Past President Barbara Harris read an inspiring Ojibwa poem by a Native American Indian, ending:

 

Due to newly imposed restrictions by our governor, in-person club meetings at The Marriott will be postponed until most likely December. Our meetings going forward will be on Tuesdays by Zoom.

 

Nondas Voll reminded us that Tuesday’s meeting on November 10 will have Political Analyst, Scott MacKay as our speaker.

 

Kris David announced the Cards for Veterans Program where our signed thank you cards will be delivered to the Veteran’s Facility in Bristol. 50 cards were signed by Rotarians at our in-person meeting at the Squantum Club. Rotarians need to purchase cards themselves. They can be bought for $1.00 for 8 cards at a local dollar store. For more information, call at Kris at 401- 480-1419.

 

President Bryan announced two Paul Harris Fellowships being awarded for donations of at least $1,000 to The Rotary Foundation by Mary Brewster and Kevin Oates.

 

Margaret Kane gave 10 Happy Bucks because the election will be over on Tuesday (fortunately she didn’t say which Tuesday). An extra buck for Suzanne Cannon.

 

Wendy Marcus gave 5 Happy Bucks for the win of South Carolina over Boston College, for Ray Rickman and Robb Dimmick, for Alan Goer’s birthday and son, Mackenzie’s birthday and welcome to Suzanne Cannon.

 

Jim Gilcreast gave 2 Happy Bucks because he is happy and Richard Leone’s auto repair shop did a great job repairing his car.

 

Don Saracen gave two Happy Bucks for Suzanne and Jerry Cannon for all their service to our club and to his grandnephew, an EMT who is recovering from a terrible accident.

 

Kris David gave Happy Bucks for Mary and Kevin’s Paul Harris Fellowship awards. Also for Margaret Kane who gave $100 to Polio Plus.

 

Anthony Hollingshead gave a Happy Buck for Ed Fox, our newest member.

 

Mary Brewster gave a Happy Buck for Suzanne Cannon.

 

Chairman Paul Segal announced the Providence Rotary Charities Foundation’s annual grant totaling $40,400 to 24 agencies for the year ended last June 30. See the complete list here.

 

All members will be receiving an appeal letter soon requesting donations to the club’s foundation, which also supports the Childhood Literacy Initiative and other local and international needs. Paul asks that we all give generously to help meet the goals of Rotary and our club.

 

Paul introduced leaders of three recipient organizations to describe how grants from the club foundation have supported their work:

 

Ray Rickman and Robb Dimmick co-founded Stages of Freedom in March. They have successfully reached out to 12,000 subscribers with important messages to help inform and educate on ways to avoid Covid-19. This virus has greatly impacted the Black, Latino, and Native American communities.

 

Melissa Emidy from Inspiring Minds thanked the Foundation for the $2500 contribution in support of in-school virtual tutoring and mentoring, the Pen Pal Club, Kids Bridges Summer Learning Programs, and Book Bag Delivery which delivered 3000 books to 1075 Children. She thanked the Rotarians who have given 223 hours of service.

 

Kaitlyn Delagroda from RISE, Rhode Island Sponsoring Education, spoke about working with 655 children, 555 mentors, 54 schools. RISE supports children of incarcerated parents. Kaitlyn introduced Raisa Gonzalez who has been involved in RISE for 9 years. Her son is now a senior in college. He will be the first college graduate in her family!  She spoke with emotion about what RISE has meant to her and her family.