“It is easy to love the people far away. It is not always easy to love those close to us. It is easier to give a cup of rice to relieve hunger than to relieve the loneliness and pain of someone unloved in our own home. Bring love into your home for this is where our love for each other must start.” ― Mother Teresa 

 

“I know that in life there will be sickness, devastation, disappointments, heartache – it’s a given. What’s not a given is the way you choose to get through it all. If you look hard enough, you can always find the bright side.” ― Rashida Jones 

 

ANNOUNCEMENTS
(Notes provided by THE Allan Penwell)

Ata thanked everyone who attended the Veterans Day One on One event. He particularly thanked Paul for donating printed materials and Darrell for the photography. Good to see our Rotarians volunteering!

Lauren Henry was introduced as our Outbound Rotary Exchange Student. She attended with her parents David and Tiffany Marten. Tiffany was an exchange student herself and was sponsored by Danville Sunrise Rotary. Lauren is looking forward to learning other cultures and the family atmosphere of the program. She will choose 12 out of 43 sponsoring countries as to where she will go overseas.

Our group will volunteer for the Salvation Army again this year to ring the bell on December 16th from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m at the North Prospect Walmart. Sign-ups will be coming.

Bucket money for November will go to Veterans Day One on One. Bucket Money for December will go to Prairielands Council of the Boy Scouts of America.

 

PROGRAM

Adelaide Aimé has been working in the social service field since 1984 starting out as a rape crisis center volunteer at an agency in another state. In January of this year Aime was hired to guide the re-building of RACES (Rape, Advocacy, Counseling and Education Services), an agency that was reduced to a skeleton by the Illinois state budget impasse. Since January, full services have been restored and the staff has increased from 1 to 6.

 

In addition to staff, the organization has 40-60 volunteers spread out over Champaign, Ford, Piatt, and Douglas counties. Advocates of RACES have over 40 hours of training and handle 200 calls per year. They go to emergency rooms, obtain orders of protection from predators, go to court, and assist with housing.  RACES has a 24/7 hotline and is ready to help at any time of day.

 

Referrals are by word of mouth, but Adelaide notes it is important to get the word out so they can help with their message of hope. The good news is that incidents have been cut in half since she started in social work. It is partially because crime is down in general, but society has changed, and predators are now held accountable.

 

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  Nov 23rd Nov 30th Dec 7th Dec 14th
Introductions No meeting Ethan Chew Mary Kay Smith Charlie Smith
Invocation this week Rod Roberts Tod Satterthwaite Angie Schoonover
Greeters due to Ethan Chew Mary Kay Smith Charlie Smith
Turkey Time Darrell Hoemann Larry Johnson Andrew Kerins
Song Leader Festival Allan Penwell Ed Perry Rod Roberts
Notetaker   Penwell Hodson Conforti

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

November 23rd – Thanksgiving, No Meeting

November 30th – Brant Houston, Professor and Knight Chair in Investigative & Enterprise Reporting, UIUC, will speak to our club  about data journalism and investigative reporting (Phyllis)

December 7th – Jerry Hunt, Champaign Juvenile Detention Officer (Diana)

December 14th – TBD

December 21st – TBD

December 28th – TBD

January 4th – TBD

January 11th – Micah Kenfield, Sustainability Programs Coordinator, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Phyllis)

January 18th – TBD

January 25th – TBD

February 1st – TBD

February 8th – Captain Anthony Corapi, Commanding Officer of US Navy ROTC at UIUC (Bob)

February 15th – TBD

February 22nd – Dennis Hesch, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, The Carle Foundation, will discuss  Carle’s expansion/development at the Curtis/I-57 interchange (Phyllis)