Welcome Dallas & Nataliah: The Rotary Club of Forest Grove is proud to introduce its two newest members, Dallas Roark and Nataliah Colbert.

Dallas and Nataliah were inducted at last Wednesday’s meeting and were sponsored for membership in the club by Parri Van Dyke.

Dallas was born and raised in Aloha and graduated from Aloha High School before studying marketing management and research at Western Oregon University. After college, Dallas started working in property management and now co-owns a short-term property management company, Destination UX, which is focused on providing people with a better vacation experience.

Nataliah was born in Salem and graduated from West Linn High School. She studied business management and leadership at Portland State University for a year before jumping into the real estate world and never looking back. She started her real estate career in title and escrow at Fidelity. She then met Dallas Roark and they began Destination UX.

We look forward to serving the community with Dallas and Nataliah!

Another Blue Badge Earned: Speaking of new members, we have another new member that has now earned their Blue Badge. Congratulations to Cari Atzen for completing our new member requirements!

Crab Feed – Save The Date!: This year’s Crab Feed will be on Wednesday, Mar. 29. This annual event allows us to come together as a club, enjoy fellowship and honor those members who have become Paul Harris Fellows or have reached their next Paul Harris Fellow level. We will not have a noon meeting on Mar. 29.

The crab dinner, which will include hot soup, salad, bread, a half-pound of crab and beverages, will be $45. A vegetarian option will be available for $25. Crab will also be available for purchase by the pound at market price.

Use the links below to pre-order your tickets!
Regular Crab Feed Ticket, $45: https://square.link/u/02i0ibQs
Crab Feed To-Go Meal, $42: https://square.link/u/ecjISCK7
Crab Feed Vegetarian Meal Ticket: https://square.link/u/9yHyEZJa

For questions, or if you want to be involved on the planning contact, please contact Julia Kollar.

In addition, Parri Van Dyke is once again putting together a silent auction with proceeds to benefit The Rotary Foundation. We are looking for specific items such as weekend getaways, wine and wine tastings, hosted dinner and themed gift baskets…or maybe you have an idea of something to donate! If you would like to donate, please contact Parri.

Rotaract/Interact Liaisons Needed: We are in need of club liaisons that would like to be involved with both the Rotaract Club at Pacific University and with the Interact Club at Forest Grove High School. Both clubs are connected to our Rotary club and aim to provide service opportunities to students. If you are interested, or would like more information on what the role entails, please contact President Janet.

Concours Sponsorship Opportunities: The Concours d’Elegance Committee is well underway with procuring sponsorships for our 2023 show, which will take place on Sunday, July 16. There is plenty of sponsorship opportunities for both businesses and individuals for starting as low as $350. How important is sponsorships? Most of the profit that comes from Concours, which helps pay for our service outreach and funds our Scholarship Program, comes from sponsorships.

Click Here To Download The Sponsorship Flyer, which describes a number of the show’s sponsor opportunities. For more information or to help secure a sponsorship, please contact Tim Pearson at 503-998-8616 or timpearsonpc@gmail.com or Andrea Stewart at 503-357-1427 or astewart@pacificu.edu.

Youth Exchange Update: While we are looking forward to our continued involvement with the Rotary Youth Exchange program, the way our club will be involved during the 2023-24 Rotary year will be different.

We recently received word that the person that had been selected to be our outbound exchange student has withdrawn for personal reasons. Instead of not being able to participate in the program this year, our club is looking to be involved with the program through a program called “The Power Of One.”

“The Power Of One,” program, which is powered by Rotary Youth Exchange, helps to open to door to African students through one-way exchanges. In past years, District 5100 has been involved with this program through exchanges with clubs in The Dalles and Monmouth-Independence.

Be watching for more updates as we pursue being involved this year through this exciting program!

Project Flourish Global Grant Update: The Lake Oswego Rotary Club has provided an update on its Project Flourish Global Grant, which our club provided supporting funds to assist with. The grant helps to support MAIA, an organization which aims to support Indigenous women in Central America through educational opportunities.

The global grant has helped to support 27 Girl Pioneers, as participants are called. The 27 Girl Pioneers are going through or have completed five-month internships and received 295 hours of workplace training. The training includes seven formal certification courses in soft skills, hard skills, civic participation, financial literacy, Excel, personal branding and job readiness. The Girl Pioneers have also received over 100 hours of workplace English training and over 40 hours of IT training.

