Rotary International Website.. click here

District 5130 Website.. click here

Petaluma Valley Website.. click here

4/9    Timo Rivetti & Jason Jenkins    Petaluma Wine GAP    
4/16    Mama Jo Thornton & Mama Pam Tuft     Osukuru Village update    
4/23    Nancee Tavares    Petaluma Shelter    
4/30    Roberto Giannicola    San Francisco Rotary Club's Centennial Celebration      

President Sally calls the meeting to order

                                         Forrest leads the pledge of allegiance

Thought of the Day spoken by Julie Restad:
"When health is absent wisdom cannot reveal itself, art cannot become manifest, strength cannot be executed, wealth is useless and reason is powerless."  - Herophilus

       Today’s Guests:
       Principal, Ken Schwinn, 6th Teacher, Michelle Cologne from La          Tercera Elementary School and 4 students, and a parent were all             introduced by Dianne Zimmerman.

Calendar:
April 3 – 5:30 Golf Tournament Meeting at Rooster Run
April 3 – 6: 30 Rotaract Meeting at Rooster Run
April 11- 12 – District Assembly in Ukiah
April 19 – Peace and Conflict Studies Program in Berkeley
April 25 – SCARC Sonoma Valley
April 27 – Chili Cookoff

Today’s Meeting was a Club Assembly and a presentation by the students of La Tercera Elementary School about their involvement in the Pen-pal program with their counterparts in Uganda.

Dave Johnson – Dave spoke to the club regarding the  Harold Alexander Scholarships – we will be selecting 5 students this month from our Petaluma High Schools. Currently our Scholarship Fund has over $110,000 in its account.  Dave also mentioned our RYLA program. We will also be soon interviewing and selecting 3 students to attend camp RYLA – this program is for high school juniors; we sponsor students from Casa Grande High School.

Russell Rice – Russell gave us an overview of our new Foundation; we will be expanding the Petaluma Valley Rotary Scholarship Fund to include monies for both community and international projects. This will allow donors to contribute to a non-profit and take advantage of tax incentives. The monies currently allocated for Harold Alexander Scholarships will remain, but new money may be ear-marked for other projects.

Libby FitzGerald gave us an overview of our vocational avenue of service. We had a tremendously successful Lend-a-Hand to Education project which showed a record in mini-grant money given to local classrooms – over $10,000! Our club is also actively participating in Junior Achievement; we completed teaching at Meadow School and are now beginning the series of 5 classes at Miwok Elementary. Also, in vocational service our club participates in Opportunities Night where we give mock interviews to High School Students and help them prepare for real job interviews. Later this year our club  members have the opportunity to judge the Senior Projects at Casa Grande High School.

Jim O’Grady spoke about this year’s golf tournament fundraiser. We hope to raise $12,000 through the club’s efforts. This year we will have a sit down dinner following the 9 hole tournament. During the dinner we will award our 5 Harold Alexander Scholarships to the selected High School seniors. There are many ways to participate: silent auction, as a golfer, volunteer, or come to the dinner. It should be a fun evening for all – Thursday, May 22, 2008.

Our guests from La Tercera Elementary School gave us a heart warming overview of their participation in a pen pal program with students in Osukuru, Uganda. They read parts of their personal letters and told us how deeply it touched their lives. They thought it was remarkable about how much they were alike and how different they were in some of their day to day activities.

Raffle

Adjournment