encourage those from other Rotary groups that would like come to join us as well.

Registration is required, the sooner the better!

Please register no later than 9 a.m. on Weds. April 28, 2021.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/9YXKRW7

We will also be holding a Zoom Rotary meeting at the same time.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

This week our speaker is Brian Morsehouse. Brian will discuss Hope College Women's Basketball.

From Michelle Boerger volunteers@tuliptime.com

Hello! Just wanted to touch base with our friends from Rotary and share about opportunities to volunteer. For any members feeling ok about being out and about, we have some safe ways to join in this year. please visit www.tuliptime.volunteerhub.com for more information!

Notice to Program Chairs:

Please email Lori Varner: lvarner@suburbaninns.com with your date and topic

The Heather and Tom Show:

Corporate / Business Members:

April 22, 2021 Meeting - Joe Matthews

Posted on Apr 22, 2021

Join our Meeting!

Please join us for a wonderful lunch and Rotary Meeting at the Macatawa Bay Yacht Club on Thursday 04-22-2021 Please don't forget your $15 to cover the cost of lunch, which includes tip.

Please encourage those from other Rotary groups that would like come to join us as well.

Registration is required, the sooner the better!

Please register no later than 9 a.m. on Weds. April 21, 2021.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PRJPT5H

We will also be holding a Zoom Rotary meeting at the same time.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

This week our speaker is Joe Matthews. Joe is VP of Purchasing and Diversity Officer at Gentex. Learn what Gentex is doing in DEI and how the company is doing facing Covid19.

Holland Rotary Great Lakes Watershed Clean Up:

For the club, there is an additional community clean up activity for the morning of 4/24—9am—we are meeting at Kollen Park for a pre-Tulip Time clean up.

Please dress appropriately for the weather and bring gloves as we will be picking up trash. Bags to be provided.

Holland Rotary Great Lakes Watershed Clean Up

Holland Rotary Great Lakes Watershed Clean UpPlease review the available slots below and click on the button to sign up. Thank you!

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0945aaa929aa8-holland1

From Michelle Boerger volunteers@tuliptime.com

Notice to Program Chairs:

Please email Lori Varner: lvarner@suburbaninns.com with your date and topic

The Heather and Tom Show:

Corporate / Business Members:

April 15, 2021 Meeting - Club Assembly

Posted on Apr 15, 2021

Join our Meeting!

Please join us for a wonderful lunch and Rotary Meeting at the Macatawa Bay Yacht Club on Thursday 04-15-2021 Please don't forget your $15 to cover the cost of lunch, which includes tip.

Please encourage those from other Rotary groups that would like come to join us as well.

Registration is required, the sooner the better!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/QGHGLD9

We will also be holding a Zoom Rotary meeting at the same time.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

This week is Club Assembly.

8am Veldheer’s Tulip Farm on Saturday 4/17

Our 1^st highway clean up date will be Saturday April 17^th…..rain out date would be April 24^th .

-Ed Swart will take over the daily activities as Mike Morrow will be out of town on the 17^th.

-vests and bags to be provided by Rotary.

-please reply to Mike and Elizabeth if you can attend

-Ed Swart will be running the event as Mike will be out of town.

-any sections not cleaned would be done on 4/24.

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0945aaa929aa8-holland

Holland Rotary Great Lakes Watershed Clean Up:

For the club, there is an additional community clean up activity for the morning of 4/24—9am—we are meeting at Kollen Park for a pre-Tulip Time clean up.

Please dress appropriately for the weather and bring gloves as we will be picking up trash. Bags to be provided.

Holland Rotary Great Lakes Watershed Clean Up

Holland Rotary Great Lakes Watershed Clean UpPlease review the available slots below and click on the button to sign up. Thank you!

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0945aaa929aa8-holland1

From Michelle Boerger volunteers@tuliptime.com

Notice to Program Chairs:

Please email Lori Varner: lvarner@suburbaninns.com with your date and topic

The Heather and Tom Show:

Corporate / Business Members:

April 1, 2021 Meeting - Andrew Hoekstr & Tess Sinke

Posted on Apr 01, 2021

Join our Meeting!

