Food Drive - Saturday September 9 - 9AM-2PM at Hannaford in Westbrook, to benefit Westbrook Food Pantry and Westbrook High School Food Pantry. Drive coordinated by Westbrook-Gorham Rotary, Westbrook Kiwanis, and Downtown Westbrook Coalition. We will be collecting non-perishable items and accepting cash donations. You can help by dropping off donations that day. Volunteers are needed and we hope to include Interact Club members to help. See list of requested items in story below. Contact Christine Johnson for information.
Hurricane Harvey Relief& Recovery - See story below for information about Rotary's Gulf Coast Disaster Relief Fund .
September is Rotary's Basic Education & Literacy Month - We encourage members to bring in new or gently used children's books to any meeting this month. Books will be used in our book boxes. Perhaps you have friends, colleagues or relatives who are doing fall cleaning, or have recently grown children. Most popular books are toddlers through age 10.
FBC Community Meal - Saturday September 16 - 733 Main St Westbrook. Free meal, third Saturday of every month, 4:30-6PM. Next dinner is September 16. People who want to help serve the meals arrive at 4:15PM. Those who would like to help cleanup, do dishes, etc, arrive by 5:45PM. There is also need for “intentional diners”, those who just want to sit, eat, chat, and listen to the stories of their fellow diners. If you would like to help, please contact Scott Linscott.
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.
CLYNK for Literacy – Ongoing - Keep those cans and bottles coming! Drop off your filled CLYNK bag at any Hannaford (drop off locations can be found at: https://www.clynk.com/locations/maine/ . Thanks to those who have contributed bottles so far to help purchase books that we donate for each speaker. If you need more CLYNK bags, they are available at each meeting.
With an estimated damage of $190 billion, Hurricane Harvey could be the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history. The Rotary Foundation has established a single fund to support Rotarians in their relief efforts for the devastation left by Hurricane Harvey in Houston and other parts of the Gulf Coast. It's called the Gulf Coast Disaster Relief Donor Advised Fund (DAF).
This DAF has been established in consultation with the District Governors of the Gulf region, through The Rotary Foundation. The fund is collecting relief contributions; RI is working with leaders from the affected districts to create a process for disbursing DAF funds to their respective district foundations or local 501c3 organizations to support local relief efforts.
Information about contributing to the Gulf Coast DAF is available on the Rotary website. This page will continue to be updated as needed.
Make check payable to The Rotary Foundation DAF and send to Rotary DAF, c/o NRS, 12 Gill Street, Suite 2600, Woburn, MA, 01801, write "Gulf Coast Disaster Relief Fund #608” on the memo line. Or you can make a credit card donation at: Rotary DAF Contribution. Be sure to note the fund name and number on the form.
Other ways to help:
ShelterBox, Rotary’s partner for disaster relief, is providing tents for use as ‘privacy tents’ to be pitched within the convention centers housing families that have been evacuated.
You can reach out to RI about specific initiatives by writing to relief@rotary.org.
The 23rd Annual Rotary Golf Classic is fast approaching - Tuesday September 19, 2017. The Golf Committee has been hard at work soliciting sponsors and teams, but we need "all hands on deck" to make this our most successful year ever.
At last report, we had 11 teams and 29 hole sponsors. With goals this year to field at least 20 teams and reach 40 hole sponsors, we are making progress, but there is still more work to do.
You can help! Please consider entering a team or sponsoring a hole. Ask your friends, family and colleagues to join you in supporting this even. Our 2017 brochure that explains it all is available on our website at: Rotary Classic. People can also learn about this event on FaceBook: Rotary Classic Event
Prizes for the Raffle are also needed. $10-$25 gift cards to local establishments, golf related items, or other items with value of $10 to $50 (or more!) are appreciated. Contact Ethan Johnson to donate.
This will be our Club's largest fundraiser of the year - with your help!.
Please note. The Golf Committee will meet after our regular lunch meeting on September 5. All members are welcome.
