One hundred years ago, RI President Arch Klumph proposed an endowment that would “do good in the world.” The Rotary Foundation was born! ~ So… how are we doing in that “doing good” business? In a word, magnificent!

A recent Global Grant Worldwide Report, lists 1,112 Global Grants (min. budget of $30,000) approved in the last 14 months… an average of 17 Global Grants per week, year after year, after year. Imagine what that means! Rotarians around the globe are working wonders every week! Clubs working together accomplish community- based, and sustainable humanitarian projects; assemble and dispatch Volunteer Training Teams and recruit Rotary Peace fellows every week, year after year. Add to that Rotarians’ District Grant projects and Polio Eradication efforts, and you’ve got a magnificent track record of doing good in the world – brought to you by The Rotary Foundation! Be proud of that!

Remember… Every Rotarian Every Year! Use “Rotary Direct” … consider $20/mo.

 

PDG Mike Montgomery, DRFC District 5030

Teen Feed was chosen by our Club as the 2017 Debuts & Discoveries Grant Recipient. A big “Thank you” to all the organizations and their sponsors that submitted applications this year, and the efforts of the Grant Recipient Selection Committee led by Colleen Johnson and Tim Linehan.

 

 

On Monday, October 3, we will be volunteering with TeenFeed–a non-profit organization that provides warm meals, basic needs items, and supportive connections to homeless youth in Seattle. From 5:30-8:30 that evening, we will be at the University Lutheran Church, preparing and serving dinner to the homeless youth.

If you’re interested in joining us, please contact Nancy Bolin or Betsy Conklin, communityservice@usrotary.org

 

Come support our international service partner, TINFA at their annual fundraiser, this week. This year it is a breakfast, on Friday Sept. 30^th starting at 7:15am at the Montlake Community Center 1618 East Calhoun Street, Seattle, WA. One of the teachers from Guatemala, Marleny Sanchez, will join us. She will tell us about the program and we hope to be able to connect through Skype with her classroom in Retahuleu, Guatemala.  

The breakfast is free and a donation is encouraged (any donation level is welcomed). Let Mike Madden know (mikeminseattle@gmail.com) if you can join the University Sunrise table,  Or if you prefer, go to tinfa.org and click on “Sign me up here.”

Bereft of a workable projector, Kristi Martin, Senior Adviser of the Office of Health Reform, reverted solely to verbiage without missing a beat.

She was inspired early, when health coverage was weak and poorly distributed, to get it for those who needed it. To get it off the ground, she worked through several levels up to the federal. An anecdote was given for illustration.

Ultimately health care reform was passed, with Medicare and Medicaid created in 1964. The Consumer Assistance Plan was developed to help individuals contend with denied claims from insurance companies. This struggle resulted in two favorable Supreme Court decisions. The Affordable Care Act, following the Massachusetts model, followed. This is admittedly not perfect, but is a start, creating coverage for 20 million people. In addition, adult children up to age 26 are included under parents’ policies. There is now also free coverage for screening services, benefiting 137 million. Clinical trials have shown that this is economically feasible.

In that partnership has been needed, the YMCA in Seattle and elsewhere has been a logical choice. All of this proactive activity has saved Medicare money. Attention has now targeted the malnourished. Delivery of healthful meals to the home is a program known as Feeding America. Each food box costs $13. People are being empowered to control their health, i.e., in managing cardiovascular and diabetic situations. Trials in Ohio. California, and Texas have proved encouraging. Politics aside, all of this has shown success.

Comment: Is this the forerunner of single-payer universal health care? The other industrialized nations might be consulted on this concept.

 

Dan Newman is leaving in July and Pam Mushen and Sarah Cave are taking over as the Club’s new coordinators with the UW Health Sciences Rotaract Club.

Obstacles to success can be poor eyesight, poor hearing, poor reading skills, and poor nutrition. June 2^nd we heard from those who help lighten these burdens. Janine Kennedy, of Teen Feed, informed us of another dimension in aiding the young and vulnerable. Teen Feed creates a family for those, age 13-25, who have been forced onto the streets.

