Gallipolis Rotary Holds Polio Plus Fundraiser
Gallipolis Rotary served up some mighty fine spaghetti to benefit Rotary’s Polio Plus efforts and our club’s fundraising in support of this project. Pictured above are President-Elect Bonnie McFarland (left) and project organizer, Shirley Doss (right) with Alvira Robinson who helped cook up the special sauce. Shirley Doss had arranged a polio educator, Naomi Durst, RN available to answer questions for our guests about this dreaded disease. While we were a bit disappointed with the turnout, Gallipolis Rotarians helped dish up more awareness in the community for this important project which will be repeated the next two year as our club’s commitment to RI’s commitment to end polio.
This week’s meeting was called to order by President Deb Rhodes at our regular meeting place, Doctors’ Dining Room of Holzer Clinic. The invocation was given by Matt Willis. President Deb reminded everyone our annual end of the year induction of new officers will be held on June 30th, at the Gallia Senior Resource Center, starting at 6:00 PM. Dinner will be at 6:30 pm. This evening meeting will replace our normal morning meeting for that week.
Rotary Mile—Our first project for the new Rotary year will be the annual Rotary Mile which will be held on Friday, July 3rd, just before the parade. Project Chair, Jim Morrison, reminded club members we need Rotarians available at the Shake Shoppe starting at 5:45 pm to help register runners and hand out the T-shirts. We will also need some help at the finish line to hand out the trophies and organize the runners for the group picture just before the parade. Promotions are going out with ads in the local paper and signs around the community.
Gallia Jr. Fair Royalty—Another project this summer which will be occurring in August, is the Jr. Fair Royalty project. Gallipolis Rotary is sponsoring the trophies and sashes for the livestock princesses. Denise Shockley is the Chair for this event and will need some help at the fair when these presentations are made. We will have more detailed information as we get closer to the event.
Literacy Project—Debbie Saunders reminded club members of the on-going project our club is sponsoring with several other groups in the community to provide new reference materials to the school libraries in the three new county high schools. Bossard Library will be hosting a book sale from 11 am – 3 pm this Saturday, raising funds and awareness for this project.
Melissa Kimmel Joins Rotary—Gallipolis Rotary inducted another new member today, Melissa Kimmel, into active membership in our club. Melissa is the Executive Director of Serenity House, a local women’s shelter in our community. As the picture shows, Kurt Dailey presided over the member induction and ‘pinned’ Melissa with the Rotary membership pin. Melissa had been a member of the Jackson Rotary Club a few years back and Melissa’s Dad, Marshall Kimmel, is Secretary/Treasurer of the Jackson club. Congratulations, Melissa!
Split-The-Pot–Jim Morrison ran STP for the meeting and asked our newest member, Melissa Kimmel to draw the winning ticket which was held by Kevin Petrie. Kevin drew carefully from the ever decreasing deck and missed the ‘Big One’ of $82 by drawing the ten of hearts. The Foundation Fine was assessed against anyone who didn’t care if the Lakers won the championship.
Fellowship–Gordon Amsbary took the reins of fellowship checking first for potential fines for missing pins and badges. Margaret Evans bought a ‘Happy Buck’ to announce this weekend’s production of the Wizard of Oz at the Ariel. Gordo covered the famous birthdays and momentous events that occurred on this day and concluded with a few words of wisdom.
Program–President Deb introduced our program speaker for the morning, Bob Hood, who filled in for our scheduled speaker, Tim Tyler, speaking about the Holzer Clinic Bike Criterion. Tim was called out to the race preparations for today’s event which will traverse Gallia county starting and ending at the City Park. Bikers will race down SR 7 South to 218, proceed to Lecta, north to 141, back through Gage, Centenary, and to the big finish at the park. The course is a total of 68 miles and should bring the bikers back around 12:30 pm.
Bob also reminded Gallipolis Rotarians this weekend is the Band Organ Festival in the Park and will feature antique Band Organs from around the US and several from outside the US. Stop down at the park on Saturday and enjoy the music.