We Support TINFA, will you?

GiveBig 2015 | the countdown begins

TINFA is excited to participate in GiveBig 2015 for the second year in a row! From midnight to midnight on GiveBig day – Tuesday May 5^th , a percentage of your donation to TINFA will be matched by the Seattle Foundation and GiveBig sponsors. At TINFA, we work with schools in underserved areas of Mexico and Guatemala and use technology in innovative ways to support teachers and students in the classroom. We take a collaborative approach to working with the schools, and facilitate virtual exchanges (via Skype) with schools in the Northwest. Watch this video to see how your donation will make a real difference.
Know more about TINFA from TINFA on Vimeo.

Last year, we were excited to raise $3,000 during GiveBig. This year, we believe we can double that and have a goal of $6,000, Please get ready to help us achieve our goal and increase the amount of education support we can deliver to our partner schools. Your support will go a long way in helping to make a difference in the lives of students in the schools we support. As you get ready, we’d appreciate a like on Facebook.

Thanks for your support!

Emma

Emma Le Du Co-founder and Director Cell | 206.612.8361 Web | tinfa.org Skype | emmaledu

Trivialis et Jovialis #3 From Dr Hal

No one believes seniors. . .everyone thinks they are senile.

An elderly couple was celebrating its 60th anniversary. They’d been childhood sweethearts and had moved back to their old neighborhood. Holding hands, they walked back to their old school. It was not locked. They visited the old desk they had shared where Jerry had carved “I love you, Sally.”

On their way back home, a truck spilled out a bag of money which landed at their feet. Sally quickly picked it up and, not sure what to do there, she counted the money — fifty thousand dollars!

Jerry said, “We’ve got to give it back.”
Sally said, “Finders keepers.”

She put the money into the back of the attic.

The next day, two policemen, who were canvassing the neighborhood, knocked on their door. “Pardon us, but did either of you find a bag yesterday? they asked. Sally said, “No.” Jerry said, “She’s lying. She hid it up in the attic.” Sally said, “Don’t believe him; he’s getting senile.” The constables turned to Jerry and began to question him. One said, “Tell us the story from the beginning.” Jerry said, “Well, when Sally and I were walking home from school yesterday….” The first police officer turned to his partner and said, “We’re outta here!”

An Amish girl and her mother were visiting a mall. They were amazed by almost everything they saw, but especially by two shiny, silver walls that could move apart and back together again.

The girl asked, “What is this, mother?” The mother, never having seen an elevator responded, “I have never seen anything like this in my life. I don’t know what it is.”

While the girl and her mother watched with amazement, an old man in a wheelchair rolled up to the moving walls and pressed a button. The walls opened and the man rolled between them into a small room. The walls closed and the girl and her mother watched the small numbers above the walls light up sequentially. They continued to watch until the last number was reached, and they watched some more as the numbers began to light in reverse order. The walls opened up again and a hunky young man stepped out.

The mother, not taking her eyes off the young man, said quietly to her daughter, “Go get your father.”

New District 5030 Conference Video

Jeff Mushen selected photos and Kyle Bergquist made them into this video for the Rotary District 5030 Conference. It will play silently during meeting intermissions along with videos from other clubs.

Volunteer Opportunities

Saturday, June 13 from 11am-4pm We will be hosting a food drive for the University Food Bank at the Sand Point Metropolitan Market. We will be working in hour shifts for this event. Betsy will be passing around a sign-up sheet as we get closer to the event.

Saturday, August 15 We will be participating in the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life in Capitol Hill. The event goes from 10am to 10pm–we will be walking in one hour shifts during this time. If you’d like to participate, you can sign up here under the team “Uni Sun Rotarians”.

Interested? Contact Betsy Conklin, clubservice@usrotary.org

City Council Member Kshama Sawant visits

20150409_083357 — Councilmember Sawant after a great program with President Mike and Rotaract members Mariah Kimpton (L) and Devon Hay. 4/9/2015

Kshama Sawant, she of volubility and endless energy, became a city councilwoman as a dark horse candidate. Much of her support came from numerous random meetings with working and needy people. She thus became virtually evangelistic about their needs, the burdens upon them, and the widening disparity between the affluent and the rest of the population. In that regard, she takes only $40,000 of the $117,000 annual city council salary and allocates the rest to her solidarity fund. Her concerns entail several matters. One is that of the homeless. A bill to allow encampments on city property was narrowly defeated. She has mounted a crusade to reverse this ruling.

Another is the minimum wage. She contends (and who can deny?) that the $15/hour wage prices anyone out of decent Seattle housing. She contends that the hard-won $15 wage shall help, rather than inhibit, business. With purchasing power on the increase, people can support business by becoming more frequent customers. Affordable housing is diminishing. Corporations buy up affordable housing in order to raze the land for luxury apartments. She named the prices of both rents and homes, stating the fact that they are far out of reach for the working class and the poor.

She advocates a year-round female shelter. This would fill a need for victims of domestic abuse who would otherwise have to return home for financial reasons. Sawant also points to a regressive WA tax system, which offers corporate rewards but little or nothing for others. She offers quite a bit more of her observations and items needing action, including unfair city subsidies for large developers, the ecological consequences of Arctic drilling, the threats to labor unions, and hate crime.