Six Girl Pioneers have secured formal employment and 10 are in the application process. Twenty-five Girl Pioneers have applied for university scholarships. Ten have secured university scholarships for the 2023 academic year. Of those, five have received full-ride scholarship. One was Central America’s first and only Rise Challenge global award recipient. A second is a 2022 SHE CAN scholarship recipient and will continue her university studies in the United States.

To view the complete report from the Lake Oswego Rotary Club, Click Here. To learn more about the MAIA program, please visit maiaimpact.org.

Our club is proud to have supported this Global Grant project that is helping to empower young women through education!

Concours Concert Event – Help Wanted: The Concours Committee has given the green light to go ahead with another concert event linked to the annual show. The concert is tentatively scheduled for Friday, July 14 with the Concours taking place on Sunday, July 16. If you are interested in helping plan and execute the concert event, please contact Court Carrier.

Caterers For Future Meetings: President Janet is looking for one to two more members to serve with herself, Howard Sullivan and Court Carrier in identifying local caterers that could serve the club at future meetings. We will have a number of meetings coming up where we will meet at the Forest Grove School District offices and will need catering for those meetings. If you would like to assist, please let President Janet know.

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 (over 100 videos to date) are archived on our club’s YouTube page. Visit https://bit.ly/fgrotaryprograms.

Service Opportunities For Club Members
Elks Backpack Program: The Elks Backpack Program, which provides food for youth in the Forest Grove School District experiencing food insecurity, is looking for 50 new or gently used backpacks for the program. If you have backpacks to donate, please bring those to a future meeting and we will get them to the appropriate people.

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 4-6 p.m. The pantry is now open in its new site in the building along Nichols Lane between the football field and the Basinski Center.

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.

Around District 5100
District 5130 Disaster Relief Fund: Our Rotary friends in District 5130 in Northern California are facing some significant challenges as the calendar turns from 2022 to 2023. A 6.4 magnitude earthquake on December 20^th caused significant damage to homes and businesses in Humboldt County.

A follow-up 5.4 magnitude earthquake on New Year’s Day, followed by the winds and rains of the cyclone bomb have left the businesses and residents reeling.

The District has an established Disaster Relief Fund to help with recovery efforts. If you are able to and want to provide some financial assistance to our neighbors to the south, please visit their website at https://www.rotary5130.org/district-disaster-response-plan/.

District 5100 Newsletter: Click Here To View The Monthly District 5100 Newsletter

Around Rotary International
Rotary Delegates Attend Climate Change Conference (by Judith Diment, Dean of the Rotary Representatives Network to the UN and International Agencies): I was delighted to have the chance to lead the Rotary delegation to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change, COP27, in Egypt in November. It’s a privilege that came my way as dean of the Rotary Representative Network to the United Nations and International Agencies. The worldwide climate change conference is held every year by the UN, this year attended by more than 100 country delegations and 1,600 IGOs and NGOs. After 13 days of intense negotiations, the attendees reached some truly consequential agreements. It was a real thrill to see.

Rotary’s delegation to the convention also consisted of President Jennifer Jones; Dr. Chris Puttock, co-founder of the Environmental Sustainability Rotary Action Group (ESRAG); Mohamed Delawar, Rotary’s representative to the Arab League; and Keith Madden, the Rotary staff manager for environment. Rotary has had Observer status in the UN since its formation in 1947.

The conference was hosted by the Egyptian Government in Sharm el Sheikh, a city on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula. I last visited Sharm el Sheikh in 2006, and I didn’t recognize the new conference center, expanded airport, and five-star resort hotels that have sprung up all along the edge of the Red Sea. The town has also been revamped, with a huge new mosque at its center.

Opening Ceremony
President Jones attended the opening ceremony on 7 November, one of 30 NGO delegates invited to do so out of 10,000 at the conference. I attended the keynote address by U.S. President Joe Biden on 13 November. Rotary also hosted three gatherings and participated in events for delegates and the public.

The conference concluded with a breakthrough accord on 19 November. Every party present – representing almost 200 nations – signed on to an agreement to provide “loss and damage” funding for vulnerable countries hit hard by climate disasters.

The conference’s achievements didn’t end there. Against a difficult geopolitical backdrop, the participants reaffirmed their commitment to limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The participants also agreed to ramp up their efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions and increase their support for efforts of developing countries to adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change.

But the creation of the specific “loss and damage” fund was a particularly important achievement, since it was the first time such a measure had been adopted.

