Online Meetings: We will continue to meet virtually using the Zoom Meeting platform for the foreseeable future. Our meetings will begin at our normal meeting time, Noon on Wednesday. All Rotarians are welcome and participating will count towards meeting attendance. Here are the login details…

Direct Link: https://zoom.us/j/18308488
Meeting ID: 183 084 884

To join by phone, dial 669-900-6833 or 346-248-7799 and enter the meeting ID number when prompted.

Zoom App Downloads
Zoom Cloud Meeting App For Android
Zoom Cloud Meeting App For iPhone
Download Zoom Meeting App For Desktop

Club Giving Goals Met: Despite the pandemic, our club has come through with its contributions to The Rotary Foundation! We have met our club goal of $9,500 towards the foundation’s Annual Fund and $3,500 towards the PolioPlus Fund. As of March 20, our club has contributed $9,749 towards the Annual Fund and $3,535 towards PolioPlus. Thank you to all of our members for your support of Rotary’s mission around the world.

Remember that you can always check the progress towards our club’s goals online on Rotary Club Central. You must have a registered account on the Rotary website to access Rotary Club Central.

To date, District 5100 ranks No. 1 in Rotary in Polio Plus contributions and No. 2 in Rotary’s total fundraising statistics. Worldwide, however, Rotary is being in fundraising totals compared to this time last year.

Toiletry Drive – Help Needed: In preparation for our monthly toiletry distribution, President Julia needs assistance in packaging the items and preparing them for our monthly distribution on Saturday, March 27. We have enough toiletries, household cleaning items and feminine hygiene products to provide for 50 families. If you can help with packing the items, please contact Julia.

This is part of our work with the Forest Grove High School Food Pantry to provide toiletries, personal hygiene items and cleaning materials that are not part of the Oregon Food Pantry’s typical distribution. This effort is funded through $2,000 from our club and a $2,000 matching grant from District 5100. This will help sustain the purchase of these items and distribution over the next few months. The next distribution will take place on Monday, April 5 from 2-4 p.m.

Rotaract Career Networking Event: The Pacific University Rotaract Club is in need of professionals for their Business Networking Event on Tuesday, March 30 at 6:30 p.m. The club is specifically looking for professionals in the fields of pharmacy, physician assistant, occupational therapy, physical therapy and surgery. Professionals will be asked to present on Zoom, give a brief description of their occupation and answer questions from students. If you know of someone that can take part, please contact either Sami Villon with Rotaract or Andrea Stewart.

Board of Directors Elections: Be watching your inbox soon for first-round balloting to name three new members to the club’s Board of Directors. The new members will replace Ryan Garcia, Michelle Thomas and Paul Waterstreet, all of whom are completing their three-year terms.

Scholarship Program: A just over a week left for local high school seniors to submit their applications for the annual Rotary Club of Forest Grove Scholarships. The scholarship program is open to all graduating high school seniors residing in the Forest Grove, Banks and Gaston school district attendance areas.

This year, through the work of Sharon Olmstead and the Scholarship Committee, the entire application process will be done online. Applications must be submitted by midnight on Thursday, Apr. 1. Click Here For Full Scholarship Detail Information.

For additional questions, please contact Sharon Olmstead at sharon.olmstead8571@gmail.com.

Garden Committee Update: The MacDougall Garden committee is planning for the annual planting this spring but is in need of plants! In past years, the committee has purchased flowers from Forest Grover High School. This year, due to the pandemic, they did not grow any plants for purchase. We need approximately 700 starts and three species of flowers to plant the garden. If you have a potential lead for some starts, please contact any member of the committee including Jim Cain, Lucas Welliver, Geoff Faris or Rob Foster.

Anna & Abby’s Yard: With Anna & Abby’s Yard making its long-awaited opening at Rogers Park earlier this year, it is time for our club to step up and make some enhancements to the park. Through $2,500 in club donations and a $2,500 District 5100 matching grant, our club is providing an ADA accessible picnic table, a double barbeque and a gaming table to enhance the covered picnic area.

A volunteer corps spent part of last Saturday at the Forest Grove Public Works yard assembling the equipment, which the city will install at the park for us in the near future. Thank you to all of our club members for their longtime support in making Anna & Abby’s Yard a reality.