We will be holding an in person Rotary meeting this Thursday, April 1th at 12 Noon at the Salvation Army - 104 Clover St., Holland. Please bring your lunch!

We will also be holding a Zoom Rotary meeting at the same time.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

Future meeting sites:

April 8 – Zoom only

Starting April 15, At Macatawa Bay Yacht Club and Zoom

This week's speakers are Andrew Hoekstr & Tess Sinke. They will be talking about a New Professional Ballet Company in Holland. Please see the poster at the end for more information.

Save the Date:

Our 1^st highway clean up date will be Saturday April 17^th…..rain out date would be April 24^th - details to follow.

Notice to Program Chairs:

Please email Lori Varner: lvarner@suburbaninns.com with your date and topic

Corporate / Business Members:

March 25, 2021 Meeting - Matt Vandyken

Posted on Mar 25, 2021

Join our Meeting!

We will be holding an in person Rotary meeting this Thursday, March 25th at 12 Noon at the Salvation Army - 104 Clover St., Holland. Please bring your lunch!

We will also be holding a Zoom Rotary meeting at the same time.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

This week's speaker is Matt Vandyken, Holland Assistant City Manager for the city of Holland. He will be talking about what projects are taking place in the City, the growth, and how the City is doing during the pandemic.

Notice to Program Chairs:

Please email Lori Varner: lvarner@suburbaninns.com with your date and topic

Corporate / Business Members:

March 18, 2021 Meeting - Mandy Cooper

Posted on Mar 18, 2021

Join our Meeting!

We will be holding an in person Rotary meeting this Thursday, March 18th at 12 Noon at the Salvation Army - 104 Clover St., Holland. Please bring your lunch!

We will also be holding a Zoom Rotary meeting at the same time.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

This week's speaker is Mandy Cooper, Lakeshore Advantage.

Notice to Program Chairs:

Please email Lori Varner: lvarner@suburbaninns.com with your date and topic

Corporate / Business Members:

March 11, 2021 Meeting - Don TriezenBerg - Update

Posted on Mar 11, 2021

Join our Meeting!

We will be holding an in person Rotary meeting this Thursday, March 11th at 12 Noon at the Salvation Army - 104 Clover St., Holland. Please bring your lunch!

We will also be holding a Zoom Rotary meeting at the same time.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

No In person meeting:

We will be only meeting via Zoom for at least the next couple of weeks.

This week's speaker is Don TriezenBerg, West Michigan Environmental Action Council (WMEAC).

YOUR ROTARY HELP IS NEEDED by the COMMUNITY SERVICE COMMITTEE

On Saturday, March 13, our Rotary club will assist with the Habitat for Humanity build on 40^th Street. We have an 8-12 morning shift and a 1-4 afternoon shift on March 13. Each shift has openings for 8-10 helpers. From 12-1 there is a picnic lunch for all volunteers. You could sign up for either the morning shift or the afternoon shift. CAN YOU HELP?

Additionally, we will need a volunteer to make the picnic lunch for about 25 workers. Sandwiches, drinks, cookies, chips would make a great picnic.

We will be working on the new home of the Rodrigues-Matos Family who have been in Holland about 4 years.

For information or to sign-up contact Donna or Gary Bogle at 616-422-0741 or donna_bogle@hotmail.com.

Notice to Program Chairs:

Please email Lori Varner: lvarner@suburbaninns.com with your date and topic

Corporate / Business Members:

March 04, 2021 Zoom Meeting - Gwen Auwerda

Posted on Mar 04, 2021

Join our Virtual Meeting!

We will be holding a Zoom Rotary meeting this Thursday March 4th at 12 Noon.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

No In person meeting:

We will be only meeting via Zoom for at least the next couple of weeks.

This week's speaker is Gwen Auwerda, Tulip Time Executive Director. She will talk about What will Tulip Time look like this year.

YOUR ROTARY HELP IS NEEDED by the COMMUNITY SERVICE COMMITTEE

Additionally, we will need a volunteer to make the picnic lunch for about 25 workers. Sandwiches, drinks, cookies, chips would make a great picnic.

