April 12 2022 Meeting Report

Meetings

April 12, 2022 Meeting Report

We welcome the executive director of The Crossing of Manitowoc County and much more!

April is Maternal and Child Health Month

Announcements

The Van der Brohe Arboretum Annual Tree Sale is happening now. Receive a 20% discount on nursery stock with proceeds benefiting the arboretum. Check out their website for ordering details.
 
Manitowoc Rotarian, Barry Nelson, is at the Polish/Ukrainian border helping refugees.  He is being supported by a GoFundMe effort “War Uber.”  This war is real and this is a place to connect with what is happening there.

Today's Program

Chair Todd Nilson invited Belinda Esquinas-Gilbert, executive director of The Crossing of Manitowoc County.  
Belinda began by sharing the story of her journey from growing up in Cordoba, Spain, to her current role as Executive Director at The Crossing, extolling the sense of community she felt in Manitowoc County.
 
Belinda recounted that her first recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, following becoming an American citizen, was at a meeting of our Rotary Club.
 
Building on The Crossing mission, “a healthy family for every child”, methods and programs were described that have impacted our community since their founding in 2004.  “Every parent loves their child, however, tools are needed to enable the development of life skills and achievement of good parenting goals.”
 
The Crossing of Manitowoc County is a non-profit, Christian-based organization with a mission to provide emotional, educational, material, and spiritual support to clients, empowering them to become strong and resilient families.
 
Some history of The Crossing of Manitowoc County includes:
  • Founded in 2004
  • 2004 Revenue was $14,000. We served 14 women and had 3 volunteers
  • 2008 Revenue was $48,500. We served 120 clients and 15 volunteers
  • 2021 Revenue was $382,460. We served 187 families and 50+ volunteers
  • 2022 March, double client visits and triple clinic visits​​​​​​​
In her presentation, Belinda shared that "We provide emotional, educational, material, and spiritual support for our clients, empowering them to become strong and resilient families." Their programs include five factors:
  1. Parental Resilience
  2. Social Connections
  3. Concrete Support in Times of Need
  4. Knowledge of Parenting and Child Development
  5. Social and Emotional Competence of Children
The Crossing provides a boutique and basic needs supplies supplies for families.
 
Since 2017, the Crossing Home has provided a home for 15 single or expectant moms and 20 children. 
The home provides an environment to build life skills such as cooking scheduling and budgeting. It gives them the opportunity to belong to a community that will help create a new blueprint for navigating life. The goal is to improve the emotional and spiritual health of mothers while learning parenting and relationship skills that are life giving.
 
A new medical clinic building opened February 11th this year, replacing the old clinic that they had outgrown. The clinic provides:
  • Pregnancy Test & Verification
  • Limited OB Ultrasounds
  • STD/STI Testing & Treatment 
  • Prenatal Development Education
  • Labor and Delivery
"We offer a growing variety of services to meet our changing client needs, including a medical clinic that provides free limited obstetrical ultrasound examinations. All of our services are free, confidential and non-judgmental. Our goal is to help clients make an informed decision by helping them to understand what they are feeling and what their options are," Belinda said.
 
Realizing exponential growth over the past 18 years, The Crossing has moved to a new location at 541 North 10th Street in Manitowoc to accommodate expanded services. Belinda concluded by inviting the Club to attend their ribbon cutting event for the new location on May 12.
 

Club Operations

📰  Check the program schedule for your next chance to contribute to meeting programming. You can find the program schedule on the home page of the website in the downloads section toward the bottom of the page.

🗣 Annual Dinner Auction 2022. This week’s edition of “Dinner Details” with a report/impressions of the event!  Lisa V. has requested a picture sharing to capture the retelling of the evening’s festivities. The group is planning a wrap-up meeting for April 19.


