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/183084884
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

Scholarship Program: There is less than 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.

Road Cleanup: Thank you to all Rotarians and friends who participated in our semi-annual road cleanup last weekend along Gales Creek and Thatcher Roads. Many hands made quick work with everyone in and out in two hours (and avoiding last weekend’s rain). Thank you to Bryce Baker, Jim Crisp, Diana Waterstreet, Angela Jones, Melinda Fischer, Duncan Stewart and Greg Nemchick for participating and a special thank you to Andrea Stewart and Paul Waterstreet for their continued work to facilitate the program!

Toiletry Drive Update: Thank you to those who helped President Julia with the packaging of toiletries, cleaning supplies and feminine hygiene products for the upcoming distribution at the Forest Grove High School Food Pantry. We have enough toiletries, household cleaning items and feminine hygiene products to provide for 50 families. The materials will be distributed on Monday, April 5, from 2-4 p.m.

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.

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 26, 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.

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 at 503-357-1427.

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.

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 speaker, 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
2021 Rotary Convention Goes Virtual: For the second straight year, the Rotary International Convention will be a virtual event. While this means, unfortunately, that Rotarians will not get together in Taipei, it does mean that any Rotarian in the world will have the chance again to experience the convention’s terrific programming.

Unlike the 2020 convention, there will be a nominal charge for the 2021 virtual convention. Event registration will open in mid-April and will include a promotional fee of $49 for 21 days, with an increase afterward to $65. The cost of each preconvention event is $20. Both the convention and pre-convention events include access to the online House of Friendship.

More information will be posted soon at convention.rotary.org.

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: Portland Pearl Rotary Club Social Justice Committee

Click View To View The Complete Program

This week, we were joined by Donald Smith, Lou Radja and Diane Brandsma of the Portland Pearl Rotary Club, who presented on the club’s social justice committee and its work to integrate more social justice and equality education into the club.

In Summer 2016, after the deaths or Eric Garner and other African Americans, the club was brought to the attention of a police traffic stop and subsequent death of a Black man in St Paul, Minn. The person who died occurred with his girlfriend and her 4-year-old daughter in the car.

This incident, and others, spurred the Portland Pearl Club to discuss what should be the role and function of Rotary in regards to social justice. They asked if they were putting the same weight on peace and conflict resolution in their own community as Rotary does in the world. This led to an open meeting with 25 members and went on to develop a task force that came up with a social justice resolution that was endorsed by the club. A year and a half later, the club formalized a Social Justice Committee.

Today, the Social Justice Committee is the largest in Portland Pearl Rotary with 15 members.

The question comes up asking if dealing with social justice is too political and does it fit in Rotary’s mission? Committee members point to the Rotary’s own statements and positions speaking out against racism and speaking towards social justice. Seventy-six percent of Rotarians in a recent survey said that clubs should perform diversity, equity and inclusion surveys.

In developing the committee’s initiatives, the Object of Rotary, The Four-Way Test and Rotary’s area of focus were all considered. The goal was to create diverse avenues of learning and provide ways for any member to become involved. The committee’s initiatives include a book club, programs and speakers, a resource library, workshops and dialogues, community partnerships, self-education, increasing the club’s diversity and more.

Today, 25 to 30 percent of the club’s meetings have some sort of social justice emphasis, whether it is a diversity moment, a program or other parts of the meeting.

The club has sponsored a Student of the Month program from Lincoln HS, one of the more affluent HS in Portland. The club made the decision to extend the program to McDaniel HS (formerly Madison) to make opportunities available to a less affluent HS community.

Lou believes that the major tenants of social justice align with The Four-Way Test. The committee provided the opportunity to look at their own club and see if it aligns with The Four-Way Test in terms of social justice.

In surveying their club, 72 percent agreed or strongly agreed that they should recruit from underrepresented groups. Seventy-five percent agreed or strongly agreed that they should increase opportunities for education and engagement. The survey found that 21 percent of members felt good about the current makeup of their club in terms of diversity and 49 percent felt good about the makeup of the club in terms of inclusiveness and equity.

Club Calendar
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.

Wed., Apr. 7: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Program: Brian Monihan, Pamplin Media, The Future Of Local Newspapers

Thurs., Apr. 8: Board Meeting, 7 a.m.

Wed., Apr. 14: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Program: Virginia Ohler, West Tuality Habitat for Humanity