We will be working on the new home of the Rodrigues-Matos Family who have been in Holland about 4 years.

For information or to sign-up contact Donna or Gary Bogle at 616-422-0741 or donna_bogle@hotmail.com.

Notice to Program Chairs:

Please email Lori Varner: lvarner@suburbaninns.com with your date and topic

Corporate / Business Members:

February 25, 2021 Zoom Meeting - Alex Doty

Posted on Feb 25, 2021

Join our Virtual Meeting!

We will be holding a Zoom Rotary meeting this Thursday February 25th at 12 Noon.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

No In person meeting:

We will be only meeting via Zoom for at least the next couple of weeks.

This week's speaker is Alex Doty , Ottawa County Road Commission.

YOUR ROTARY HELP IS NEEDED by the COMMUNITY SERVICE COMMITTEE

Additionally, we will need a volunteer to make the picnic lunch for about 25 workers. Sandwiches, drinks, cookies, chips would make a great picnic.

We will be working on the new home of the Rodrigues-Matos Family who have been in Holland about 4 years.

For information or to sign-up contact Donna or Gary Bogle at 616-422-0741 or donna_bogle@hotmail.com.

Notice to Program Chairs:

Please email Lori Varner: lvarner@suburbaninns.com with your date and topic

Corporate / Business Members:

February 18, 2021 Zoom Meeting - Tim Jungel

Posted on Feb 18, 2021

Join our Virtual Meeting!

We will be holding a Zoom Rotary meeting this Thursday February 18th at 12 Noon.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

No In person meeting:

We will be only meeting via Zoom for at least the next couple of weeks.

This week's speaker is Tim Jungel, Zeeland Police Chief. His subject is "First department in West Michigan to get body cams".

Notice to Program Chairs:

Please email Lori Varner: lvarner@suburbaninns.com with your date and topic

Corporate / Business Members:

February 11, 2021 Zoom Meeting - Evan Pazkowski

Posted on Feb 11, 2021

Join our Virtual Meeting!

We will be holding a Zoom Rotary meeting this Thursday February 1th at 12 Noon.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

No In person meeting:

We will be only meeting via Zoom for at least the next couple of weeks.

This week's speaker is Evan Pazkowski, Regional Development Specialist for Kids Food Basket . His subject is "Kids Food Basket new Holland location and how they did during the Pandemic".

Notice to Program Chairs:

Please email Lori Varner: lvarner@suburbaninns.com with your date and topic

Corporate / Business Members:

February 04, 2021 Zoom Meeting - Bob VanderPol

Posted on Feb 04, 2021

Join our Virtual Meeting!

We will be holding a Zoom Rotary meeting this Thursday February 04th at 12 Noon.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

No In person meeting:

We will be only meeting via Zoom for at least the next couple of weeks.

This week's speaker is Bob VanderPol (Pine Rest). His subject is "Mental Healthy during a Pandemic".

Notice to Program Chairs:

Please email Lori Varner: lvarner@suburbaninns.com with your date and topic

Corporate / Business Members:

January 28, 2021 Zoom Meeting - Mark Bennett

Posted on Jan 28, 2021

Join our Virtual Meeting!

We will be holding a Zoom Rotary meeting this Thursday January 28st at 12 Noon.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

No In person meeting:

We will be only meeting via Zoom for at least the next couple of weeks.

Ever wonder what it is like to be on the field during a big ten game? Captain Mark Bennett with the Ottawa County Sheriff's Department knows because in his spare time he is a Big Ten Referee!

He is our speaker this week!

Notice to Program Chairs:

Please email Lori Varner: lvarner@suburbaninns.com with your date and topic.

Corporate / Business Members:

January 21, 2021 Zoom Meeting - John Said

Posted on Jan 21, 2021

Join our Virtual Meeting!

We will be holding a Zoom Rotary meeting this Thursday January 21st at 12 Noon.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

No In person meeting:

We will be only meeting via Zoom for at least the next couple of weeks.

This week our speaker is John Said, Holland Township Community Development Director - his subject is the new Vision Plan for the township.

Notice to Program Chairs:

Please email Lori Varner: lvarner@suburbaninns.com with your date and topic.