As inspiring as those results were, I was almost as excited about what we managed to achieve on behalf of Rotary.

Protecting Mangroves And Other Measures
Working with the Rotarians from Egypt, we highlighted Rotary’s mangrove forest restoration projects at two events. The first event, Nature-Based Solutions: Mangroves and Beyond, built on the round-table discussions Rotary held on mangroves at last year’s climate conference. This meeting gave us new connections for the mangrove projects as well as ideas for next year’s conference, which will be held in the United Arab Emirates.

The second event, Nature-Based Solutions: Egypt included high-level government officials and delegates from NGOs and academia. The Egyptian delegation showed a video outlining a dozen nature-based solutions from clubs around Egypt. Our Rotary delegation presented the mangrove projects, ESRAG and the need to collect data. Reem Abdel Meguid and Jones announced a new Sharm el-Sheikh global grant of more than $100,000 for a Nabq mangroves project. It really showed how Rotary’s “People of Action” can get things done in hours and days!

The evening presidential reception, with Jones as host, was attended by more than 60 delegates, including the governor of South Sinai, representatives from many federal governments, and local dignitaries, along with three Egyptian government ministers: Minister of Culture Nivine Youssef Mohamed Al-Kilany, Minister of Youth Ashraf Sobhy, and Minister for Social Solidarity Nivine El-Kabbag. El-Kabbag announced in her speech that she would have her agency donate $50,000 to the Nabq mangrove project.

I also attended many other side events and had one-on-one meetings with many civil society leaders and government representatives. I was impressed by the progress since last year’s conference, especially with the amount of new research, innovation, and investments made to try and find solutions for climate change.

Last Week’s Program: Hector Martinez, Casa Of Oregon

Click Here To Watch The Full Program

Last week, we were joined by Hector Martinez, who is the E3 program manager for Casa of Oregon, who came to introduce us to Casa of Oregon the individualized development accounts (IDAs) that it offers.

Casa of Oregon is a non-profit based that offers a broad range of services. One team, a real estate and housing team, helps to organize co-ops in mobile home parks to come together and purchase the land they live on. Casa has helped organize dozens of co-ops throughout the state. They also help develop affordable housing. They are also a community development financial institution.

The second team worked with individualized development accounts. Oregon has one of the largest IDA programs in the nation. The Oregon IDA Initiative was developed in 1999.

Individualized spending accounts help provide savings for post-secondary education, purchase homes and vehicles, start and expand businesses, establish retirement account. IDAs are matched savings programs with the potential to earn matching funds for every dollar saved. All programs require participants to save for a minimum of six months and complete program requirements before using match money. In addition, participants must complete 10 hours of financial education classes, six hours of which are asset specific.

Individuals must earn 80% of area median income, have a $20,000 household net worth (first home not included) and must be Oregon residents. The maximum savings amount is $3,000 with a 5 to 1 match that could earn up to $15,000. A savings period can be as little as six months or up to three years. Two accounts per lifetime are allowed.

Vida, one of Casa of Oregon’s programs, is a network of 45 organizations throughout the state of Oregon that facilitates IDA programs. Each organization has its own application process. Partners include Mercy Corps Northwest, Warm Springs Community Action Team, Portland Housing Center and more.

The E3 (earn, educate, empower) program is partnered with the Oregon Alliance for Independent Colleges & Universities. The program works specifically work with students in the alliance. The program requirements include an 80% AMI, $20,000 household net worth requirement and proof of a capacity to save (earned income in the past 12 months). Up to eight hours of financial education is required. The maximum savings is $500, which is matched up to $3,000. Minimum savings period of six months and maximum of 12 months. Students can participate annually (up to four years).

You can help by donating to the E3 program, sponsor a school to pay the $600 per student administrative fee or by donating to the Oregon Alliance for Independent Colleges & Universities.

Learn more about the E3 program at E3savings.org.

Club Calendar
Wed., Feb. 1: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Boxer Pause Room, University Center, Pacific University
Program: Seth Winkelhake, Fernhill Wetlands

Wed., Feb. 8: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Boxer Pause Room, University Center, Pacific University
Program: Andrew Saultz, Interim Dean, Pacific University College of Education

Thurs., Feb. 9: Executive Board Meeting, 7 p.m.
Via Zoom

Wed., Feb. 15: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Boxer Pause Room, University Center, Pacific University
Program: Julie Titus, Virginia Garcia Memorial Medical Center