Steak Feed & Concours Update: We have been informed by Pacific University that due to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, our club will not be able to host its annual Steak Feed or the Concours d’Elegance on campus this year. Both committees will be meeting to discuss what this means for the club and will provide updates at a later date.

Rotary Phone Tree: Keep up the work keeping our members in the loop with the Rotary Club of Forest Grove phone tree. If you have questions, or if your information on the Phone Tree is not correct, contact Paul Waterstreet.

The goal of the phone tree is to reach out and check on every member of the club to make sure they are doing all right and to provide updates on club announcements and activities (Hint: You have a great list to draw from here). The plan is for the tree to be activated every Tuesday. The idea is that for each person to call the next one on the list. The last person on the list should call the team captain to make sure the list is complete.

FGHS Community Food Pantry: Even with schools closed, the need for resources at the Forest Grove High School Community Food Pantry continues. Thanks to its partnership with the Oregon Food Bank, food donations are still welcome but are of less need at this time. Of need, however, are toiletries and hygiene products as well as household cleaning materials. There is a particular need for dish soap and laundry soap.

During the fall, the Food Pantry will be open on Mondays from 2- 4 p.m. Donations are accepted on-site on Mondays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The pantry will remain open on Mondays over the Winter Break.

If you can donate any of the above items, please contact Brian Burke, bburke@fgsd.k12.or.us. If you wish to make a cash donation to the pantry, Click Here.

Additionally, Rotarian Gwen Hullinger has put together an Amazon wish list of items that can be purchased and donated. Click Here To View That List.

Past Programs: Did you miss a meeting or want to go back and check out a program again? Most of our programs since May are archived on our club YouTube page. Visit https://bit.ly/fgrotaryprograms.

Around District 5100
District 5100 Spring Training Event: Registration is now open for the District 5100 Spring Training Event (formerly District Training Assembly). The virtual training event will take place over two weekends on Saturday, Apr. 10 and Saturday, Apr. 17. Sessions on Apr. 10 are geared towards club officers, including membership chairs, treasurers, Rotary Foundation chairs and more. The second weekend is geared towards anyone interested in learning more about the inner-workings of Rotary.

Two keynote speakers will be appearing as part of the training event. On Apr. 10, the event will be joined Rotary Zone 26 & 27 Director Vicki Puliz. On Apr. 17, the speaker will be Mitty Chang, president and CEO of Candeavor, a digital marketing and web development agency, ad a very-involved Rotarian.

Check Out The Schedules: Apr. 10 | Apr. 17

Attending the Spring Training Event is free to Rotarians but advance registration is required. You can sign up for the event by logging into DacDB and completing the registration form.

District 5100 Conference: Registration is now open for the District 5100 Conference, “Wandering Through New Doors.” This year’s virtual event will take place on Saturday, May 1. This year’s event will include a number of inspirational speakers, headlined by New York Times bestselling author and motivational speaker Andy Andrews and Jordan Harrison, who will present on how the right words said to right people at the right time can facilitate change.

As the COVID-19 pandemic is keeping us physically distant, it’s more important than ever to focus on the strength and opportunity that comes with opening new doors of opportunities. The District 5100 Conference will educate, connect, inspire and offer virtual fellowship.

The event is free but pre-registration is required. Visit rotary5100.com to register and learn more.

Special Note: Many members of our club, led by Claudia Yakos, are putting lots of time and effort into making this a great event. Thank you for all who are adding a special Forest Grove touch to the district conference.

Around Rotary International
Rotary Voices – Rotary Clubs Fight COVID-19 In A Big Way: How do we measure the magnitude of the investments made by Rotary clubs in the battle against COVID-19? This is not an easy question to answer, but in my Rotary and professional life, I often deal with assessing impacts. So the question intrigues me.

Back in June of 2020, Rotary International released a statement that it had allocated $20 million in grants to fight the pandemic. (Read how Rotary is encouraging clubs to cooperate with local governments and health organizations on the rollout of COVID vaccines). But we all know that that amount is just the tip of the iceberg. Read More

Philippine WASH Project Delivers Toilets, Hygiene Education To Villages: In 1991, Mount Pinatubo erupted after 600 years of inactivity and destroyed homes and farms, displacing many indigenous Aeta living in the highlands of central Luzon, Philippines.