Corporate / Business Members:

January 14, 2021 Zoom Meeting - Don Lam

Posted on Jan 14, 2021

Join our Virtual Meeting!

We will be holding a Zoom Rotary meeting this Thursday January 14th at 12 Noon.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

No In person meeting:

We will be only meeting via Zoom for at least the next couple of weeks.

This week our speaker is Don Lam - his subject is Bee Keeping. Don is an officer of the Holland Area Beekeepers Association and he has been a bee keeper for 25 years.

Notice to Program Chairs:

Please email Lori Varner: lvarner@suburbaninns.com with your date and topic.

Corporate / Business Members:

January 7, 2021 Zoom Meeting - Linda Kaiser

Posted on Jan 07, 2021

Join our Virtual Meeting!

We will be holding a Zoom Rotary meeting this Thursday January 7th at 12 Noon.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

No In person meeting:

We will be only meeting via Zoom for at least the next couple of weeks.

This week our speaker is Linda Kaiser - her subject is: Holland's Founder: Reverend Albertus C. Van Raalte -- His life and times.

Notice to Program Chairs:

Please email Lori Varner: lvarner@suburbaninns.com with your date and topic.

Corporate / Business Members:

December 31, 2020 New Years Break

No Meeting This Week!!

Subject: Habitat House Build for Saturday!

Dear Friends,

The weather for Saturday's Habitat work day on Saturday, January 2 looks pretty good. Low chance for precipitation and moderate temperatures.

I've attached the volunteer schedule below in case you need a reminder for which shift(s) you signed up for. The morning shift begins at 8:00, and volunteers are invited to stay for lunch at noon. The afternoon shift starts at 1:00, but volunteers are invited to arrive at noon for lunch.

Mary Powers will provide a snack (Mary - please bring individually wrapped snacks for 12 by 9:00 AM). LaVonne and Brian Clark will provide lunch (LaVonne and Brian - please bring individually packaged lunches for 12 by noon).

The address is 60 East 40th St.

Please wear a mask, and don't come if you have COVID symptoms or if you have not completed the required quarantine after coming into close contact with a COVID-sufferer.

The morning shift will work mostly inside. There will be some outside work in the afternoon.

We had a lot of fun during our first work day a couple of weeks ago. I look forward to enjoying another wonderful day with you on Saturday!

Rich Ray

December 24, 2020 Christmas Break

No Meeting This Week!!

December 17, 2020 Zoom Meeting - Eva-Merce' Fuentes

Posted on Dec 17, 2020

Join our Virtual Meeting!

We will be holding a Zoom Rotary meeting this Thursday December 17th at 12 Noon.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

No In person meeting:

We will be only meeting via Zoom for at least the next couple of weeks.

This week our speaker is Eva-Merce' Fuentes - Rebound from Austria.

Hey Rotarian Bell Ringers!

We have the dates for bell ringing in front of Alpen Rose / Sand Castle

Friday 12/18 10 - 8pm 1 hour increments

If you can take a spot, please email mike moraw at : mike.moraw@huntington.com

If we fill up these times, you can call the Salvation Army direct at 616-392-4461….ask for Kimberly.

Sounds like they have the kettles out Fridays and Saturdays until Christmas, but then every day during the week of Christmas through Christmas Eve.

Notice to Program Chairs:

Please email Lori Varner: lvarner@suburbaninns.com with your date and topic.

Corporate / Business Members:

December 10, 2020 Zoom Meeting - Club Assembly

Posted on Dec 10, 2020

Join our Virtual Meeting!

We will be holding a Zoom Rotary meeting this Thursday December 10th at 12 Noon.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

No In person meeting:

We will be only meeting via Zoom for at least the next couple of weeks.

This week the meeting is a Club Assembly.

Hey Rotarian Bell Ringers!

We have the dates for bell ringing in front of Alpen Rose / Sand Castle

Friday 12/11 4 – 8pm 1 hour increments

Friday 12/18 10 - 8pm 1 hour increments

If you can take a spot, please email mike moraw at : mike.moraw@huntington.com

If we fill up these times, you can call the Salvation Army direct at 616-392-4461….ask for Kimberly.

