Piper Stewart, right, and her mother Andrea present a club flag from Piper’s host Youth Exchange club in Finland to Club President Tim Pearson.

If you didn’t make it to this week’s Rotary Club of Forest Grove meeting, here is what you missed.

Club Announcements
Next Week’s Meeting: Note that next week’s weekly Rotary meeting will be in the Boxer Pause room in the University Center at Pacific University, on the main level at the back of the dining commons.

Garden Party: The time has come to start getting the McDougall Garden cleaned out and ready for the winter. We will have a weeding and work party on Saturday, Sept. 18, at 8:30 a.m., at the garden located by the big flagpole at the west end of town. Come help out and help us keep our part of the community beautiful.

Road Cleanup: Our next semiannual road cleanup is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 3. We will begin at 8:30 a.m., and will meet at the Oregon Department of Forestry Office at 801 Gales Creek Road. All club members who participate in the cleanup will receive a ticket to an upcoming Pacific University football game courtesy of Andrea Stewart! We hope to see you there.

For those of you who do not know, our club has adopted two stretches of road as part of the Washington County Adopt-A-Road Program: Gales Creek Road from Thatcher Road to Forest Gale Drive and Thatcher Road from Gales Creek Road to David Hill Road. Started by Jerry Hoerber, the club has been cleaning up these sections of road for 27 years!

Satellite Club Update: Thank you to everyone who attended our September Satellite Club “Thirsty Thursday” meeting at McMenamins Grand Lodge. We had a great turnout with around 80 percent of Satellite Club members in attendance. Our Satellite members were given the opportunity to view committee assignments and options for service. Stay tuned for details on a fundraising Daddy-Daughter Dance, which is in the planning phases!

Rotaract Club Update: The Pacific University Rotaract Club is alive and kicking! The club has a couple of service projects already on the calendar, including a pair of road clean-up events this Saturday, September 28, and on Saturday, October 5. The club’s New Member Induction Ceremony will take place on Thursday, October 10, on the Pacific University campus. Members from our Rotary Club are encouraged and welcomed to attend and show support for Rotary’s next generation.

Coming Soon…New Road Signs: With the assistance of a District 5100 Public Image Grant and the Daybreak club, we have purchased new road signs to go up in the McDougall Garden. The white signs promote the club with the new Rotary word mark branding and promote the meeting time and places for both Forest Grove clubs.

 Have A Program Idea?: If you have an idea for a program or would like to present something yourself, let our program chair, Julia Kollar, know. She will also have a program planning board at meetings so you can see what is on deck and what dates may be available.

Next Week’s Duty Roster: Make note of your assignment!
Greeters: Virginia Ohler & Sharon Olmstead
Thought for the Day: Lesley Hallick
Rototeller Article: John Welch
Raffle Prize: Tara Cirlincione

District Announcements
Rotary Foundation Seminar: District 5100 has a pair Rotary Foundation seminars designed to educate Rotarians on how the foundation works and how our contributions help the many local and international projects Rotary provides. The first will take place this Saturday, Sept. 28, at the Clackamas Banquet Center in Clackamas. Another foundation seminar will take place on Saturday, Oct. 19, in Pendleton. To sign up, visit the district calendar on DacDB.

 World Polio Day: World Polio Day is coming up on Thursday, Oct. 24.  Since 1988, we’ve seen a worldwide reduction in polio cases of 99.9%. For more than two years we’ve seen wild polio cases in only two countries. Afghanistan and Pakistan. For more information on how Rotary is making a difference, please visit: https://www.endpolio.org/

Last Week’s Program: Piper Stewart, Rotary Youth Exchange
At last Wednesday’s meeting, we were treated to a presentation by Piper Stewart, our 2018-19 Rotary Youth Exchange outboard student who spent the year in Finland. Piper, the daughter of Rotarian Andrea Stewart, detailed out her year in both words and photos.

Upon arrival, Piper spent the first seven days at an intensive Finnish language camp with other Youth Exchange students. From there it was to the first of four host families. Her first host father was a member of the Finnish parliament, which allowed Piper to meet a number of other ministers of parliament as well as the prime minister of Finland. Her time included taking in a lot of the sights of the capital city, Helsinki.

Piper made her first move later in the fall, going from a host family with four brothers to her second family with two brothers and one sister. She spent Christmas with this host family. She had a number of fun adventures, including a cruise to Sweden, a tour of the Fazer candy factory and taking part in the Rotary Youth Exchange trip to Lapland, the high northern region of Finland and Sweden.

Two days after Christmas, Piper moved to her third host family…this time with four sisters! With this family, Piper explored art museums, went to a trampoline park and Ikea (pronounced E-kay-uh there) and also made a side trip into Russia. During this time, Piper spent time making mustard and baked goods to help finance going on a school trip to Norway.

At the end of her time, Piper went to the District 1380 Conference. As part of the conference, Piper was in charge of making travel and accommodation arrangements for all of the exchange students in the district. After going on the school trip to Norway (she sold enough mustard!), Piper made her way home with stops in a number of other European countries, including Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Austria, the Czech Republic and Germany.

Club Calendar
Sat., Sept. 28: McDougall Garden Work Party, 8:30 a.m., McDougall Garden
near the big flag pole in Forest Grove.
Wed., Oct. 2: Weekly Meeting, Noon, Pacific University (Boxer Pause)
Program: Howard Sullivan, Peace Village
Sat., Oct. 5: Road Cleanup Service Project, 8:30 a.m., Oregon Department of Forestry,
801 Gales Creek Road
Tues., Oct. 8: Concours d’Elegance Committee Meeting, 7 p.m.,
Forest Grove Chamber Office
Wed., Oct. 9: Weekly Meeting, Noon, Pacific University
Program: City of Forest Grove, New Police Station