Jason Miller opened the meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance and Nils Friberg gave the invocation.
President Gerry Tietz passed out bubblegum cigars to celebrate the “birth” of the breakfast club. On a related note, Gerry said that we will employ survey monkey and paper ballots to ensure that both breakfast and lunch club members have input on important club decisions.
President-Elect John Marg-Patton reminded us that April 13th is the date for the 2018 Gold Plate Dinner. Mark your calendars now and be thinking of ways to make the event even better. Planning meetings will begin soon and he encouraged us all to take an active part in the planning of our major fundraiser.
John also announced that, after many years of faithful service, MaryAnn will no longer be able serve as Club Secretary. We’re looking for a replacement to work alongside MaryAnn for a while to ease the transition. Please see Gerry T. or John M-P if you would be able to serve as Secretary.
President Gerry introduced a new wrinkle to happy bucks today with “two truths and a lie”. Those able to guess which of three stories was a lie, could avoid paying a dollar to the kitty. You are invited to think up your own truths and a lie to raise funds at future meetings.
Traditional happy bucks included the usual Packer Backer contributions, but Vikings fans are also starting to open their wallets. Twins and Gopher fans were also generous with their happy bucks. Amy Janecek noted that this year is the 50th anniversary of Irondale H.S. and special homecoming festivities are planned. Click here for more info.
Amy Janecek introduced Mary Sue Hansen, Director of the Suburban Ramsey Family Collaborative (SRFC). For over 18 years, SRFC has been working to fill the gaps in the social services safety net in suburban Ramsey County. Mary Sue and her staff work cooperatively with school districts, social workers, faith communities and community support centers like ours in New Brighton. Mary Sue was here primarily to talk about SRFC’s work with the Marnita’s Table Intentional Social Interaction Model (known as “IZI”). This model provides a framework, with good food as the catalyst, for diverse populations to engage each other in safe and honest conversations about racial, cultural and class barriers and possible solutions to these barriers. To date, over 700 educators and community members have been trained on the IZI model, over 400 of whom are youth. In addition to its intercultural impact, the IZI model has resulted in a dramatic increase in financial support for at risk children and their families in suburban Ramsey County. We are the first Rotary club that Mary Sue has spoken to but she would love to present the IZI concept to other Rotary Clubs in the area and, perhaps, arrange an IZI training for interested Rotarians from Rotary clubs in SRFC’s service area. For more information about SRFC, click here. Mary Sue and Jason are shown below.