Sounds like they have the kettles out Fridays and Saturdays until Christmas, but then every day during the week of Christmas through Christmas Eve.

Notice to Program Chairs:

Please email Lori Varner: lvarner@suburbaninns.com with your date and topic.

Corporate / Business Members:

December 03, 2020 Zoom Meeting - Club Assembly

Posted on Dec 03, 2020

Join our Virtual Meeting!

We will be holding a Zoom Rotary meeting this Thursday December 3rd at 12 Noon.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

No In person meeting:

We will be only meeting via Zoom for at least the next couple of weeks.

This week the meeting is a Club Assembly.

Hey Rotarian Bell Ringers!

We have the dates for bell ringing in front of Alpen Rose / Sand Castle

Friday 12/11 4 – 8pm 1 hour increments

Friday 12/18 10 - 8pm 1 hour increments

If you can take a spot, please email mike moraw at : mike.moraw@huntington.com

If we fill up these times, you can call the Salvation Army direct at 616-392-4461….ask for Kimberly.

Alternative times THIS WEEKEND include:

12/4 just 10-12 open time slot

12/5 2pm – 8pm open time slots

Sounds like they have the kettles out Fridays and Saturdays until Christmas, but then every day during the week of Christmas through Christmas Eve.

Notice to Program Chairs:

Please email Lori Varner: lvarner@suburbaninns.com with your date and topic.

Corporate / Business Members:

November 26, 2020 No Meeting

Posted on Nov 26, 2020

There will be no meeting this week! Happy Thanksgiving!

Corporate / Business Members:

November 19, 2020 Zoom Meeting - Pete Hoffswel

Posted on Nov 19, 2020

Join our Virtual Meeting!

We will be holding a Zoom Rotary meeting this Thursday November 19th at 12 Noon.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

No In person meeting:

We will be only meeting via Zoom for at least the next couple of weeks.

Our speaker at Rotary will be Pete Hoffswel from BPW discussing the BPW/City Broadband project.

Community Action House:

Each year, our club has “passed the hat” for a collection to Community Action House.

We try and target the collection 1 week before Thanksgiving---which would be 11/19.

This year will be particularly important, so please be generous!

The board decided to direct our fellow members to physically send a tax deductible check payable to: Holland Rotary Charities with a memo noting it is for “Thanksgiving”. Send to “Rotary Box 2278 Holland Mi 49422-2278”.

This will enable us to track our donations and give them one check. (In response to the need being 3x more than last year Rebecca will announce at the meeting that the board also voted to supplement those donations.)

Corporate / Business Members:

November 05, 2020 Zoom Meeting - Garret Tinney

Posted on Nov 05, 2020

Join our Virtual Meeting!

We will be holding a Zoom Rotary meeting this Thursday November 05th at 12 Noon.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

In person meeting:

Please join us for a wonderful lunch and Rotary Meeting at the Macatawa Bay Yacht Club on Thursday 11-051-2020. Please don't forget your $15 to cover the cost of lunch, which includes tip.

Please encourage those from other Rotary groups that would like come to join us as well.

Registration is required, the sooner the better!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GTMDXFK

Thank you, Rebecca Lamper

Our speaker at Rotary will be Garret Tinney, discussing Youth Exchange.

Corporate / Business Members:

October 29, 2020 Zoom Meeting - Ken Freestone

Posted on Oct 29, 2020

Join our Virtual Meeting!

We will be holding a Zoom Rotary meeting this Thursday October 29th at 12 Noon.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

In person meeting:

Please join us for a wonderful lunch and Rotary Meeting at the Macatawa Bay Yacht Club on Thursday 10-29-2020. Please don't forget your $15 to cover the cost of lunch, which includes tip.

Please encourage those from other Rotary groups that would like come to join us as well.

Registration is required, the sooner the better!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GTMDXFK

Thank you, Rebecca Lamper

Our speaker at Rotary will be Ken Freestone, Residential Energy Advisor City of Holland.

The subject will be "Learn how to use less energy at home or work to have less energy waste."

