Jeff Benson opened the meeting with the Pledge and Invocation.  Mark Lampman welcomed two visiting Rotarians; Assistant District Governor Judy Rolow from the Anoka club and Alan Player from the Apple Valley Club.  Both visiting Rotarians were here to promote their clubs raffle fundraisers.

Co-President Paul Fournier was well enough to attend today’s meeting and he was warmly welcomed.  Paul said that he has spent 40 days in the cardiac care unit at $33,000 per day.  A cool 1.32 million if my math is correct, but well worth it!  Paul’s rebuilt heart should keep him going strong for many years to come.

Finemaster Jim Kadechka tested our knowledge of presidential trivia.  Did you know that Jimmy Carter was the first president to be born in a hospital, Grover Cleveland was once a hangman and Andrew Jackson won more than 100 pistol duels?

MaryAnn Bawden noted that the Rotary Foundation scored 100 out 100 possible points in Charity Navigator’s new rating system.

Mary Stewart was back today after a very busy summer and she thanked the club for its continuing support for CPY programs.  Mary said that CPY kids went to 70 off-site adventures during the summer. WOW!

Dana Rebelein reported that the Club Visioning Event last Tuesday evening was a big success.  The facilitators complimented us on our organization and the many ideas that were generated by the event.

David and Susan Hoel just celebrated their 47^th anniversary.  Susan has applied for sainthood and inside sources say that the she is a top candidate.

John Risdall reported that Risdall Advertising will be moving to their new Roseville offices around Thanksgiving.

Jeff Benson introduced our speaker, Todd Otis.  Todd’s topic was “Why Quality Early Learning is Crucial”.  Todd is the Senior Vice President for External Affairs at Think Small. Think Small is a 40 year old non-profit, dedicated to the idea that the quality of a child’s early experiences greatly influences his or her success later in life and that there is much that can be done to improve the quality of early childhood settings to optimize a child’s development.  There are 350,000 children from birth through five years old in Minnesota.  Of those, 156,000 are from low income families and study after study has shown that poverty impedes brain development. Minnesota also has the 2^nd highest percentage of working mothers in the U.S.  All these factors contribute to fully 50% of Minnesota kids not being ready for kindergarten.

Why is school readiness so important?  Studies show that 90% of brain development occurs in the first five years of life, and if there is a deficit by age 5, it’s difficult to make up the difference. In many cases this deficit results in long-term challenges for children, often leading to behavior issues, failure to complete high school and even criminal activity.  The social costs of this problem are staggering.  Early education has been shown to prevent or minimize this deficit.  The Perry Preschool Study (a 40 year prospective study) showed a tremendous social and economic benefit to early childhood education, proving that children from low income families achieve nearly as well as their higher income peers when they have quality early education experiences.  A Minnesota study showed a net social benefit of $56,000 for each low income student receiving early education.  Minnesota currently allocates 2% of its budget for Early Education programs, but 84,000 kids are still are not receiving early education services.

Minnesotans can help by asking their legislators to:

-Increase funding for Early Learning Scholarships and the Parent Aware program.

-Increase the quality standards for child care providers.

-Invest in childcare assistance.

-Improve parent education.