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

This Week – At Forest Grove UCC: This week’s meeting, and all of our meetings for the rest of the 2023 calendar year, will be held at the Forest Grove United Church of Christ, 2032 College Way (across the street from Pacific University). Join us as we receive a recap of the 2023 Concours d’Elegance.

Remember that if you wish to receive lunch at meetings, confirmation for lunch orders must be received by secretary Janet Peters by the Saturday before each week’s meeting. A sign-up sheet will be available at weekly meetings or you can RSVP to Janet via email.

Plan Ahead – Holiday Cancellations: In order for Rotarians and their families to celebrate the upcoming holidays, our club will not meet at its regular Wednesday time on the following dates: Wed., Nov. 22; Wed., Dec. 20 and Wed., Dec. 27.

Hope For The Holidays: Mark your calendars! This year’s Hope for the Holidays project will take place on Monday, Dec. 18, at the Forest Grove High School Food Pantry. Because of the rules that the Food Pantry has with the Oregon Food Bank, we will not be allowed to distribute meals inside the building. Instead, we will distribute the meals under tents just outside the pantry along Nichols Lane.

A sign-up sheet for volunteers will be distributed at meetings over the next couple of weeks. There will be a need for members with trucks who can help transport food from Winco in Hillsboro to the high school, as well as set up for the event. The distribution will take place from 4-5:30 p.m., the normal open hours for the food pantry.

For more information or questions, please contact Parri Van Dyke.

Rotarian Rob DeCou To Speak At Old College Hall Lecture Series: Rotarian and 2005 Pacific alumnus Rob DeCou will be the featured speaker during Pacific University’s Old College Hall Lecture Series on Wednesday, Dec. 6.

A member of the Nor’Western Rotary Club in Port Angeles, Washington, Rob will present on “Resilience: A Journey Through Entrepreneurship and Ultra-Endurance Endeavors.” The CEO of his own creative business and an instructor at Peninsula College in Washington, Rob has also done numerous ultra-endurance events (bike rides, runs, triathlons, etc.) to raise awareness and funds for a number of causes, including the fight against human trafficking and PolioPlus.

Learn more about Rob in this feature published in the Fall 2023 edition of Pacific magazine, written by Rotarian Blake Timm.

The lecture is free but advance registration is required (there is a cap of 50 attendees). If you are interested in attending, Please Register Online.

McDougall Garden Work Party: Thank you to the small but mighty group that braved the cold to do some clean-up work on the McDougall Garden on Saturday, Oct. 28: Geoff Faris, Pamelajean Myers, Jim Cain, Carl Heisler and Blake Timm. There will be additional clean-up work to do on the garden later in the fall as the leaves continue to fall.

Youth Citizens of the Month: Over the last month, we have the honor of restarting our Youth Citizen of the Month program after a three-year COVID hiatus. Last week, we honored our two recipients from Banks, Sawyer Peters from Banks Middle School and Ireland Wilson of Banks High School. They were both honored at our Oct. 18. Emilia Aguirre of Neil Armstrong Middle School was honored at our Oct. 11 meeting while Andrea Reyes Aguilar from Forest Grove High School was honored at our Oct. 25 meeting.

A long-standing program with the Rotary Club of Forest Grove, the Youth Citizen of the Month program recognizes local eighth-graders and high school seniors who possess high standards of personal behavior and good citizenship, exemplify the ideals of Rotary, follow school rules and have excellent behavioral records. The Youth Citizen of the Month awards is rotated between the area’s three local school districts: Forest Grove, Banks & Gaston.

Concours d’Elegance Committee: The Concours d’Elegance Committee is starting the planning for our 50th show on July 21, 2024. If interested in getting further involved with the Concours, the steering committee is always looking for volunteers to prepare for the show throughout the year. For more information, contact Tom Raabe at 503-704-1200 or rotarytomr@gmail.com or Geoff Johnston at 503-939-7868 or gamsma@comcast.net.

The next meeting of the Concours Committee will be on Wednesday, Nov. 8 via Zoom at 7 p.m. If you are interested in attending, please contact Tom Raabe for the link.

Committee Communications & Meetings: Our executive board is working to put together a master calendar of club functions and committee meetings. The goal is that this calendar will be available for all members of the club to access. If your committee is planning to meet during the months of November and December, please send that information to any member of the executive board as soon as possible.

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
Do You Know Of Service Opportunities?: Are you aware of service opportunities in our area that our members might be interested in? We can advertise those here! This space is not limited to club-sponsored activities but to any service opportunity in the community. To promote the service activity, please send a detailed description of the project, the date and time, contact information and a link to register to Rototeller editor Blake Timm, blakertimm@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 Mondays from 4-5:30 p.m. The pantry is located along Nichols Lane between the football field and the Basinski Center. Click Here for more information on the FGHS Food Pantry and on other resources for those experiencing food insecurity.

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.

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

Around Rotary International
Hope In Grief (by Neil Steinberg): The six Mardi Gras-style beaded necklaces that Lori Crider is wearing tell you something about her struggles and her hopes, if you learn the strands’ color code.

