Summary of the Iowa City Noon Rotary Meeting on March 10, 2016
Kelly Lamb, Manager, Russell and Ann Gerdin American Cancer Society Hope Lodge
Fellow Rotarian Jim Lane introduced Kelly Lamb for today’s program on the Hope Lodge.
The fundraising for the Hope Lodge began in 2006 with many Rotarians involved in the process. The construction was a community effort with a $4 million donation from Russell and Ann Gerdin. The land was provided by the University of Iowa. They broke ground in 2007 and welcomed their first guests in 2008 and became the 28th Hope Lodge nationally and the 1st Hope Lodge in Iowa. Kelly joined the staff in 2009 and is grateful that she was selected to manage this facility where she sees magic every day!
The Russell and Ann Gerdin American Cancer Society Hope Lodge in Iowa City offers a private room for the comfort of its guests and their caregiver. Fostering a home-like environment, the Hope Lodge is equipped with a community dining room, kitchen, family, library, exercise area and laundry facilities. There are no TV’s in the rooms to help create a support system among the guests where everybody has the same thing in common. The Lodge also offers guests a wide variety of cancer programs and services free of charge that provide information, resources, and support to ease the cancer journey for adults undergoing active treatment at one of the area hospitals: UIHC, the VA Hospital or Mercy Hospital, who live at least 40 miles outside of Iowa City.
A majority of their guests come from Polk, Black Hawk and Scott counties in Iowa. The average length of stay is 42 days. Guests receive more than lodging during their stay through the varied programs in art therapy, pet therapy, music, bingo, game nights, movie nights and potluck dinners. Iowa City is such a giving community and volunteers are essential to help things run smoothly and to ensure that all guests enjoy their stay.
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MEETING
Singing: Bob Crane led singing of America the Beautiful and SMILE with Jim Conard on the piano.
Ride the Goat: The club heard from one goat rider, John Lee.
President Thais had the following announcements:
The members all stood for a moment of silence for Long-time Rotarian, John Montgomery.
The club was reminded that the “Do It Yourself” presentation from last week’s meeting was sent out to all our members along with the pre-meeting PowerPoint. The attachment contains the full PowerPoint presentation from last week with helpful information such as logging onto the club website, using the club directory and social media resources. Please “like” our club on Facebook. Doris & John’s photo from last week had 1,372 likes (typically the site sees 75-150 likes per week). Wow!
There is a new process for sharing flags from other clubs across the globe. Mike Schmitz has added a live link on our website. Members can click on the interactive map to view the archived flag for that specific club. Thanks to Mike for providing our members with this valuable link. Here is the link: http://flags.iowacitynoonrotary.org/.
Kelley Drowne had the following announcement:
There are University of Iowa students enrolled in the Full-time MBA program that are wanting to stay local this summer. Please let her know if you have any internship opportunities for these students. Kelley can be reached at: kelley-drowne@uiowa.edu.
Usha Balakrishnan, LaShonda Kennedy & Christina Kimerle had the following announcement:
Calling all women Rotarians who would like to be included in the photograph in this year’s Ovation: A Tribute to Iowa Women and Girls. A $20 donation to The Iowa Women’s Foundation is required in order to be included in the photograph that will appear in the publication. Women are asked to meet in front of The University Club at 11:00 a.m. on March 24. In addition, the goal of the New Member Recruitment Committee is to recruit more women to our club. Currently, 24% of our members are women. For questions, please contact Usha at: usha.iowa@gmail.com.
Sarah Richardson had the following announcement:
Sarah recently attended a Feb. 10 Rotary meeting in St. John and presented their flag to our club. 12 members were in attendance that morning. They were a very enthusiastic group and Sarah taught them to sing and they all joined in to sing Vive Le Rotary! that morning. Sarah is looking forward to returning next year when the group has promised that they will sing and dance with her at the meeting!
Please forward any newsworthy items and/or photos to Casey Kidwell to include in the weekly presentation. You can send information to: secretary@iowacitynoon.rotary.org or to: casey-kidwell@uiowa.edu. The pre-meeting PowerPoint is a great way to reach fellow Rotarians who may not be at the weekly meeting.
For questions related to Club administration, please contact us at secretary@iowacitynoonrotary.org.
Guests and Visiting Rotarians
Brad Baldes introduced Visiting Rotarian Jeremy Reynolds (Somerset-Pulaski Morning) and Ed Rustioni (Washington, Iowa) as well as guests Matt Bulkeley (Jim Lane), Travis Brockett & Cole Lavarias (Christina Kimerle), Joseph Lear (Thais Winkleblack), John Casko (Benny Hawkins), Sean McGivern (Dan McGivern),
COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS
Program: Tom Cilek; Attendance: Nancy Droll; March 17 – Barbara Thomas and Tom Cook, March 24 – Jerry Fleagle and Sarah Campbell, and March 31 – Dave Siebert and Neil Quellhorst.