Subjective impressions of the event were shared using such terms as awesome, spectacular, great venue and best organized ever. A number of anecdotes and tales of treasure were told.  Objective measures (by the numbers) built on this report:
  • An estimated net of close to $22,000 was disclosed…making this the most successful single fundraising effort in our history.  
  • There were 68 attendees…many of them first-timers.  
  • This fund-raising total, when combined with previous funding pledges, is getting us close to the $65,000 commitment for the park project.
  • This progress is well-aligned with the project’s total with $1.3 million of the projected $1.8 million cost already in hand.
Lessons learned include:
  • A personal “ask” yields new participants
  • Target key community leaders for contact
  • Prompt follow up with appreciation is advised (Betty B. and Lisa V. have this covered)
  • Start solicitation of donations earlier in the year
  • Earlier set-up makes for less stress
  • Kudos go around for the planning team…great job!
Keep your eyes on the prize…
 
Winter ice skating pond and loop, south half of park (pond overlays splash pad area)—planned for artificial ice
 
Club Secretary opportunity. After many years of service as Club Secretary, Colleen Inman has announced plans to step down from this role. Detailed instructions and mentorship is available. If you are interested, please let Steve D. know. 🎉 Update: A “divide and conquer” option is available with a division of tasks among a couple of members to make the opportunity more palatable.
 
Please consider the opportunity to express the Rotary ideal of service in the above role.

Club Events / Service Opportunities

🐣 Two Rivers Ecumenical Pantry (TREP) Easter Bag project. A final, final report was shared as was thanks from TREP director, Lynn Skarvan. Look for pictures/posting on our Facebook Page.
 
🍽 🚗  Meals on Wheels. Next up is April 18-22! A sign up and invitation has been made available on the website.  All dates were filled in time for a final report to the MOW coordinator.  Thanks for all those that take the opportunity to help our community’s most vulnerable.  
 
💰 District Grant (2022-23) – One idea being developed includes support for a Sensory Trauma Room for Kids to be located in the Aurora Emergency area.  The need for such an area was raised by Lakeshore Foster Families to help already traumatized youth in our area. Partnerships have already been formed with LFF to advance the project. An April 20th meeting (5:30pm – 1101 Washington St, Manitowoc) is planned to move the project ahead. Interested members are encouraged to attend.
 
(Diane J.) Get the Community Back in our Schools. (Diane J.) This is an opportunity for our Club to build student connections.
  • The Raider Reporter serves to shine a spotlight on positive aspects of our schools in the community.  Contributions from community partners are welcomed for inclusion in the quarterly publication.  Chris E-R. has offered to contribute a piece from our Club for the June edition.

Looking Ahead...

🍔 Senior Volunteer Luncheon. Logistics are being discussed at this week's board meeting.
 
World Affairs Seminar Reimagining Global Health and Wellness: Contagious Ideas will be held on Saturday, June 18 – Friday, June 24, 2022  Promote World Affairs Seminar information at the high school. There is one student with interest at this time. A members suggested that we reach out to the returning Europe trip kids as a natural fit for this Seminar.
 
Promote the Rotary Club of Two Rivers Scholarship at the high school.  Our intent is to offer multiple scholarships for technical college education to phase out this program’s funding. Last call!  The application deadline is April 13th with judging and awarding to follow.  We are anticipating a last minute flurry of applications. Who knew it would be this hard to give away money? Thanks to Stanley P. for coordinating this program and to Brenda G. and Deborah B. for helping “judge” the applicants.
 
And, looking way ahead. Interest was expressed in resurrecting the idea of a Rotary Float as a highlight of the 2022 Christmas Parade. This would be a fine idea to kick off our Club’s Centennial Year! We can check and see if the Rotary Rose Parade float is available for our local use 🎅🏻 🎄
 

District Activities

⚙️  TriCon 2022 in Elkhart Lake April 29-30. Still Time to Sign Up and Join Fellow Rotarians. Learn all you need to know about TriCon 2022 at rotarytricon.com
 
💵. Happy Bucks gives us the opportunity for each member to share their personal “quips and quotes” of experiences over the past week. This week's highlights included:
  • Betty B.’s recent promotion was recognized by Jim L.
  • Tim S. celebrated his return to independence following cast removal
  • We all celebrated the return of Deb B. to the lakeshore!
Birthday and Anniversary Report
Michael Ditmer (4/12)  🎂
Keith Lyons (3 years) ⚙️
Lori Zimney (3 years) ⚙️
 
Next week’s Program Chair is Stanley Palmer.