SPOKES VOL. LXVII NO. 21 December 1, 2020
http://www.southhavenrotary.org
We began our virtual meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance and invocation by Art Ayers with special mention of Jerry Portman and Mike Livovich as they deal with medical situations.
Our guests this morning included Dr. Trevor Kubatzke, President of Lake Michigan College and our speaker, Suzanne Loafman from Project Curb, our Spotlight presenter an special guest Dorothy Lockwood.
Announcements:
Please start planning ahead to work our turn at the Thursday Night Dinners in January, February and March.
Kenya Call set for Thursday at 10:00 AM
Bob Stickland wants everyone to know that we will be Bell Ringing on Saturday, December 19th. He has eleven spots filled already, with only one 10:00 spot left at the bakery. Lots of spots left at Walmart! Call Bob to sign up! (269)-214-0376 Call him right now, while you are reading about it!
We were pleased to have Jerry Portman with us this morning and President Thompson mentioned that he called Mike last week and enjoyed talking to him, said it was uplifting, and encouraged other members to give Mike a call.
Congratulations to Jeremy Burleson as he becomes the Director of the Niles campus of LMC in addition to his current duties at our campus.
We have a Board meeting on December 8th and there will be a club assembly for the last meeting of 2020 on December 15th. We will elect our officers for the 2021-2022 Rotary year at that time.
Pastor Jeff talked to us about a special We Care fundraising event coming soon. There will be a huge display of model trains set up in the new apartment building nest to the Masonic Lodge downtown. The display will begin this Saturday and run through Christmas. Volunteers are needed. Proceeds from donations will go to We Care Utility Ministry
Our We Care Christmas Donation. Last year, in conjunction with our Christmas party, we donated $4,000 to We Care. Without a Christmas dinner this year, we are counting on our membership to continue to support this charity. Tom has already collected $1,000 so we need another $3,000. You can donate by sending a check to South Haven Rotary Charities/We Care to South Haven Rotary, P.O. Box 24, South Haven, MI 49090. If you have a particular ministry you wish your donation to go to, note that on the memo line of your check.
A Touch of Humor
Bob Copping brought back the story of Quasimodo, or at least his short-lived replacement this morning, who’s face rang a bell.
Community Spotlight
President Thompson introduced Suzanne Loafman, head of Project Curb and owner of “Thinkbar Coworking” here in town. Suzanne began by thanking us for our donation to the most recent project, landscaping the athletic entrance to the high school.
She gave a brief history of the work they have done with the goal of making the outside of our school buildings attractive to members of our community and visitors and a source of pride to students. They have done work at Lincoln, clean up of campus areas, the sound berm on the east side of the high school and the improvements to the athletic entrance way, including a student done sculpture.
Future projects include new signage at the parking lot entry, more landscaping and a project for the gray block wall that surrounds the HVAC equipment at the high school. Even farther down the road are plans for a sculpture garden and landscaping around the entrance to Listiak Auditorium.
They have done everything they can to include students in the planning and execution of these projects with the goal of creating buy-in and ownership of their school.
Suzanne thanked us again for our donation and for the work we do in our community.
50/50 and Fines
Bob Copping chose our numbers for the cash this week with Art Bolt getting the big prize and Richard Swanson the $2 prize.
Fines were charged to:
Jeremy Burleson is charged for getting his promotion in the paper.
Jean Stein has a granddaughter turning 17 tomorrow.
Rosalie Plachaty is celebrating her son’s 38th birthday.
Bob Straits is headed south this week.
Larry Wittkop lead us in a regular “Happy Birthday” this week after receiving some less than generous comments on his “gobbled” version last week.
Jeremy Burleson introduced our speaker this morning, Dr. Trevor Kubatzke, President of Lake Michigan College.
Dr, Kubatzke began by noting that LMC was able to react quickly to the COVID-19 situation last spring, moving to virtual learning and helping students with the acquisition of laptops and providing hot spots so students could continue their studies. These programs continue now as most learning is still virtual. With the help of the CARES program, they have been able to provide between 60-70 laptops for entering students.
One of the ways that they were able to help first responders was to donate and produce PPE supplies for local first responders. They donated all of their medical protective gear from the nursing program to local hospitals and the tech division was able to produce face shields and even masks that were also donated.
This fall and for the upcoming semester, students were offered five modalities for learning, from totally on-line to hybrid face-to-face instruction. Many of the hands on programs like welding and nursing and others used the hybrid face-to-face situation to get the hands on training those programs require.
He said that enrollment is down, mostly by returning students as new enrollments are up by about 5%. The general feeling is that the students who did not return did not like virtual learning but it is hoped they will return when classrooms are open. He estimates that the budget will take a four to five million dollar hit because of the virus. He did say that the winery program is going strong and the tasting room is open whenever in side dinning is allowed.
The Mendel Center has postponed all concert and large group performances but have most of them as postponed. They have a year and a half’s worth of programing ready to go once things get better. In the meantime they offered some parking lot concerts and a series of “Remotely Interested” concerts by local artists that were broadcast live. Many of these events are now being aired on the South Bend PBS station.
Dr. Kubutzke finished by thanking us for our support of the South Haven Campus Rotary Scholarship fund and thanked Board member Paul Bergan for his years of service to the college.
It is worth noting that we just received the names of the ten students awarded Rotary Scholarships this year and they have completed thank you notes to our club. We will acknowledge these students in the near future.
President Thompson thanked Dr. Kubatzke for updating us on LMC’s progress as they deal with COVID-19 and presented him with a gift certificate to one of our fine eating establishments.
We closed the meeting with the Four Way Test
NEXT WEEK: Tom Renner: Program: Dr. David Ryden, Chair of the Political Science Department at Hope College
GREETERS: Dan Thompson and Bill Roberts
Editarian: Dene Hadden