Corporate / Business Members:

October 22, 2020 Zoom Meeting - Lynsey Hargrove

Posted on Oct 22, 2020

Join our Virtual Meeting!

We will be holding a Zoom Rotary meeting this Thursday October 22th at 12 Noon.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

In Person Meeting Also Available!!

Macatawa Bay Yacht Club lunch available in addition to Zoom for October 22th Meeting. Please respond as soon as possible if you would like lunch. RSVP via Survey Monkey. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/YT6BBJG Don’t forget $15.

Our speaker at Rotary will be Lynsey Hargrove, Holland Hospital.

The subject will be Everyday-Bodyworks-how to prevent pain & improve productivity by teaching correct body mechanics.

Corporate / Business Members:

October 8, 2020 Zoom Meeting - Nicholas Rolinsk

Posted on Oct 08, 2020

Join our Virtual Meeting!

We will be holding a Zoom Rotary meeting this Thursday October 8th at 12 Noon.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

Our speaker at Rotary will be Nicholas Rolinsk.

His subject will be The Urbanism of Downtown Holland : Past and Present.

From last week's meeting:

Robyn Afrik and Ricki Levine asked us to share the link below:

The Power of Belonging: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in Ottawa County.

https://www.miottawa.org/CI/diversity-forum.htm?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

Note from Club Chaplain Larry Schuyler:

We learned that Dr. Chuck Huttar, a former, long-time member of our Holland Rotary Club, suffered a stroke a couple of weeks ago. He is currently in rehab at MaryFreeBed. Greetings and notes of encouragement can be sent to his home 188 W. 11th Street Holland MI 49423.

Corporate / Business Members:

, Chairman of the Board for the Civil War Muster.

Rick will immerse us in history as he talks about the re-enactors that take part in the VanRaalt Farm Civil War Muster.

Because of Covid-19 the muster did not take place this past year but Rick has some exciting things to share for the plans they have in 2021!

Stroll with Rick and explore the historic era at our meeting next week as we welcome him to our Rotary family!

A Meeting Suggestion:

From out Board of Directors: For our members who want to participate in our meetings when we go live but are not comfortable with an in-person meeting get together, we would suggest they join with other members (social distancing of course) at their home for joint ZOOM togetherness! We would invite members to do so and ask for ZOOM homes that may be willing to have other Rotarians join them for comradery sake.

Corporate / Business Members:

October 1, 2020 Zoom Meeting - Robyn Afrik and Ricki Levine

Posted on Oct 01, 2020

Join our Virtual Meeting!

We will be holding a Zoom Rotary meeting this Thursday October 1st at 12 Noon.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

Our speaker at Rotary will be Robyn Afrik and Ricki Levine.

Their subject will be The Power of Belonging: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in Ottawa County.

A Meeting Suggestion:

Rotary Club of Allendale is asking for your help in sharing our event, Cash for Community, an online silent auction, and reverse raffle. This year's partner benefactor is the Engine House No 5 Museum.

Tickets for the reverse raffle with the grand prize of $2,000 are $30 each with a 1 in 250 chance of winning. Reverse raffle drawing will be held on October 3 from 6 pm to 9 pm.

Tickets can be purchased for the reverse raffle from any Allendale Rotary member or message our Facebook page. Allendale Rotary Club

A silent auction will be held on the Facebook event page. See the link below. Bidding begins September 23rd and ends October 3rd. Seriously great prizes like Disney tickets, restaurant gift certificates, experience prizes, Yeti tailgate package, VIP brewery tour, wine and pasta, weekend cottage rental on Bear Lake, and much much more. New items will be added up until bidding opens.

Find the event at this link: https://www.facebook.com/events/111193280900316

Highway Clean-up Saturday, September 26, 8:00 am

Thanks to all who helped from Rotary and Grace Episcopal Church!

Corporate / Business Members:

, Chairman of the Board for the Civil War Muster.

Rick will immerse us in history as he talks about the re-enactors that take part in the VanRaalt Farm Civil War Muster.

Because of Covid-19 the muster did not take place this past year but Rick has some exciting things to share for the plans they have in 2021!

Stroll with Rick and explore the historic era at our meeting next week as we welcome him to our Rotary family!

