Monday Noon, Los Robles Lodge
925 Edwards Ave., Santa Rosa, California

Bulletin
April 17, 2000
by Ginny Pitts

Project Amigo:
An Adventure with Rotary

The meeting was called to order by Past President Bob Marigo ('90-'91) at exactly 12:34pm. This is the 3rd meeting of 4 presided over by Mr. Marigo. When he announced this fact a rousing cheer was given by our Rotary group.

The pledge was led by Past President Jim Sullivan ('81-82) and our Rotary Moment was nicely given by Mike Mullins.. Past President Bob Miller (PP '89-'90) welcomed all visiting Rotarians and many raffle tickets were sold by Tom Laengle. Thanks guys

"No Fred, you put the black Queen on the red King!"  Past President Bob was heard muttering to himself. "Why even I can do that on I MY computer!"

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Past President Bill Gittins ('96-'97) announced the nominations for term 2000-2001 for Rotary Board Of Directors as follows: Chuck Stark, President, Brian Herndon, Vice President elect, Fred Smarzly, Secretary and Ray Mattison, Treasurer. We voted and it passed unanimously.

Our own District Governor Mike Merrill (PP '94-'95) talked about the district conference coming up starting May 4th. Since we are the host club Mike would like as many of us Rotarians as possible to be in attendance. The golf classic is on Thursday at Santa Rosa Golf & Country Club. Please consider being there.

Past President Bob emphasized that our club will NOT be dark on May 1st and 8th.

Past President Rich Pratt ('85-'86) will be presiding as acting president for the month of May. By then he will have recovered from the tax season so it will be a good time to ask him some tax related questions.

Bob Marigo and Bob Miller, co-chairs of the shoe program, said they had received a thank you note from the schools for our donation. Thanks to both Bobs for all their efforts and hard work. That's what its all about folks!

Past President Bob Miller paused during his introduction of visiting Rotarians to remind Past President Bob Marigo "just what he was doing up there again!"

Past Prez Bob announced that Jimmy Underhill had an emergency visit to the hospital for a blockage in his heart. Thanks to the miracle of stents Jimmy is expected to be fine and we pass a speedy recovery to him. Please drop a card to Jim. We are thinking of you Jimmy and hold you close to us.

Neal Silverman introduced 2 close friends to the club who in turn presented a video of a wonderful project they are doing. Bill Fortney and his son Wes are traveling all over the country photographing the countryside from an ultra light. They were here in the beautiful Northern California Wine Country to photograph the vineyards and surrounding area. This looks like the best fun a father and son can have. Bill teaches photography workshops all over the world. They will be producing a lovely book called "America from 500 feet". This book will be chock full of wonderful natural sites from all over our country. Look for it on the best sellers list in the fall! Bill was a great presenter and entertained us with some of his "Kentucky" humor. Thanks to Neil for sharing Bill and Wes and the great video of their wonderful sites.

Bill Fortney entertained us with some of his special brand of "Kentucky Humor".

PROGRAM

Ted Rose and his wife Susan Hill are co-founders of Project Amigo, a joint adventure with Rotary in the State of Colima, Mexico. Project Amigo is a non-profit project started 16 years ago to help educate a large number of rural area children who do not attend school. These are poor migrant families that do not have the means to educate their children. Only 17% of these children go on to junior high school.

Ted Rose and his wife Susan Hill gave us a wonderful program on Project Amigo

Ted and Susan live in Colima for about 10 months of the year and have helped build a permanent tutoring building at the migrant camps. The children live and learn at the school during the week and receive clothing and good nutritious meals but return home on the weekends and holidays to be with their families.

This is a wonderful program that concentrates not only on education but offers enrichment, scholarships, a homework club, computer labs with donations from rotary clubs. Any rotary member can work at Project Amigo during their winter work weeks or any time. This is a great example of what Rotary is about.

Rotary International President Frank Devlin sums it up: "Create awareness and take action, education can change a life."