Westbrook Fire Chief Andrew Turcotte introduced his friend and colleague Bob MacKenzie, Police Chief of Kennebunk ME and member of Kennebunk Rotary Club. The topic this week - a new committee formed this year in District 7780 called the Recovery Initiative. Bob has been Police Chief in Kennebunk for 9 years, a Rotarian for over 10 years, and is chairing this new committee. Creating the Recovery initiative has given him the opportunity to marry his background and interest in public safety with service in Rotary.
Drug overdose is the leading cause of accidental death in the US. In 2016, there were over 52,000 deaths nationwide from drug overdoses, 378 of those in Maine. Opioid addiction is driving this epidemic. It is projected that over 650,000 people across the US will die due to opioids in the next decade. Nationally, we spend in excess of $400B annually against substance misuse.
According to a 2010 study, from 1980s-2009, fighting substance misuse cost about $1654 per year for every US citizen over 18. Bob estimates that this cost has at least doubled since then. Since addiction drives criminal behavior, these costs are seen in: policing, court costs, security, health insurance/health care, and property insurance/property loss.
Chief MacKenzie with Chief Turcotte and Mike Foley
The Recovery Initiative touches on all six of Rotary’s areas of focus: Disease Prevention – addiction is a disease that can be treated and prevented. Economic Development – active addicts are not working or contributing to the economy. Clean Water – keeping drugs out of the waste stream through reduced drug use and drug take-backs. Education & Literacy – addicted parents can’t keep their child fed or help them learn. Peace & Conflict Resolution – addiction drives crime.
One project already underway is the Red Ribbon Committee of the Biddeford Saco Rotary Club. Their goal is to educate youth and their community about substance misuse and encourage participation in drug prevention activities. This includes mentoring at-risk youth.
On Saturday September 9, the Kennebunk Rotary Club is hosting a 3-hour training class. The class will include overdose recognition, first aid (including compression-only CPR), and administering NARCAN. Bob hopes to train more Rotarians who can bring that training to their communities. For more information, contact Bob at: rmackenzie@kennebunkmaine.us
Bob MacKenzie signed a book for the Baxter Library
World Polio Day will be held in Seattle this year in recognition of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s support of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. A generous District 7780 Rotarian has donated airfare and a hotel room for one of us to travel to Seattle for World Polio Day on October 24. This is a chance to be in the audience and see “up close and personal” what major players in this field have to say.
Make a donation to Polio Plus of at least $25 between July 1st and September 30, 2017 to enter the drawing. Each individual donor, regardless of the amount given, will be eligible for the drawing and the lucky winner will be heading west in October. If you make your donation on-line, it can be made any time right up to September 30. If you choose to do it by check, mail it by September 22 to be sure it will get to Evanston in time to be processed. Every donation is eligible for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s 2:1 match, so your contribution is tripled.
What’s Included: Round trip airfare from Portland or Boston to Seattle, hotel room for two nights in Seattle. You are responsible for meals and other incidentals.
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 October and beyond.
Here is the list of upcoming dates with speakers and their sponsors:
* 9/5 - Becky Albert - Classification Talk- Celebrate International Literacy Day
* 9/12 - District Governor Dave Underhill - Bill Chadwick
* 9/19 - Golf Tournament - No Meeting
* 9/26 - Marty Helman - District Foundation Chair - Steve Rand
* 10/3 - Club Assembly
* 10/10 - WHS Interact and RYLA with Bruce Dyer - Dave Rolfe
* 10/17 - Scott Linscott - Classification Talk
* 10/24 - Lawrence Furbish - World Polio Day
* 10/31 - Owens McCullough - New Rotary House Update
* 11/7 - Abigail Cioffi - Downtown Westbrook Coalition - Phil Spiller
* 11/14 - Your Speaker Here!!
* 11/21 - In-Meeting Service Project - Details Soon!!
* 11/28 - Your Speaker Here!!
*12/5 - Club Assembly
* 12/12 - No Meeting - Christmas Party at the Reidman's
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
.jpg)
.png)
.jpg?_=636401457390887744)