A Meeting Suggestion:

Corporate / Business Members:

September 24, 2020 Zoom Meeting - Rick Veenhoven

Posted on Sep 24, 2020

Join our Virtual Meeting!

We will be holding a Zoom Rotary meeting this Thursday September 24^th at 12 Noon.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

Our speaker next week at Rotary will be Rick Veenhoven, Chairman of the Board for the Civil War Muster.

Rick will immerse us in history as he talks about the re-enactors that take part in the VanRaalte Farm Civil War Muster.

Because of Covid-19 the muster did not take place this past year but Rick has some exciting things to share for the plans they have in 2021!

Stroll with Rick and explore the historic era at our meeting next week as we welcome him to our Rotary family!

A Meeting Suggestion:

Tickets for the reverse raffle with the grand prize of $2,000 are $30 each with a 1 in 250 chance of winning. Reverse raffle drawing will be held on October 3 from 6 pm to 9 pm.

Tickets can be purchased for the reverse raffle from any Allendale Rotary member or message our Facebook page. Allendale Rotary Club

Find the event at this link: https://www.facebook.com/events/111193280900316

Highway Clean-up Saturday, September 26, 8:00 am

Rain out date October 3.

So you're asking yourself, what happens when bubble gum gets stuck on a pop can? They both sometimes (LOTS of times!) end up becoming trash on our highways! So here's your chance to keep Holland beautiful! On Saturday, September 26, we're going to ask that you join your friends in Rotary and help us clean-up other roadside "goodies" on U.S. 31. You'll not only have fun and meet other people you might not know as well, but also will provide a service to our community by cleaning up part of this highly visible road!

Meet at 8 a.m. at Veldheer's Tulip Farm (right on U.S. 31) on September 26. We need as many Rotarians as possible to meet at Veldheer's Tulip Farm (right on U.S. 31) at 8 a.m.!

Mike Moraw will bring the bags for the "treasure hunt", coffee (most important!) and our SPIFFY new (Spring-like even!) yellow Rotary or Michigan DOT green (Summer-like?) work vests. All you have to bring is your energy and work gloves. Oh, did we forget to mention...you get a make-up meeting credit for coming out to help?

If you haven’t noticed, Rotary has a sign on US 31 letting our neighbors know that this 2 mile stretch is ours”.

Please let Mike know if you and your smile can be a part of this clean up for our own little piece of Holland...let's make it beautiful for Tulip Time and summer...and THANKS!
Mike.moraw@huntington.com or cell 616-836-5524.

Corporate / Business Members:

, Chairman of the Board for the Civil War Muster.

Rick will immerse us in history as he talks about the re-enactors that take part in the VanRaalt Farm Civil War Muster.

Because of Covid-19 the muster did not take place this past year but Rick has some exciting things to share for the plans they have in 2021!

Stroll with Rick and explore the historic era at our meeting next week as we welcome him to our Rotary family!

A Meeting Suggestion:

Corporate / Business Members:

September 17, 2020 Zoom Meeting - Tory Richardson

Posted on Sep 17, 2020

Join our Virtual Meeting!

We will be holding a Zoom Rotary meeting this Thursday September 17^th at 12 Noon.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

Join via Zoom for our speaker Tory Richardson, CEO and President of Gerald Ford International Airport. Tory will discuss how the airport weathered the pandemic, the new campaign it launched and safety and cleaning protocols that they put in place.

A Meeting Suggestion:

Corporate / Business Members:

September 10, 2020 Meeting - Jon Catlin

Posted on Sep 10, 2020

Join our District Governor Meeting!

On Sept 10^th, District Gov. Jon Catlin will be joining us. We have confirmed lunch at the Macatawa Bay Yacht Club. People will need to let Rebecca know if they are coming and eating lunch. This will need to be done by Sept. 7^th in order to let Macatawa Bay Yacht Club know.

If the Rotarian meal choice is regular or vegan (they will have to let us know if they want a vegan meal when they sign up). We will have to have at least 25 people in attendance for the District Gov. in order to get the facility. The sooner we know the better!

You can email Rebecca at rlamper@michiganfirst.com Do not send responses to Heather and Tom!

