The Locker Project - Fresh food and baked good distribution at Westbrook High School in the cafeteria. One volunteer needed for each date in November to work with Kiwanis volunteers. 1-2PM each time. Wednesdays November 15 and 29. If you can help on either of these dates, please contact Christine Johnson.
Crutches 4 Africa Load the Container – Saturday November 18. 20 Gooch St, Biddeford, ME. Additional volunteers needed, especially for second team. FIRST TEAM: 15 people to arrive at 9:30 and work until 11:30 to get things organized and start loading around 10 AM. Any extra people will work on packaging several crates of inbound crutches for a future shipment. We are loading crutches, wheel chairs, walkers and canes. SECOND TEAM: 10 people to arrive at 10:30 and work until about 12:30 to continue the loading and packaging. Contact: Dennis Robillard - Cell 468-0043 of Saco Bay Sunset Club.
FBC Westbrook Free Community Meal - Saturday November 18. Monthly, free, community dinner. Whether you are hungry for a delicious meal or hungry to get out and interact with others, they would love for you to be their guest. Yes, you can donate toward next month's meal but it's not necessary. This is not a fundraiser, it's a community connecting night with great food. They've been doing these dinners for going on 10 years. Come and bring a friend.
Christmas Tree Sales Lot Set Up - Tuesday November 21, immediately following lunch at WRVC. Corner of Mechanic St and William Clarke Dr.
Downtown Westbrook Coalition Benefit - Raffle for JetBlue Tickets. 5 for $20. Drawing on Small Business Saturday November 25 at 3PM. Tickets available from Deb Shangraw and Phil Spiller. They are good for ALL JetBlue destinations, even INTERNATIONAL and good for one year.
Coats for Seniors - Baxter Memorial Library in Gorham is a drop-off location for the Coats for Seniors program. Collecting until Nov. 30th. Donate your clean, gently used winter coats today. LL Bean will contribute an additional $5 for every coat donated. Visit http://maine4a.org/ for more information.
Toys for Tots Donation Drive- One option for drop off of unwrapped toys this year is the AllState offices of Carlo Giraulo 543 Main St, Westbrook. Collecting from October 18 to December 15.
Tips for Charity Luncheon – Friday December 8, 11:30 or 12:20. Tickets available now for the annual luncheon to benefit Westbrook Food Pantry and Good Samaritan Fuel Fund. Let’s make the Rotary table the highest donor table again this year and make it three in a row!! Contact table host Christine Johnson.
Clean Water for 100 Families in Guatemala– For $35 per family you can provide clean drinking water for one family in Guatemala for two years through an Ecofiltro unit. Scott Linscott has set a goal of helping 100 families by Christmas. Use the Easy Tithe app to make your tax-deductible contribution through FBC Westbrook by going to https://app.easytithe.com/g3/, click on Quick Give and use the drop down to choose the option Clean Water for 100 Families. You may also write a check to FBC Westbrook and hand to Scott at a meeting. Put “Clean Water” in the memo line.
Toiletries for the High School - Ongoing - Collect those tiny bottles of toiletries you are paying for during your next hotel visit and bring them home to help students in need of personal hygiene products. The HS Pantry and the HS Nurse are always looking to restock these basic supplies. You can always drop items off during the school day at the HS main office, or bring them to a meeting.
Donate to our Club's Charity through Amazon Smile – Ongoing - If you order items from Amazon.com, even if not very often, you can help Westbrook Gorham Rotary Club Charities. Go to http://smile.amazon.com/. Search for our Charity and select it. You may need to login to your Amazon account before being able to finalize your selection. Then, when you shop Amazon.com (always starting from http://smile.amazon.com/) a portion of every purchase will be donated to our charity.
Can Tabs for Ronald MacDonald House – Ongoing - While Pat & Cliff are in Florida, let’s keep collecting those can tabs! Let’s see how many we can save over the winter months.
CLYNK for Literacy - Ongoing - Don't forget to keep filling those bags to help fund the children's books we ask our speakers to sign for the Baxter and Walker Libraries. Extra bags are always available at our meetings.
Kathi was born in Bangor as her father completed his WWII-delayed graduation from UMaine. She grew up in Holden MA. Kathi is a graduate of Middlebury College. She taught at Vermont Academy in Saxtons River VT and at Oakwood Friends School in NY from which she retired in 2015.
She has a long family history in Rotary. Her 95 year-old dad, a Past Club President and Past District Governor, is still a member of the Worcester (MA) Rotary Club. Her brother is Dick Hall of the Portland Club and her brother-in-law is a member of the Holden (MA) club. She has been to Haiti twice with her father as he worked on Foundation-funded solar powered water projects there. She is a previous member of clubs in Monadnock NH, Randolph VT, and White River Jct VT, all clubs similar in size to Westbrook-Gorham. She is particularly interested in education and children’s activities, as well as water and solar projects in the developing world.
