If you did not make it to our last Rotary Club of Forest Grove meeting, here is what you missed…

Back At Pacific University This Week: After two weeks away, the Rotary Club of Forest Grove’s weekly meeting this Wednesday returns to Pacific University. We will see you in the Boxer Pause in the University Center at noon.

End of Zoom Meetings: With more people attending weekly meetings in person and with continual technical and audio quality problems in our meeting space at Pacific University, the decision has been made to end the Zoom option for weekly meetings. With changes to Pacific University’s COVID policies (vaccination is no longer required to be one campus), we hope to see more people attending in person.

Lunch Cost Increase: Since the start of 2023, Bon Appetit has increased the amount charged to the club for lunches. Effective immediately, the club charge for weekly lunches will be $9 per person. Please contact President Janet if you have any questions.

March Madness Fundraiser Is Back!: Once again, there will be plenty of madness in the Rotary Club of Forest Grove’s March Madness Fundraiser.

There are only two requirements to participate: Make a $20 donation to the Foundation of the Rotary Club of Forest Grove for each bracket you enter and to join the FG Rotary group at Yahoo! Sports and fill out a bracket. Link To The Yahoo! Sports Group Here. Brackets must be completed by Wednesday, March 16.

You may enter with as many different brackets as you want, just keep donating $20 per bracket.

You can make your donation by cash or check at our weekly meeting on Wednesday or by mailing cash or check to the Rotary Club of Forest Grove, PO Box 125, Forest Grove, OR 97116.

This year, every dollar donated goes to The Rotary Foundation annual fund and earns you point towards a Paul Harris Fellowship. The club will match every one of those Paul Harris Points for our club balance. The owners of the top three brackets will split the matched points as follows:

First Place: 50%
Second Place: 30%
Third Place: 20%

If you have questions about participating or need help accessing the group, please contact our resident bracketologist, Lucas Welliver.

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
Crab Feed To-Go Meal, $42
Crab Feed Vegetarian Meal Ticket, $25

For questions, please contact Julia Kollar at 503-939-2212 or juliakollar@aol.com.

Parri Van Dyke is making one last call for items for the silent auction and dessert dash 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 at 503-680-1553 or vandykeparri@gmail.com.

NOTE: Payments for both the silent auction and the dessert dash must be paid for on the evening of the event. We will not be billing members for purchases this year.

Welcome Margie Davidson: We are proud to welcome Margie Davidson as our newest member of the Rotary Club of Forest Grove!

Sponsored for membership by Sharon Olmstead, Margie was formally inducted into the club during its Mar. 8, 2023 meeting.

A longtime Rotarian, Margie was part of the Albina Rotary Club for over 25 years, beginning her Rotary journey in 1992. She served as club president during the 1995-96 Rotary year. She served on nearly every committee and held nearly every office during her tenure with the club. She served as treasurer of the Albina Rotary Club Foundation for 24 years, growing the foundation assets until they were large enough to be professionally managed.

The foundation funds the Neil Kelly Scholarship Program, which provides scholarships to local graduates that are renewable for four years of college.

Margie was born and raised in Nampa, Idaho and moved to Portland in 1961. She met and married Roderick Davidson and raised two children in Northeast Portland. Her son and daughter-in-law continue to live in Portland as do two of her grandchildren, who are both graduates of Portland State. Margie also has a granddaughter, grandson-in-law and great granddaughter living in Norfolk, Virginia where her grandson-in-law is stationed with the United States Navy.

In her professional life, Margie worked for US Bank for 33 years, retiring in 1994. She started in the bookkeeping department and ended her career as a commercial loan officer and community liaison in the North/Northeast Portland and Albina communities.

Margie decided to move in with her daughter and son-in-law and the three of them moved to Forest Grove in 2022. Margie sold her home of 55 years and is enjoying the freedom of less responsibility as well as trying out the local wines.

Margie enjoys travel, reading, gardening and wine.

Portland Auto Swap Meet: The Concours d’Elegance Committee is in need of volunteers to man the Concours booth at the Portland Auto Swap Meet at the Portland Expo Center on Friday, Mar. 31 and Sat., Apr. 1. There are openings for three-hour shifts at the show, beginning each day at 9 a.m. If you are interested in helping out, please contact Jim Crisp.

Concours Polo Shirts: For the first time in many years, the club is producing updated Concours d’Elegance polo shirts. Club members typically wear these shirts on Concours day and at our club promotional functions, such as the Steak Feed. The new polo shirts will feature the updated Concours d’Elegance logo and our club logo. Orders are being taken now with both men’s and women’s sizes available. If you are interested in purchasing a short (cost between $25 and $30), please contact Tim Pearson.

Rotary Scholarships – Applications Open: Applications are now open for the 2023 Rotary Club of Forest Grove Scholarship Program. The program provides one-time scholarships to graduating seniors that reside in the Forest Grove, Banks or Gaston school district attendance areas. The awards may be used towards tuition of any college or vocational school in the United States.

The Scholarship Program is made possible by proceeds from our annual Concours d’Elegance car show.