We will also try holding a Zoom Rotary meeting as well, in order to accommodate those who cannot make it.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

A Meeting Suggestion:

Corporate / Business Members:

September 3, 2020 Meeting - Brian Davis

Posted on Sep 03, 2020

Join our Special Outdoor Meeting!

We will be holding a special meeting at Smallenburg Park this Thursday, September 3rd weather permitting!! at 12 Noon.

In case you are not familiar, Smallenburg is a family oriented park and playground adjoined by the Bouws outdoor community pool and the Holland Municipal Stadium which is used for interscholastic football and soccer for area schools and Hope College. * Boundless Playground - ADA Accessible donated by the Rotary Club * Grills * Picnic Tables * Large group shelter. It is located at 16th & Fairbanks Avenue, 313 Fairbanks Avenue, Holland. There is road construction on 16th street, so Fairbanks may be the better route.

We will also try holding a Zoom Rotary meeting as well, in order to accommodate those who cannot make it.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

Special Invitation!

You can email Rebecca at rlamper@michiganfirst.com Do not send responses to Heather and Tom!

A Meeting Suggestion:

Our Speaker this week will be Brian Davis, Superintendent of Holland Public Schools. His topic -- How will the school year look at Holland Public Schools.

Corporate / Business Members:

August 27, 2020 Zoom Meeting - Tim Schoonveld

Posted on Aug 27, 2020

Join our Virtual Meeting!

We will be holding a Zoom Rotary meeting this Thursday August 27^th at 12 Noon.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

A Meeting Suggestion:

Our Speaker this week will be Tim Schoonveld, Hope College Athetic Director. His topic -- what will college sports look like this year.

Here is Jane’s address if you wish to send cards:

Jane Bos

384 Harvester Road

Malibu, CA 90265

Corporate / Business Members:

August 20, 2020 Zoom Meeting - Paul Wasielewsk

Posted on Aug 20, 2020

Join our Virtual Meeting!

We will be holding a Zoom Rotary meeting this Thursday August 20^th at 12 Noon.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

Our Speaker this week will be Paul Wasielewsk, MD Metro Hospital. His topic -- Stroke Prevention.

Here is Jane’s address if you wish to send cards:

Jane Bos

384 Harvester Road

Malibu, CA 90265

Corporate / Business Members:

August 13, 2020 Zoom Meeting - Esther Fifelski

Posted on Aug 13, 2020

Join our Special Outdoor Meeting!

We will be holding a special meeting at Smallenburg Park this Thursday, June 25th weather permitting!! at 12 Noon.

Our Speaker this week will be our very own Esther Fifelski, Human Relations Director of City of Holland. Her topic -- Esther will be giving us an update on what she has been working on during the Covo 19 pandemic and her new job duties with her new promotion .

Rotarian At Work:

We have a few Rotarians in the medical profession who often cannot make it to our meetings at all. One is Dr. Bader. He operates on animals all day on Thursdays, but has been active as a Rotarian internationally, year after year. We have been fortunate to hear him talk about his work with street dogs in Guatemala as he travels there to teach new methods to those who care for animals. He has rescued and found homes for racing dogs from Spain. His current passion is street dogs in Madagascar and the vets who care for them. Here are two places on line that follow Dr. Bader’s activity protecting creatures around the world.

Travelling animal doctors.org

Maddoginitiative.com

Corporate / Business Members:

August 06, 2020 Zoom Meeting - Jason Gargala

Posted on Aug 06, 2020

Join our Virtual Meeting!

We will be holding a Zoom Rotary meeting this Thursday August 6^th at 12 Noon.

Club members can download the Zoom application and use the following information to join the meeting:

Go to Zoom.com and click on "join a meeting"

Meeting ID 773 444 4522

Password 020850

Also, you can Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7734444522?pwd=MlZWUU1DZk5wamo2eGc5RjNTbllOdz09 to join a scheduled Zoom meeting.

These will also be the numbers for calls for the future Zoom meetings as well!

Our Speaker this week will be our very own Jason Gargala. His topic -- How is the insurance company doing during Covo.

Corporate / Business Members: