If you didn’t make it to our last Rotary Club of Forest Grove meeting, here’s what you missed…

Next Week’s Meeting: Next week’s club meeting will be our monthly meeting. The meeting will take place on Wednesday, 6:30 p.m., and will take place on Zoom (see links above). For the program, we will be watching a video of Andy Andrews from the 2021 District 5100 Virtual Conference. Andrews is a New York Times best-selling author and speaker who notices the little things that can make a big difference in your life. Click Here Details On Joining The Zoom Meeting

A Return To Zoom Meetings: With the ongoing surge of the Delta variant of COVID-19 I have made the decision to move our meetings back to Zoom for the time being.

This isn’t the decision I wanted to make. I would love nothing more than to return to normal with all of you, singing, embracing, and eating together. But the world is not ready for normal yet. Delta spreads so much more easily than past variants, and this last week we’ve had a higher number of cases in our community than ever before. Masks are being required even for outdoor events and the CDC is recommending against all large gatherings. We must do our part to halt the spread further and keep our community members as safe as possible. Club leadership will continue to monitor the situation, and we will reinstate our in-person meetings again as soon as it is safe to do so.

As always I appreciate your feedback and questions, and I look forward to seeing you at our home away from home on Zoom this Wednesday.

Yours in Rotary Service,
Bryce Baker

Steak Sale: Thank you again to everyone who participated in our Labor Day Steak Sale! We sold around 264 packs of steaks this round, which netted over $1,700 for the club. The funds will go towards the Scholarship Program and our club’s other community outreaches! There will be another steak sale in the future so keeping watching for details.

A special thank you to Jeff Duyck for his continued work to make these steaks available to the club for sale. Thank you as well to Marge Johnston and Lucas Welliver for their work to make the sale happen.

Service Opportunity With Habitat For Humanity: Our club has a service opportunity coming up with West Tuality Habitat for Humanity helping to do site preparation on the organization’s newest build site on 23rd Avenue between D and E Streets. The event will take place on Saturday, September 25, from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.

We would like to have as many Rotarians as possible take part in this service opportunity. If you would like to attend, please contact President Bryce.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Survey: Members are asked over the next couple of weeks to take our club’s annual diversity, equity and inclusion survey. The survey is designed to help better understand the club’s perspectives about these issues. We hope to use the aggregated data to compare to last year’s survey and to help our club further develop. We hope to have as many club members as possible complete the survey by the end of September.

Click Here To Take The Survey

Volunteer Opportunity – Corn Roast: The annual Forest Grove/Cornelius Chamber of Commerce Corn Roast & Harvest Festival is coming up! This year it will be a two-day event taking place on Saturday, September 18 and Sunday, September 19. This year’s Corn Roast will feature vendors, entertainment, a brew fest, a bicycle parade and, of course, corn.

An army of volunteers is needed to make this even happen. Volunteer opportunities include help with set-up and takedown, parking, preparing and cooking corn, kids activities and many other duties. If you are interested in volunteering, whether it is for an hour or the whole day, Click This Link to sign up!

For more information on this year’s Corn Roast & Harvest Festival, visit the Corn Roast webpage at discoverforestgrove.org or contact Juanita Lint at 503-357-3006.

Rotaract Liaison Needed: The club is looking for a member that could act as our liaison with the Pacific University Rotaract Club. If you are interested or would like to learn more about the role, please contact President Bryce.

ShelterBox HERO Club: Once again, our club has been recognized by ShelterBox USA as a ShelterBox Bronze Level HERO Club! The recognition signifies our club’s continued commitment to donate $1,000 per year to ShelterBox over a three-year period. We are truly grateful for the commitment of our members to continue to give to ShelterBox’s ongoing disaster relief efforts all over the world.

ShelterBox is an official Rotary partner. You can learn more about what the organization is doing around the world by Visiting The ShelterBox Website. Our own ShelterBox ambassadors, Jeannine Murrell and Pamelajean Myers, gave a program to the club on the organization in June, which can be Viewed Here.

Online Dues Payments: Our club is now equipped to process dues payments online! We can now process credit card or debit card payments for quarterly dues. Information on how to pay online was sent out with the quarterly billing that went out earlier in July.

With the transition to billing with Quickbooks, some members may not have received their quarterly invoice. If you did not, please contact treasurer Lucas Welliver at 971-241-7426 or lucaswelliver@gmail.com.

FGHS Community Food Pantry: Our club’s support for the Forest Grove High School 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.

The Food Pantry is open on Mondays from 2- 4 p.m. Donations are accepted on-site on Mondays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

For information on the Food Pantry, 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 2020 are archived on our club’s YouTube page. Visit https://bit.ly/fgrotaryprograms.

Around District 5100
That’s My Jam On Facebook Live: District Governor Jim Boyle will hold his monthly district update on Facebook Live this Sunday, September 12, at 6 p.m. The live webstream will include District 5100 updates, interviews with district leaders and a question and answer period.