Applications are due by midnight on Apr. 6, 2023. For more details and a link to the application, Click Here. For questions, please contact Scholarship Committee chair Sharon Olmstead, sharon.olmstead8571@gmail.com.

Rotarians At Work Day – Save The Date: Mark your calendars for Saturday, Apr. 29, which will be our annual Rotarians at Work Day. The Community Service Committee is working on identifying two to three projects for Rotarians to be involved with that day. Keep watching here for more details.

Steak Sale – Thank You!: We had another successful Steak Sale thanks to all of you! We sold 130 steaks, which will provide more than $1,000 that will be earmarked towards the Rotary Youth Exchange program. Thank you!

Youth Exchange Update: Back in January, we learned that our selected outbound Rotary Youth Exchange student had withdrawn from the program for personal reason. Since then, our club has officially applied to host an African exchange student in a one-way exchange through the “Power of One” program.

The club should find out which student we are hosting in the next weeks. It is a high likelihood that our student will come from Algeria or Tanzania.

The “Power Of One” program has asked our club to participate in a level of funding called Enhanced Plus, where the host district pays for health insurance, clothing assistance, Rotary sponsored trips and provide a monthly stipend. Students and their families are responsible for airfare and visa and interview costs.

District 5100 is very supportive of the “Power of One” program and will support our club with additional funding should our club not be able to come up with the necessary funds.

This is an exciting opportunity for our club to continue its tradition of involvement with Rotary Youth Exchange for this year. Be watching for more details soon.

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.

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
Rotary Spring Training Event Registration Open: Registration is now open for the 2023 Rotary Spring Training Event (formerly District Training Assembly). This year’s event takes place at Sherwood High School at Sat., Apr. 22.

This year’s lineup will have some wonderful workshops and training opportunities as well as a new concept called “Birds of a Feather” for attendees to participate in.

There will also be post-training activities, so bring your family and plan on staying after the event. Langers Entertainment Center, the premier family entertainment center in Sherwood, has offered Rotary space to fellowship after the training, complete with snacks and a $25 game card for every attendee. You can bowl, climb the rock wall, play laser tag, do the rope challenge course and much more.

The Rotary Spring Training Event is more than a training. It is time to connect and enjoy fellowship with your fellow District 5100 Rotarians as, together, we create hope in the world.

A registration link was emailed out to all Rotarians and can also be accessed through DacDB. If you want additional information, please contact DGE Renee Brouse.

Rotary Direct Matching Points Available: District 5100 is offering three Jubitz Rotary Foundation (TRF) recognition point offers this year in conjunction with this year’s Spring Training Assembly.

The one-time offer provides for 250 TRF Recognition Points for joining Rotary Direct or for increasing giving through Rotary Direct or 500 TRF Recognition Points for joining the Paul Harris Society.

Rotarians can take advantage of this offer to complete their own Paul Harris Fellow or to recognize someone significant their life.

Here’s How It Works:

• Sign up for Rotary Direct, which required a minimum monthly contribution of $10 or more to the TRF Annual Fund – SHARE.
• Increase current Rotary Direct giving by increasing by a minimum of $100 per year to the Annual Fund – SHARE.
• Sign up for the Paul Harris Society (PHS) through Rotary Direct with a minimum monthly contribution of $85 or more to the Annual Fund – SHARE.

Spring Training registration will open on Mar. 1. Your completed Rotary Direct form must be submitted to the Foundation Table at Spring Training on Sat., Apr. 22 Click Here For The Rotary Direct Form.

This year, you do not have to attend Spring Training to turn in your Rotary Direct form. A member from your club can submit the form for you or you may also send it to the District 5100 Office, 6700 SW 105th Ave., Suite 313, Beaverton, OR 97008, or by email to office@district5100.org. Mailed applications must be received by Apr. 18, 2023.

Thank you to Rotarian Al Jubitz for his gracious support in allowing the use of his TRF points and thank you all donors who believe in Rotary’s work, both locally and globally.

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

Around Rotary International
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Leymah Gbowee To Speak At RI Covnention: Leymah Gbowee will be a keynote speaker at the 2023 Rotary International Convention. Join us in Melbourne to connect with other Rotary members and discover new opportunities through Rotary.

In 2011, Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee was in Oslo, Norway, waiting in a room with a few friends before she delivered her Nobel lecture.

Gbowee had lived in a refugee camp, worked as a counselor for child soldiers, and led a nonviolent peace movement that played a pivotal role in ending a bloody 14-year period of civil war in Liberia. But still, they asked her, “What’s next?” “

My answer was simple,” she recalls. “Duh, I just won the Nobel Peace Prize. I’m going to retire at 39. They said, ‘No, you’re still young. Think.’ The only thing I could think about in that moment was girls and education.”

She went on to found Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa, which focuses on just that. Since its inception in 2012, the organization has awarded more than 500 full scholarships to African young people, most of them women, to study across Africa, Europe, and North America. It has also provided support to schools in Ghana and Liberia that benefited almost 2,000 students. The foundation has held campaigns to inspire and train women and young people to help maintain Liberia’s peace. It has moved beyond the classroom to do work in sexual health and reproductive rights, and produced radio programs that encourage discussion about gender-based violence.

“Research has shown that if you educate a girl, you educate a nation,” Gbowee said during an event in October celebrating her foundation’s 10th anniversary. “I wanted to educate Liberia. I wanted to educate West Africa. And I wanted to educate Africa as a whole.”

All those impulses sprang directly from Gbowee’s life experiences. She had just graduated from high school and was planning to study medicine when Liberia’s civil war started in 1989. Her family fled Monrovia, Liberia’s capital, and eventually ended up at a refugee camp in Ghana. In 1991, she returned to Liberia. After her first two children were born, she trained as a trauma counselor through a UNICEF program. She went on to work with former child soldiers, women who had been raped, and children who had witnessed their parents’ murders.

And that was just her day job. After getting involved with the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding, she helped found the organization’s Women in Peacebuilding Network and spent her evenings working as its Liberia coordinator. In 2003 she organized Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace, which brought together Christian and Muslim women to demonstrate against the war. Dressed in white T-shirts and headscarves, the women fasted, prayed, picketed, and even held a sex strike. For weeks, thousands of women amassed along the daily route of Charles Taylor, then the Liberian president, until he finally agreed to meet with them. Gbowee represented the women at that meeting, and she later led women to Ghana to demonstrate at peace talks between Taylor and opposition forces. When talks stalled, the women blocked the hotel conference room where they were meeting so that delegates could not leave until they reached an agreement. Facing authorities who wanted to kick them out, they threatened to undress, which, according to traditional beliefs, would have brought a curse upon the men. Gbowee’s Nobel biography calls the move “tactical brilliance” that “proved to be a decisive turning point for the peace process.” Taylor resigned within weeks.

In 2011, Gbowee won the Nobel Peace Prize along with Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first elected female head of state (whom Gbowee had helped elect), and Yemeni peace activist Tawakkol Karman. The three were honored “for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.”

In October, as part of her foundation’s 10th anniversary celebration, Gbowee hosted an online event for Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa-USA, an organization that supports her efforts in Liberia. The event featured appearances by several Nobel Peace laureates as well as celebrities such as Sheryl Sandberg, Chelsea Clinton, and Angelique Kidjo. During a virtual “fireside chat,” Gbowee and Rotary International President Jennifer Jones exchanged ideas about the importance of educating and empowering girls and women. Read More

Last Week’s Program: Peter Brandom, City of Cornelius
At last week’s meeting, we welcomed Peter Brandon, the recently hired city manager for the City of Cornelius. Peter began his work in Cornelius in October after serving for 14 years as a senior project manager for the city of Hillsboro.

Originally from the Denver area, Brandom earned his bachelor’s degree from Denver University and master’s degree from the University of Edinboro in Scotland.

Peter acknowledged that he has big shoes to fill following retired city manager Rob Drake. It is clear, Brandom said, that Drake left the city of Cornelius in better shape than he found it. Brandom said that he identifies with Rotary’s principles and how he tries to conduct himself in his role in city government.

One of the first things that Brandom has done in last few months is work to complete the city’s strategic plan. The plan will be formalized in the next few weeks by the city council. Priority No. 1 will be fire services. Currently, fire services are not funded adequately for a number of reasons, including call volume. About half of the department’s funding is from the city’s general fund and half from levy. The department is still closely connected with Forest Grove Fire & Rescue. Brandom said that it is likely that the city will have to look at increasing the fire levy in the near future.

Another priority is communications and community engagement. The city does a lot with a very lean staff. Brandom wants Cornelius to get better with how city government engages with citizens and business. There is also a focus on land use. At this point, the only way to acquire land for the city of Cornelius to grow is through legislative action. Do date, less than five acres inside the urban growth boundary is buildable and that land is spoken for. Over 6,000 people leave Cornelius daily for work and only 300 stay in the city for work. He wants to create more employment opportunities within the city limits.

The Laurel Woods residential development is adding 900 new homes within the city limits. The city will be building a new road that will connect to TV Hwy at 345th Ave. There is also a developer that is planning to build over 300 multi-family dwellings in the vacant land to the east and north of Fred Meyer.

Cornelius will be working to developing a community action plan over the next 18 months to define what citizens want to see in Cornelius over the next 20 years. The comprehensive plan, which was last updated in the 1980s, will also be updated. Brandom is also working to get the Youth Advisory Committee back together, which hasn’t met since COVID. He would also like to develop a Civic Leadership Academy to help encourage civic engagement.

Club Calendar
Wed., Mar. 15: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Boxer Pause Room, University Center, Pacific University
Program: Rachel Schulz, Family Justice Center of Washington County

Thurs., Mar. 16: Board Meeting, 7 a.m.
via Zoom

Wed., Mar. 22: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Boxer Pause Room, University Center, Pacific University
Program: Dr. Anne Hogan, Audiology & Diabetes

Wed., Mar. 29: Crab Feed, 5 p.m.
Forest Grove Senior & Community Center, 2037 Douglas Ave.
No Noon Meeting On Mar. 29

Fri., June 9: Steak Feed, 5-8 p.m.
Pacific University Campus

Sun., July 16: Concours d’Elegance
Pacific University Campus