She has three sons, one of whom lives in Maine, and six grandchildren, four of whom live in Maine. She currently lives in South Portland.
Presumpscot Place on Foster St, also known as the old Junior High School gym, was the venue for A Toast to Main Street. This Maine Downtown Center event held on Thursday November 9 saw Westbrook officially designated a Main Street America community - one of only 10 in Maine. This is an incredible honor that shows how far Westbrook has come and that our city has so much to offer. The Maine Downtown Center's core program is Main Street, which is a proven Four-Point Approach® to downtown revitalization developed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1980 and is currently used in 44 states in over 2,200 communities.
L-R: Jim Born (Westbrook Planning Board - Retired),
Christine Johnson (W-G Rotary), Mike Sanphy (Mayor)
Special guest speaker was Ed McMahon, Senior Fellow of the Urban Land Institute in Washington, DC and Board President of the National Main Street Center. In addition, there were speakers from the Maine Development Foundation and Maine Downtown Center. Also, a delegation from the Gorham Dowtown Alliance was recognized with Maine Downtown Network designation for their efforts to revitalize Gorham’s downtown.
L/T: Ed McMahon R/B: Gorham Downtown Alliance
At the event, a new organization name was announced for Downtown Westbrook Coalition – Discover Downtown Westbrook. Congratulations to the Board of DDW including President Deb Shangraw, VP Phil Spiller, and all Board members, including Becky Albert, former Rotarian Ann Peoples, and Executive Director Abigail Cioffi, our speaker this week.
Discover Downtown Westbrook Board
The event was sponsored by many local businesses and food was provided by a wide cross section of local restaurants including: Mister Bagel, Top Kabob, Bamboo Bistro, Westbrook House of Pizza, Stockhouse, Daily Grind BreaLu Café, Fajita Grill, Mast Landing Brewing, Yes Brewing, Profennos, Bakers Bench, Casa Novello, Black Dinah and Mainely Meatballs. Local business sponsors included: Peoples United Bank, Central Maine Power, Lee Auto Malls, Bangor Savings, Northeast Event Design, University of Southern Maine, Acadia Insurance, Reny’s, Convenient MD, Waterstone Properties, Sappi, Idexx and Emerald Management, among many others.
L/T: Lynn Derocher Convenient MD R/B: Josh Levy Waterstone Properties
Finally, a huge thanks to Scott Linscott who provided his photographic skills to document this fun evening.
Mike Foley conducted training to familiarize club members with our new sales tool, the Square. Using the Square and associated application on an iPad, we’ll be able to accept credit and debit cards as we sell trees this year. This includes chip cards, swipe cards, and payments via iPhones (NFC). Even cash/check payments will be recorded in the application so we’ll have real-time inventory of our trees and wreaths. Mike demonstrated how easy it is to use.
For those who missed the training, we’ll be sure you receive a tutorial prior to your first shift. We are excited for this opportunity for sales opportunity and inventory control.
We will be setting up the tree sale lot on Tuesday November 21, immediately following lunch at WRVC. Our lot is in the municipal parking lot at the corner of Mechanic St and William Clarke Dr. Tree delivery will be on Friday morning November 24. Time to be announced.
Please use Sign Up Genius on line to volunteer for work shifts. We ask each member to initially select at least 3 shifts. Go to: Sign Up Genius Rotary Tree Sale 2017 . It is easiest to sign up if you create an account using your email address and creating a password. In this way you can enter you contact info once and it will be available when you sign up for additional times. If you need assistance, contact Mike or Christine.
We have been receiving many requests to provide programs recently so have not assigned members to specific weeks as we have done in the past. If you have an idea for a program, please contact Christine Johnson. We are currently seeking programs for November and beyond. We are now scheduling programs for March.
Here is the list of upcoming dates with speakers and their sponsors:
* 11/14 - Abigail Cioffi - Downtown Westbrook Coalition - Phil Spiller
* 11/21 - Christmas Tree Sales Lot Set Up immediately following lunch
* 11/28 - Dave Perron -Exec Dtr Big Brothers/Big Sisters
*12/5 - Club Assembly
* 12/12 - No Meeting - Christmas Party at the Reidman's
* 12/19 - Jana Allain - Woodfords Family Services
* 12/26 - No meeting - Christmas Break
* 1/2 - No meeting - Happy New Year
* 1/9 - Sarah Hutchins - Induction & Classification Talk
* 1/16 - Ken Hawley - CEO Transformation Project - Project Update
* 1/23 - Dan Stevenson - Economic Development Director Westbrook
Pat's Pizza 844 Roosevelt Trail, Windham, ME 04062
Portland - Fridays 12:15PM at Holiday Inn by the Bay or Clarion
check website for current week's venue
OR you can always claim a make up by attending Rotary-sponsored events of our club or other clubs like fundraisers, selling Christmas Trees, by volunteering at our Golf Tournament or our Road Race, or by attending District events or training. Just let our Secretary Mike Foley know when you have participated in any of these activities at mfoley@me.com
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