Purple honors a friend or relative who died by suicide. Crider wears four, including one for her nephew, Jesse Cedillo.

“I’ve lost three relatives, unfortunately,” she says at a fall 2022 suicide prevention walk that starts at a former MLB stadium outside Dallas with rain clouds framing the roller coasters nearby at Six Flags Over Texas. “I had an aunt in the ’90s, then my cousin in West Virginia after Jesse. I wear a purple for each of them and for a friend who took his life in 2005.”

Blue is for suicide prevention, an issue that has become a calling for Crider and fellow members of a Rotary club created in 2021 to take action on that cause, as well as for many people at the walk whose friends or family members died by suicide.

Crider’s nephew, whom she describes as a soft-spoken young man who dreamed of becoming a police officer, died at 20 years old in 2015 using a gun he got from a relative’s house next to his home in rural Alabama. Family members say they always had guns available for protection and for shooting sports through 4-H.

Nearly 50,000 people die by suicide each year in the U.S., and over half of them use a gun. The total number of annual suicide deaths is equivalent to filling the seats of the one-time MLB stadium where the Dallas-area walk took place. In 2022, preliminary figures indicate that the rate of suicide in the U.S. was the highest in the five decades since the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began recording that data. The negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic may have contributed to the increase, according to a CDC report. Globally, more than 700,000 people die by suicide each year, according to the World Health Organization.

While there is no simple solution to preventing suicide, a proven precaution is limiting access to items or places that people in crisis could use to harm themselves. “Putting time and space between a person and a lethal method of suicide can save lives,” says Marian Betz, an emergency room doctor and University of Colorado professor who researches suicide and firearm death prevention.

This is the idea behind blister packages for medicines and barriers added to bridges. With firearms, having access to a gun triples the risk of suicide, in part because guns are so much more deadly than other ways people try to die, Betz notes in a video message that she recorded as part of her work with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Nearly 90 percent of firearm suicide attempts in the U.S. result in death, while only 2 percent of intentional drug overdoses do. And some studies indicate that many people who try to end their lives act rashly with little planning.

Guns rob many people of a second chance to live, Betz says. “When we’re talking about suicide prevention and firearm suicide prevention, we’re not talking about gun confiscation. We’re talking about ways to lock it up more securely during a time of risk,” she says. Read More

This article first appeared on the Rotary.org website.

Last Week’s Program: Miles Glowacki, City of Forest Grove Community Development

Click Here To Watch The Complete Program

At last week’s meeting, it was our pleasure to welcome Miles Glowacki, the community development coordinator for the City of Forest Grove. Miles joined the city seven months ago after spending 17 years in varying capacities at the City of Beaverton.

In his role as the economic development coordinator, Glowacki strives to further the economic prosperity of Forest Grove. This includes general economic development activities, tourism activities, management of the urban renewal area and economic development.

The department works to recruit, retain and expand businesses in Forest Grove, works with the city’s Enterprise Zones for industrial development, workforce training, one-on-one business assistance and community partnerships with groups such as the Forest Grove/Cornelius Chamber of Commerce, Adelante Mujeres, the City Club, Forest Grove School District and others.

In regards to tourism, the city receives over $100,000 in transient lodging taxes from the county, which can be used to further tourism efforts in the city. This year, the city is looking into what a tourism person for the city should be doing. This includes marketing, event sponsorship and capital improvements. It is expected that marketing will be conducted by an outside firm. The city will take a proposal to the city council soon on a budget for event sponsorship.

The city has an Urban Renewal District area along Pacific Ave. and 19th Ave. between B Street and just past the Hwy. 47 bypass. Money from urban development funds can only be spent on certain projects, including infrastructure improvements, public amenities and redevelopment grants. Plans for these funds are ongoing.

Glowacki discussed the Forest Grove Vision 2040 Plan, which is roadmap that will outline actions, goals and objectives to realize a shared community-derived vision for the city. What does the city aspire to be in terms of its physical, social, economic and environmental aspects? This will be a multi-year project and process.

Glowacki said that some of the economic development challenges Forest Grove faces includes limited industrial land supply, limited commercial supply (especially downtown), businesses looking for very small store fronts, worker shortages, supply line disruptions and the overall cost of doing business. Opportunities include the expansion of the UGB for industrial uses, utilizing CHIPS Act funding and redevelopment of underutilized properties.

Club Calendar
Wed., Nov. 8: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Forest Grove United Church of Christ, 2032 College Way
Program: Geoff & Alisa Johnston and Tom Raabe, Concours d’Elegance Recap

Wed., Nov. 8: Concours Committee Meeting, 7 p.m.
via Zoom. Contact Tom Raabe for Zoom link.

Thurs., Nov. 9: Executive Board Meeting, 7 p.m.
via Zoom

Wed., Nov. 15: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Forest Grove United Church of Christ, 2032 College Way
Program: Michael Yakos, Rotary Foundation

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

Wed., Nov. 22: No Meeting. Happy Thanksgiving!