May 22, 2013 Newsletter

By John Hammer

Charlotte Shelburne Rotary

Wednesday, May 22, 2013, 7:15 a.m.

Trinity Episcopal Church Community Room

Welcome

President Adam Bartsch opened the meeting with the Pledge. Kris Engstrom gave the devotional.

Guests: Mikie Marcotte, Grandson of Gary Marcotte – left early with Gary

              Multiple Guests who were part of the program – see below

 

Quote for the Week: “I’ll be back” by Jim Spad upon announcement of his moving to Oklahoma, and

“The strength of the program (Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program) is the people.” Spoken by Alyssa Vigneault

 

Word for the Day: Look for the * and definition at end.

 

Upcoming:

May 29 – Colleen Haag will speak about Lyme Disease

June 5 – There will be no meeting

June 6:  District Governor and Club Presidential Change of Guard at Shelburne Farms Coach Barn.

June 12 – Committee Meetings

June 13 – Board Meeting
June 19 – Brenda Torpy, Champlain Valley Housing Trust

June 21 – Bowlathon

July 30 – Camp TaKumTa – Serving Breakfast 6-9:30 AM

Announcements

Changing of the Guard Party        

Two weeks until the Changing of the Guard.  It will take place between 6 and 9 at the Coach Barns at Shelburne Farms. All members are urged to let Linda know if they are coming and if they will be bringing guests. Members are encouraged to pay John Beal before the event to simplify the evening.  $40 per person which includes the meal (Roast beef and vegetable lasagna).

Club Bowlathon

It’s coming up, Friday, June 21 at the Champlain Lanes. There is still time to submit lists to Ric for solicitation.  Lane sign-up began at this meeting.  Time to think about whom you would like to take part on your team.

Shelburne Events

The Shelburne Annual Memorial Day observance will be held on the Parade Ground this coming Monday.  An holocaust survivor is to speak.  The Shelburne Farmers Market opens for the year this Saturday.

Jim Spad’s Humor

Jim announced that after forty-one years as a member of this club, he was going to be moving to Edmund, Oklahoma in mid-July.  He and Paula will then be near their oldest daughter and grandchildren.  They put their house on the market as a trial run and it was sold in two days for more than the asking price.  Jim will be very sad to leave and he will be seriously missed.

Sergeant at Arms

Happy Fines

Fritz – Happy to report that that U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee passed the modified immigration bill out to the floor. To that end, in celebration and in recognition of all the refugees who were visiting today, he read the poem by Emma Lazarus found on the base of the Statue of Liberty.  You will find the poem below:

Bill Root – For Fritz and his inspirational reading of the poem and Alan’s Scholarship Committee’s work.

He worked at Camp TaKumTa last weekend with members of the Rutland South Rotary Club.  They were doing some carpentry maintenance and their work there was the direct result of Bill’s having told them about our club’s dedication to serving an annual breakfast.

Terry Kennaugh – Just returned with a 37’ motor home which he has driven from Dallas over two months.

Michael Clapp – His boat goes in the water today.

Tom Glaser – Happy to have had a highly successful wedding of his son last week in Newport Beach, CA

Mal Parker – Very happy to have been at the Glaser wedding, and for the birth of a granddaughter on April 16. She is the first girl born into his family in two generations.

Michael Lash – Glad to be back and in honor of his daughter’s scholarship win.

Alan Hathaway – For the great work of the Scholarship committee

Linda Barker – She, too, with Gerry was at the Glaser wedding. Sad to see Jim leave, but also for the departure of her son and family to California next week.

Linda Gilbert – Relatives and friends in Oklahoma are safe in Oklahoma

Dave Jonah - Daughter’s birthday last Sunday and spontaneous dinner with Chris and Suzanne Davis last Friday

Steve Dates – For Jim Spad, the Refugee Program and the wonderful trip Elaine is making to Seattle for the National Garden Clubs Meeting.

Kris Engstrom – For the fact that all the tables were full this morning.

Ric Flood – For that day forty years ago when he bumped into Jim Spad in a bar in White Plains, NY.  He will miss him greatly.

Jim Spad – Happy for his forty-one years with this club.  “I’ll be back.”

Ric’s felicitations and wishes for good luck were echoed by many of the happy fines.

And serendipitously ------

Jim Spadaccini drew the Joker.  Jim takes home the munificent* pot of $44. Congratulations, Jim!

Club Scholarship Presentations

Alan Hathaway, Chair of the Club Scholarship Committee presented two of this year’s scholarship winners.  It seems that the third Wednesday of every year this presentation takes place at our club.  He thanked his committee of Dave Rice, Linda Barker, Joan Lennes, Bob Sanders, Adam Bartsch, and Trafton Crandall for their work.  The applicant numbers are increasing every year with last year’s 16 increasing to 25 this year. Of these, ten met the VSAC requirements for deadlines and completeness.  VSAC says our applicants are uniformly the best respondents that they have. Given the growth of public service programs in schools nowadays, he expects that our club’s service-oriented scholarship applications will increase markedly in coming years and asked that any member who is interested would be most welcome to join the committee in its important work. The award checks are sent directly to the awardees’ educational institution.

