“The environment is where we all meet; where we all have a mutual interest; it is the one thing all of us share.” – Lady Bird Johnson – 1912-2007 –American First Lady

 

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust – 1871-1922 – French Novelist

 

“I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.” – Mother Teresa – 1910-1997 – Saint-Nobel Peace Prize Recipient

 

 

ANNOUNCEMENTS

(notes provided by the unconventional and unorthodox Paul Conforti)

 

March Bucket Bucks recipient is Books for Prisoners. Bucket Bucks checks can be mailed to Lou Simpson, 1408 S Hillcrest St, Urbana, IL 61801. Checks can be made out to C-U Sunrise Rotary Foundation.

 

Service Opportunity: Feeding Our Kids, Saturday, March 27 from 10-Noon. Contact Mary Kay if you can participate.

 

PROGRAM

 

Our speaker this week was Lisa Wilson, Executive Director of The Refugee Center in Champaign.  The Refugee Center was founded in 1980 by Vietnamese refugees to provide commonly needed services to other newly arrived refugees, and to help them acclimatize to American culture. In its 40 years of service to our community, The Refugee Center has expanded its scope to assist all immigrants, political asylees, and refugees, regardless of country of origin.

 

The Refugee Center exists to provide essential services to refugee and immigrant resettlement in East Central Illinois, and to aid in the exchange and preservation of their respective cultures.  The Refugee Center moved into its current location in April 2019. It is now located on Kenyon Road at the Champaign-Urbana Public Health building. Along with larger quarters the new location is easily accessible by car and is served by MTD bus. At the larger quarters other services are also readily available such as immunizations, neo-natal care, and dental care.

 

12% of Champaign County’s residents can be considered refugees. The largest groups are Guatemalan, Vietnamese, and Congolese. While there is always a need for volunteers in a variety of roles, language skills in Vietnamese, French (Congo) and non-Spanish Guatemalan languages. While Spanish is spoken by 55% of all Guatemalans, refugees from Guatemala primarily belong to marginalized sub-groups such as Garifuna.

 

The Refugee Center provides the following services:

  • Social services, including counseling, tutoring, and health education.
  • Mediation services, including VISA extensions, immigration attorney referral, interpreter assistance for
  • employment, school, landlord and court, help applying for eligible government benefits.
  • Language assistance including paperwork translation in Spanish, French, Vietnamese, Russian, Cantonese, Mandarin, and others on request.

 

Volunteering is a great way to help the most underserved people in the community. Volunteers are needed in the following areas: Tutoring, especially English; Translate documents; Serve as an interpreter; Teach citizenship classes.

 

 

 

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  Mar 25th Apr 1st Apr 8th Apr 15th
         
Reflection Tod Satterthwaite Jarrod Scheunemann Jen Shelby  
Notetaker Perry Hodson Conforti Perry

 

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UPCOMING SCHEDULE (with program committee member responsible listed in parentheses)

*All meetings via Zoom unless otherwise noted*

 

March 25th – Albert E. Jenner, Jr. Professor of Law at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Director of the Illinois Program in Constitutional Theory, History, and Law will discuss the First Amendment (Tom)

April 1st – TBD (Diana)

April 8th – Lin Warfel will discuss farming technology and agricultural issues (Bob)

April 15th – TBD (Cary)

April 22nd – TBD (Charlie)

April 29th – Club Social – no morning meeting

May 6th – Winnie Stortzum will discuss her trip to Portugal (Mary)

May 13th – TBD (Tom)

May 20th – TBD (Bob)

May 27th – TBD (Cary)

June 3rd – TBD (Charlie)

June 10th – TBD (Mary)

June 17th – TBD (Ondine)

June 24th – Pass the Gavel ceremony