OCTOBER 23, 2019

Meeting Recap

Greetings fellow Rotarians! Our speaker today was State Treasurer Beth Pearce who discussed Vermont’s underfunded pension funds for State employees. To rectify this issue, the Treasurer’s office proposed, and the Legislature adopted, a payment schedule that, starting in 2020, will be phased in with annual 3% incremental increases to account for the long-term rate of inflation. The hope is that this plan will pay down the unfunded liability by 2038.

Feed My Starving Children Service Project

This past Saturday, over 30 Rotarians and their family members worked to put together enough food packages to feed 122 children in impoverished nations for a year! Thank you to all who volunteered for this event. A special thank you goes out to Amy Jackman for coordinating our Club’s participation in this project!

Annual Senior Luncheon

The annual senior luncheon is scheduled for Wednesday, December 4th at the Champlain Valley Expo. As always, we will be looking for volunteers that day to help serve food, put together goodie bags and clean up. We are also looking for items to be donated for use in the goodie bags. If you or your business have pens, trinkets or items that you wish to donate, we would need 250 of those items to distribute. Please contact Janet Cooper at jcooper@cooperfinancialvt.com if you are able to donate items.

Salvation Army Bell-Ringing Project

Our Club has once again committed to providing volunteers to ring bells and collect money for the Salvation Army during the holiday season. We have committed to filling slots in front of the Price Chopper and Essex Discount Beverage entrances on Friday, December 6th and Saturday, December 7th. A sign-up sheet for shifts will be on the website soon.

Service Above Self Nominations

Dave Johnson is currently soliciting nominations for our next Service Above Self Award recipient. Nominees must be individuals who demonstrate exemplary humanitarian service, in any form at any level, with an emphasis on personal service and helping citizens in our community. Please submit your nominations and a brief paragraph on why you feel your nominee is worthy of consideration by October 31st to Dave Johnson at mdjkiln@gmail.com

Heavenly Pantry Food Shelf

We are looking for volunteers to help staff the Heavenly Pantry Food Shelf on the following dates; Monday, November 11th (5:15pm); and Thursday, November 21st (3:30pm). Please contact Sharon Dettenrieder at sharon.dettenrieder@gmail.com if you are able to fill any of these shifts.

Upcoming Meeting Schedule: Wednesday, October 30, 2019 – Our speaker will be Linda Bowden from the AARP. Just as a reminder, this will be a morning meeting that starts at 7:30am at The Essex.

For the complete list of upcoming speakers and information about the Club, please go to our website at rotaryclubofessex.org Be sure to also follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/EssexVermontRotary , on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/essexvermontrotary/ and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/essex_rotary

Yours in Rotary,

Jason Ruwet