Regular Meeting, October 21, 2009

(The CLK Photo Archive contained a photo of the late Mr. Perona [left] playing his accordion at our first community spaghetti dinner, Mr. Perona, who was also a wonderful spoon and bone player, died recently and will be missed by the community.)


Today’s guests were Linda Grahek (without Dave as he is downstate for 2 weeks) and visiting Rotarian John Weting from Marquette, accompanied by his wife, Marny. John is our District Rotary Foundation chair.

Several announcements were made including Amy Roberts announcing a Wine Tasting Party sponsored by the Keweenaw Business & Professional Women. President Jim Lowell announced his nephew owns the Lockheed Electra 12 airplane used in the new movie Amelia.

Multiple Happy Dollars were collected.

John Weting presented a program focusing on our Rotary foundation. John provided handouts about the Foundation as well as statistics on Rotary and our District 6220 Foundation giving. He asked our club “Why did you join Rotary?”. Answers included the fellowship and dedication to the community, participation in the Rotary Youth Exchange, the fight against polio and many others items. One comment was “…to have fun!!”.

Most local service clubs support their communities. Rotary is the leader of International involvement. Contributions to the RIF (Rotary International Foundation) are held for 3 yrs and then 50% is sent to the district Foundation Funds and 50% is routed to the international Foundation. The foundation is operated off the earnings of the RIF. We have many methods of giving to the RIF – our Club has two 5X5 groups where members are contributing $200 per yr for 5 yrs and each yra a new Paul Harris Fellow will be recognized.

John gave the following information about the world population and the USA: 1/6 of the world population lives on $1 USD per day or less. Americans are perceived to be benevolent people who freely give to many charities and organizations. However: the USA spend $32 billion/yr on coffee, $35 billion/yr on beer. $60 billion/yr on soft drinks and $103 billion on fast food.

Americans have money that can be used to support those who are in need and Rotary is the key service club to facilitate those contributions using the Rotary International Foundation.