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l.r: Michelle, Emily, and Michael Lash, Claire Collwell and mother.

The winners who were present were:

·      Claire Colwell from Hinesburg. She is a sophomore at Wheaton College in Illinois. She participates in a program which visits homeless street people in Chicago. Rather than focusing on giving out food they focus on building the homeless persons’ humanity through recognition and human contact.

·      Erica Lash from Shelburne (Daughter of member Michael and former member Michelle Lash), who is a graduate from Washington University in St. Louis with a major in Spanish. She is entering the University of Rochester, School of Medicine next year and wishes to apply her Spanish to medical practice. Her community service has been with Shelburne Rescue and the Open Door Program in Addison County serving migrant and under-represented citizens.

·      Lily Harris (Bard College) and Catherine Akin (UVM) - both of whom were unable to attend because they were required to attend makeup classes to counteract previous absences due to service projects.

Speaker – Laurie Stavrand, Community Partnership Coordinator and Alyssa Vigneault, Employment Counselor for the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program (VRRP).

 

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Left to Right: Laurie Stavrand, Duc Dang (Viet Nam), Htar Htar (Burma via Thailand), Kapil (Bhutan via India and China), Amir (Bosnia), Ahmed al Saidië (Iraq), Elia (Democratic Republic of Congo via Tanzania), and Yul (South Sudan – The world’s newest country via Kenya). Missing: Sadique and Hamid (Both of Darfur via Ghana)

 

Laurie and Alyssa introduced the work of the VRRP which is essentially to introduce and help assimilate refugees into the Vermont communities.  They help them establish housing, get work, find medical care, schools, transportation, monitor their progresss, and help them get started in many basic ways.  Ways Vermonters can get involved is to reach out, hire, mentor, engage with refugees, volunteer in the program, or donate funds,  furniture and/or household tools.

 

 The strength of the program is the people.

 

The format of the meeting was for groups of one or two of the refugees sit at each table and over ten minutes have the groups interact. The tables then reported on what they learned.

Of the refugees:

Ahmed is a pharmacy technician at CVS in Williston

Elia and Yul are studying International Relations at University of Central Arkansas and are soccer stars.

Htar is a graduate from Middlebury in 2009 with two majors and a minor. She works as an interpreter.

Kapil has a Masters Degree in Business Management (from India) and is a Housing Case Manager at the VRRP.

Duc works with Laurie at VRRP

Amir is studying at University of Central Arkansas

 

World Refugee Day is June 15th.  Here in Vermont there will be a Field Day in which all the clients will aattend a picnic luncheon and a chance to play cross-cultural games such as soccer and volleyball.

 

The takeaways from the tables were:

·      From Htar – Education is the best way to change people’s lives.

·      George Schiavonne – Learned what it is to leave one’s country and the unhappiness of refugee camps. He and his table now have a much greater admiration for refugees after having spoken to Yul and Elia.

·      Alan Hathaway – Impressed about Amid who has been here only six months and they were impressed with how far he has come in assimilating.

·      Howard Seaver – Learned the Duc was an intelligent and ambitious man who is going to do well. They learned that the popular view of Viet Nam is not necessarily what is commonly thought in the US.

·      Steve Dates – Learned a very great deal about Burma and Htar’s life as a refugee in the tightly controlled environment of the refugee camps. She is about to get her citizenship.

·      Pat Sokolowski – Learned how brave the refugees are to come over and integrate so well into our society.

·      Tod Whitaker – Leaned what it was like to live in a refugee camp for 17 years and then come to a wonderful, rural state like Vermont.

·      Fritz Horton – Summed it up by reminding us that all of our families (except those native Americans) have been refugees or immigrants at one time or another and we should not forget that.

·      Subsequent to the meeting, two other refugees, who had gotten misdirected came and were interviewed by John Beal, the Schiavonnes and John Hammer.  They were Sadique and Hamid, both from Darfur (Western North Sudan via Ghana).  Sadique was extremely eloquent and articulate and, for 30 minutes kept us all captivated by the stories of walking by foot and cadging rides across the Sahel from Darfur to Ghana.  He and Hamid both left Darfur with no money or papers and by their smarts and asking for help, managed to get across some of the most unforgiving land on Earth. His comment when asked how he existed was, “You just ask for help and people will give it to you.” He also pointed out that refugee is a definition that applies to a person who has fled from his/her country, not by choice.  A refugee is defined by the UN High Commission for Refugees.  A refugee has three choices, once defined as such: You can be integrated locally in your receiving country (generally where the refugee camp is located), returned to your country (usually unlikely), or if you are one of the  lucky 1 %, be selected for resettlement.

Contact information and the Web Site are at: (Tel) 802-655-1963 and www.RefugeesVermont.org.

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