President- elect Bryan Cook presided over the meeting for President Geoff. He asked members for a moment of silence in memory of Geoff’s grandfather who recently passed.

 

Don Saracen shared an inspiration from Saint Francis of Assisi: “Start by doing what’s necessary, then what’s possible; and then suddenly you’ll be able to do the impossible.”

 

Art Norwalk reported that as part of the club’s literacy initiative, $1,600 will be spent to provide each of the 250 kindergarten and 1^st grade students at the Kizirian School with three age appropriate books, paper and pens, etc. to support their learning at home. The books are on order and Inspiring Minds will help with distribution.

 

Bryan welcomed a number of Metro Rotary Club members to the meeting including Jenny Miller and Lynn Dailey, Pres-elect.

 

Congressman David Cicilline will be our guest speaker at the Monday, May 4, online meeting.

 

Clara Decerbo, director of the Providence Emergency Management Agency and Providence Rotary member, updated the club on the key role the agency plays in protecting Providence residents from the impact of Covid-19. 

 

They started tracking Covid 19 in early January after receiving reports of confirmed cases of human to human transmission of the virus. While they kept track of the worldwide spread of the disease, they developed a local operational plan for the city. On March 14 this plan was launched using a mostly virtual operations center with most employees working from home.

 

To address food insecurity 360,000 meals have been provided through school programs (breakfast, lunch and dinner,) delivery to the Providence Housing Authority apartments and those in quarantine. This is just a start as they are still ramping up the food distribution effort.

 

Other key initiatives include working with the State to meet the challenge of making testing accessible to more residents through walk-up sites and mobile vans. Providence has been hit particularly hard because of population density with 2300 cases reported as of April 27.

 

Nondas Voll was happy because the Rotary Book Club was meeting on Zoom today.

 

Jim Gilcreast is happy as usual, he doesn’t want to mention any good things that might be happening with any of his sports teams, he might jinx them!

 

Mary Brewster thanked Clara Decerbo for her work to keep us safe.

 

Wendy Marcus in honor of Geoff’s grandfather.

 

Everyone was happy to see Tiffany, her husband, and daughter, Penelope!