If you are interested in taking part, visit the Post On The Rotary District 5100 Facebook Page and click the Interested button. You will receive a notification when the video goes live.

Save The Date: District 5100 Rotary One Conference: Mark your calendars for May 19-22 as District 5100 will present its first combined Spring Training Event and annual conference in Seaside. The combined conference will provide Rotary training opportunities, inspirational speakers and a celebration of what is hoped to be a great year in District 5100.

Around Rotary International
Peace Corps Volunteers & Rotary Members Find Meaningful Connections: In December 2017, on his first night as a Peace Corps volunteer in the ancient North Macedonian city of Štip, Cal Mann was welcomed with a raucous party at a rustic cabin far outside of town. There was an abundance of food and drinks, and a boom box blared local music. As the party raged well past midnight, Mann watched, beer in hand. “I’m like, I can’t do this for two years, that’s for sure,” he recalls.

So you can understand his trepidation the next day when he found out a barbecue was in the works. Being a good sport and new to the city, he opted to go — a pivotal decision, it turns out. At the barbeque he struck up a conversation with a man named Zoran Kolev, who spoke English. As talk came around to Mann’s work as a Peace Corps volunteer, Kolev mentioned that there was a new service club in the city: the Rotary Club of Štip.

“He told me they had just started the club a few months before,” Mann says. “They didn’t really know what Rotary was, but someone had told them it was a good thing to do.” This was great news to Mann, who had been a Rotary member since 2004 (and who currently belongs to the Rotary E-Club of Silicon Valley).

“I was thrilled to have met someone involved in Rotary so I could tap into my experience there. And they were happy to have someone who knew what Rotary was.”

Mann’s primary assignment with the Peace Corps was to work with a legal clinic for Roma residents, but volunteers are encouraged to take on a side project. Rotary became his. “I had just linked up with a club of people with big networks in the community, and most spoke English,” Mann says. “I may be dumb, but I’m not stupid. I figured that’s a pretty good opportunity. I better jump on it.” Read More

Last Week’s Program: Dr. Sarah Phillips, Pacific University

Click Here To View The Complete Program

At last week’s Zoom meeting, we welcomed Dr. Sarah Phillips, the dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at Pacific University. Appointed to the position in 2016, Phillips has been a member of the Pacific faculty since 1995. She is a professor of sociology and has also served in university leadership as associate dean of College of Arts & Sciences, the university’s School of Social Sciences and the College of Business.

Phillips’ presentation was titled, “Where Are All Of The Boys?” and focused on the declining enrollment of males in college across the nation.

She began by noting that there has been a general decline across the nation in the number of high school graduates across both genders. There has been stagnation in the number of high school graduates over the last 13 years and that number is expected to drop after 2025. Of note is that of those who are graduating from high school, more are moving to college and earning degrees.

There is also a multi-year trend of declining college enrollments over the last nine years. There was a 6.1 percent decline in public two-year, public four-year and private non-profit four-year collegiate institutions during that time. There was a more significant decline of 11.8 percent in enrollment in community college enrollment.

Currently, women make up 60 percent of college populations. In 1970, men accounted for 59 percent of that population. Today, it is not unusual for small private colleges, like Pacific, to have female enrollment surging to 65 or 70 percent of the student body. At Pacific, approximately 60 percent of the student body is female.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made the enrollment gap even bigger. There were declines of between eight and 20 percent in undergraduate male attendance rates in community colleges. For females, that enrollment decline was as much as eight percent.

Is it a big deal if males do not enroll in college? In a recent survey, 42 percent of high school students agreed that pursuing a college degree was not a worthwhile investment because it will lead to student debt with little chance of finding a good-paying job.

In today’s paid non-farm workforce, women make up a slight majority of that workforce in the United State. At the same time, male participation in the paid workforce is declining. Of those males, 87 percent of males age 25-34 that have a bachelor’s degree or below are currently in the workforce and 93 percent of those with a bachelor’s degree and above are in the workforce.

Employers are hiring more women in what are traditionally male-dominated occupations, including blue-collar professions such as transportation, material movers, motor vehicle operators and construction.

Phillips said that over the next few years, non-college graduates could expect to see great change in the next few years thanks to automation. It is expected that people with less than a high school diploma and high school graduates could see a 54 percent probability in having their jobs replaced by automation. People with less than a bachelor’s degree could see a 49 percent probability of being replaced by automation.

Club Calendar
Meetings Are On Zoom Unless Noted

Wed., Sept. 15: Monthly Evening Meeting, 6:30 p.m.
Program: Andy Andrews Program From District 5100 Conference

Wed., Sept. 22: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Program: Mariana Valenzuela, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Sat., Sept. 23: Habitat For Humanity Service Project, 9.a.m-Noon
23rd Avenue between D and E Streets.

Wed., Sept. 29: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Program: Claudia Yakos, ESPY Project