Comment: A dynamic councilmember, with verve regarding several simultaneous issues. The fact that she enjoys considerable support suggests belief in her diagnoses and plans for remedies,

Debuts and Discoveries: A Success

Thanks again to all that supported this year’s Debuts & Discoveries Tasting Event. When all is said and done, we believe that the net fundraising total should be about $15,000 to support the University District Packs for Kids program. Well done, all!

We welcome your ideas on what worked well and what could be improved from this year’s event. Please send your suggestions to Nancy & Ed (nancybolin@windermere.com and edbronsdon@outdoorsforall.org ). We’ve already compiled some ideas and we will be looking for ways to further involve you and other club members to step up to make next year’s event a fun and successful one, too.

Bill Bryant, Port Commission President

Our speaker March 12th was Bill Bryant, Port Commission President and Seattle 4 Rotarian, who has long advocated a merger between the Ports of Tacoma and Seattle. The consolidation into a single seaport would keep jobs in Seattle. Some 200 thousand jobs are at stake in an industry whose marine cargo accounts for 1/3 of Washington’s GDP. The competition between the two ports has to cease. If cargo is divided between them, shippers would often decide to use Vancouver. Moreover, if each overbuilds to stay ahead of the other, the unsustainable result would land in the laps of the taxpayers. Note should be made that Elliott and Commencement Bays offer deep water that needs no dredging.

The overriding reality is that if one of the 4 huge merged shipping companies is lost to us, the job loss would be calamitous. Our ports are not ready for the larger ships and their larger cargoes. We must make ready for this, with limited time remaining. The merger would entail not only consolidating the single terminals of each port, but the necessity of offering four to the shipping companies. To that end, Terminal 5 is closed for the time being as it undergoes refurbishing. It is ideally situated: deep water, proximity of I-5 and I-90, the nearness of the airport (where Delta is to move its international hub from Tokyo to Seattle), and location at the terminus of transcontinental railroads.

Drawbacks to the merger, expected soon to get federal approval, consist of deficiencies in:

—Education. The appalling high school dropout rate and poor qualifications for community colleges leaves vital jobs in high numbers going wanting. Also it deprives people of the chance of a good living.
—Transportation. There is a crumbling infrastructure in regard to bridges, antiquated rail system, and worsening truck routes. If the merger is to reach all that it promises, these must be corrected. An impetus for us is that B.C. is seeing to its rail system in a tidy fashion. Then there is the airport. It needs to be greatly overhauled in regard to baggage, the North Satellite, elevators, escalators, arrivals facility, and replacement of the center runway. (Not cheap).

Summing up: From what Bryant tells us, this implementation is a must, as is the matter of expediting it

Bright Future with Reza Khastou

Our speaker for March 5th was Reza Khastou, founder of Bright Future & Basic and Transitional Studies, posits that our education troubles stem from two internal enemies. They are the unjust distributions of wealth and of knowledge and skills. Despite several government attempts at remedy, nothing availed. Moreover, appallingly low graduation and high dropout rates, mainly among black and Hispanic students, needed to be addressed. Other issues entailed, for those who made it to graduation, insurmountable student debt and inability to find work in one’s field. In many cases, career training should have begun much earlier, to wit, in high school.

To deal with these troubling circumstances, Khastou instituted the Bright Future & Basic and Transitional Studies program. Its aim: to make education meaningful to targeted students…to provide workforce education with hands-on…to have this work force education focused and intensive…to provide a tighter community that can focus on the individual. Case management is an integral part of the program.

Bright Future provides that students enter a college-level training program in the high school of parents’ choice. Credits go to both high school and community college. There is academic career counseling for either a job or further education.

Transition to a job is the ideal to be aimed at. Programs include Health Care Specialties, Cosmetology, Applied Math, Elective English, Social Studies, and more. Some scholarships and other financial aid are available.

Benefits from the program, already observed include:

–Higher high school and college graduation rates
–Close advisory system by the staff leads to students’ success.
–Unlike much college preparation, this program is practical.
–Dropouts often return and are re-engaged.
–Many benefactors have become interested.
–Skills can be taken anywhere there may be opportunities.
–Income from jobs circulates through the community and in turn aids the base.
–Social Security benefits are enhanced.

Comment: A vision whose results speak for themselves

Debuts and Discoveries: March 21st – Save the date

University Sunrise Rotary presents a tasting smorgasbord of the latest local beverage creations. Complementing these new flavors in the historic Sandpoint Naval Air Station Hangar in Magnuson Park will be the varied bites of five of the hottest new food trucks. Purchase bottles of the beverages that you liked best as you leave!

Buy tickets now!

30 of the newest Washington state wineries, breweries, distilleries and cideries
5 new Seattle food trucks

For a full list of participating businesses, click here.

All benefits go to the University District Food Bank’s Packs For Kids program providing age-appropriate, nutritious meals and snacks to children at risk of going hungry on weekends when free or reduced school meals are not available.