And here are the facts:

• The incidence of homelessness is rising sharply. An estimated 800-900 kids are sleeping in an insecure location
• Youth of color are a large part of those served.
• Home abuse and addiction are among the major factors causing this homelessness.
• Teen Feed affects their lives in subtle and social ways.
• Kids’ needs, which cannot be directly met, can be referred to places where help is available.
• They can be gotten into housing and into school.
• Too many kids are jailed, some via outdated truancy laws.
• Until recently, the older homeless have looked after the young homeless. The former have been evacuated, leaving the young unprotected.
• Bringing them in is superior to treating them on the streets.
• They sit at tables with mature adult volunteers who can hear their stories and potentially connect them to services.
• Runaways are difficult to deal with. If they come in for help, it is then available to them.
• There is no ID requirement to enter into the system.
• In winter, socks and camping gear are provided.
• When sitting and eating with other adults with their children, sometimes can be beneficial when they see normal relations.
• Because of previous trauma, they are candidates for mental illness. The process can be stopped between 18 and 24.
• Outreach teams include formerly homeless youths. They know where the kids hide.
• Volunteers can sit at a table or organize a meal team. These teams prepare, cook, and serves the kids.
• Allies clean up, share basic needs, and are a source of peer relationships.
• Teen Feed provides IDs and directs the kids to medical care facilities.
• Some of the kids do not want to be found, in that they escaped from foster care and do not want to be sent back to it.
• Outlets from trauma include art and other similar pursuits
• Donors at all levels provide funding and their time.
• There are a few employees, many volunteers.

Comment: Anyone who saves one life has done a heroic deed. Those who save many are truly blessed.

 

Shawn Bills, State Director for Senator Patty Murray, provided a view into her legislative activities.

She was first elected in 1992. He has been with her for the past 12 years. He mentioned the fact that she commutes to D.C. from WA every week, and does not stay there to participate in talk shows. The speaker pointed to the Senator’s bipartisan efforts at compromise, which have been effective, to wit:

• In 2013, when the government headed toward shutdown, she and Rep. Paul Ryan, in a spirit of mutual trust, worked out a compromise to defuse the crisis. It is to be noted that in this, as in other endeavors, Sen. Murray worked with legislators from the opposite party.
• A similar cooperation occurred with a Georgia Republican.
• She and Ryan, on the Budget Committee, created a commission to review federal policy, which led to data-driven methods.
• As head Democrat on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pension Committee, she has jurisdiction over many of these issues.
• With Senator Lamar Alexander, she helped to right the K-12, No-Child-Left-Behind issue.
• As was reiterated, Sen. Murray continues to work with people of different views both at home and across the aisle in Congress.
• The NIH funding has been a project of Murray, Blount, and Alexander. The House has passed it and it is before the Senate.
• Alexander and Murray have campaigned for funding for research and response vis a vis the Zika virus. As a result, an amount of $1.1 billion has been allocated.
• Her interest in veterans’ affairs has been active. She is the first female chair of the Veterans’ Committee. Having met resistance in her effort to aid injured veterans begin anew and start their families, she got it through.
• Her other interests include clean energy, climate change, wildfire control, recreational access, and bringing business to the state.
• She decries the gridlock that has denied Judge Garland a Senate hearing.

In summary: A comprehensive, if slightly partisan, summary of his employer’s activities.

Professors Dan Schwartz and David Ginger, of the UW Clean Energy Institute, took us into the future in regard to solar power and related resources.

Focused on clean energy throughout the world, they spoke of a $17 trillion international commitment. Solar energy is in itself cheap, but factories cost too much. The UW facility is planned to lower the cost.

These are the facts:

• Climate change is a worse threat than international terrorism.
• 20,000 premature annual US deaths are due to the use of fossil fuels.
• The distribution of energy is critical to society as regards health and the economy.
• The world population is growing. Global lifestyles are becoming increasingly similar to those in North America. World energy use is going up.
• The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is involved in the Institute.
• US energy consumption is huge.
• It is cheaper to burn off natural gas than to capture it.
• The dream is to convert sunlight to clean electricity quickly and economically.
• Solar energy has the largest technical possibility of all renewable sources.
• Other sources such as wind and hydroelectric should by no means be ignored
• A solar farm can supply not only electricity, but also heating and lighting. In Kenya, it is being used for light to facilitate education.
• Solar is growing exponentially.
• Renewable energy is projected to keep up with US demand.
• The challenges include storage, grid infrastructure and information systems, and bringing down costs.
• We need to make new materials to enable this technology.
• Some of these are organic polymer inks; carbon and nitrogen based materials; hybrid peroxkites, a crystalline structure.
• The various efficiency of materials in solar cells were considered.

Comment: The world has awakened to the damage done by the use of fossil fuels. The undertaking by this group and others is part of the race to reverse the drastic changes afoot. If this is ever accomplished–and everything depends upon it–it will not occur