While Aeta can refer to several different related ethnic groups, the Aeta here are descendants of Mag-Antsi, who following the eruption, were resettled by the government. Since then, many have returned to their ancestral lands to rebuild and reestablish their communities.

The roughly 43 families in Flora and 79 in nearby Kawayan make a living farming. While Aeta in other areas have been granted title to their ancestral land by the government, these Aeta have seen their lands shrink and their source of livelihood suffer as people from the lowlands staked competing claims during their resettlement years.

Like more than 10 million households in the Philippines, they lack sanitation facilities. The Philippines government has made progress in extending water to its 109 million inhabitants, but long-term plans to expand sanitation are running behind, especially in rural regions. This reduced access to personal hygiene exposes communities to diseases like diarrhea and cholera, and can lead to decreased school attendance, malnutrition, poor oral health, and fear of violence in women who must practice personal hygiene outdoors, according to a report by UNICEF.

To combat these problems, the Rotary Club of Intramuros-Manila developed a water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) project that installed 25 toilets in the Aeta communities of Flora and Kawayan and three in Babo. Rotary members made visits to the community to learn about and understand current hygiene practices, willingness to work on the project, and the communities desire for toilets. Read More

Last Week’s Program: Dave Parker, Forest Grove School District

Click View To View The Complete Program

Rotarian Dave Parker, superintendent of the Forest Grove School District, joined us to provide an update on the district’s schedule for re-opening schools for hybrid education and what is being done to help keep students and staff safe.

Dave opened by showing a chart of COVID-19 case positivity in Washington County. As of this week, positivity had reduced to a level of 80.9 positive cases per 100,000 people. The positivity rate continues to trend down.

In the Forest Grove School District, students in pre-Kindergarten through sixth grade will return for hybrid education on Monday, April 5. Before that date, teachers will be without students from March 29 to March 31 to prepare for the transition. Students in grades 7-12 will return to school on Monday, April 19, after a transition period for teachers from April 14-16. Students in the district will have a choice of participating in hybrid education or continuing fully in comprehensive distance learning.

The opening dates different from Governor Kate Brown’s executive order to re-open schools on March 29. The order allowed for exceptions for districts that already had reopening plans in place. The April 19 return date for secondary school students coincides with the start of the fourth quarter, providing a natural break point for a return.

Dave presented data on indoor air quality that was presented to school superintendents by Dr. Richard L. Corsi, a faculty member in the Maseeh College of Engineering & Computer Science at Portland State, who is considered a national expert on indoor air quality.

The COVID-19 virus is not “naked.” It has to attach to particles in the air in order to be transmitted. As the district looks at keeping kids and staff safe, it has to look at transmission methods and try to mitigate those risks to keep everyone safe.

In Dr. Corsi’s studies, ventilation must have 3.4 air changes per hour to have safe classrooms. Dave said that there are no district buildings that fall below that threshold. The average in district buildings is 5.8 air changes per hour.

Dave went over some of the science that went into the measures that are being put into place. By requiring all students and staff to wear masks, the potential risk is reduced to six percent. In addition, air purifiers with HEPA filters are being installed in all teaching spaces. That will reduce the potential risk of infection to four percent. Without masks or air purifiers, the risk is at 18 percent.

The district is also following the state of Oregon’s Ready Schools, Safe Learners plan, which includes 140 steps that districts have to take to re-open. This includes a communicable diseases plan (logs, contact tracing, movement plans within a school), universal masking and social distancing of 35 square feet per person among other requirements. The cohorting requirement of only 100 contacts per week was removed by the state on Monday. The district is hiring more custodial to work day and night and clean, but the most important thing that can be done is making sure students wash their hands a lot.

Dave anticipates that there will be additional changes coming down from the state over the next few weeks. The goalposts for districts keep changing week by week.

Dave’s full PowerPoint presentation can be Viewed Here.

Club Calendar
Wed., Mar. 24: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Program: Donald Smith, Portland Pearl Rotary Social Justice Committee

Wed., Mar. 31: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Program: Cynthia Witham, Salem Rotary Club, Haiti Water Project Update

Thurs., Apr. 1: Executive Board Meeting, 7 a.m.