Author: Cheri Ashfeld

Join us for a favorite service project during our Wednesday, October 16 meeting. KidPack is a fast-paced assembly line project that bags supplemental weekend food for our elementary school students. Tubs filled with these bags go to Rogers and Hassan Elementary Schools where staff distribute the bags to kids they know would have a weekend food shortage.

Rogers Rotary partners with CROSS Services to gather the food items. The KidPack program is funded by a Rotary District 5950 grant and club fundraising. Come have fun doing this service project during the 7 a.m. meeting!

Rogers Rotary welcomes Superintendent Dan Bittman at the October 2 meeting. Join us for this chance to meet ISD 728’s top leader and hear his message about the upcoming referendum.

Also, click on the video message he posted for the community in 2018.

The Eden Prairie Noon club is spearheading a district-wide Rotary Business Network (RBN) that will be open to all Rotarians. It will not be sponsored by any individual club, and will move locations to accommodate the greatest number of participants. The RBN is still “under construction” but will be promoted widely to all D5950 clubs.

Why go to a Rotary Business Network event?

• For long-term, meaningful relationships with quality business professionals. These members are ready and willing to help you accomplish your business goals, and value community involvement as much as you do.
• For Mentor-ship:Help new businesses with your knowledge. Receive advice from leaders who have been there.
• For Business Growth:Learn about new opportunities and exchange business referrals.
• For Networking:People do business with other people they know and trust long before they’ll do business with leads found in an advertisement.

RBN will be free for all 5950 Rotarians. It will meet twice a month — one morning and one evening. Sessions will begin with a brief introduction of your business, current needs or challenges, and then an informal mixer. Rotarians pay for their own food and drinks. Guests (non-Rotarians) may come with a 5950 Rotarian twice, then he/she must become
a Rotarian to continue attending.

Rogers Rotarians packed enough meals to feel 57 kids for an entire year during the September 21 Feed My Starving Children (FMSC) event. Thanks to participants Lenny & Fay Kirscht, Gaylene Olson, Floyd Ingersoll and Cheri Ashfeld. Event organizer Kiki Rogers welcomed the Rotarians who joined many others honoring Kiki’s son, Ian, who loved volunteering at FMSC. Ian died in August and this event was a tribute to his young life.

One of the greatest benefits the kids receive from the STRIVE mentorship program is Rotary mentors’ time and connection with them. We walk the walk, not just talk the talk.

The program needs two mentors at each of six tables. This accommodates mentors’ schedules so that one will always be at each session. Please let me know if you are interested in being a mentor this year, or if you know a retired or available professional who is interested in guiding these under-achieving youth toward successful adulthood.  

Please be at the September 18 Rotary meeting when Rotarian Candido Palomarez provides more information about the STRIVE program and its life skills topics.

I look forward to seeing you!
~ Heather Farr,
STRIVE coordinator

Join Rogers Rotary on September 11 to learn how Israel punches far above its weight in providing lifesaving, humanitarian aid worldwide. Sally Abrams will share about remarkable programs and the values that drive Israel to excel in this arena. 

Sally co-directs the Speakers Bureau for the Jewish Community Relations Council of MN and the Dakotas. She speaks about Israel and/or Judaism, and she strives to build bridges between the Jewish and non-Jewish communities. Sally taught Hebrew for many years as part of the University of Minnesota’s College in the Schools Program.