Spokes July 2, 2019

SPOKES VOL. LXVI NO. 1                                                                               July 2, 2019

 

 

We were greeted by Jim Bradford and Art Ayers warm summer morning.

 

President Odland opened the meeting with the “God Bless America” and Art Ayers provided the invocation.

 

 

We welcomed our speaker, Anthony Lazzaro along with Grand Rapids Rotarian Luis Veccio and prospective member and grandson of Don Hixson Vince Duggan.

 

 

Our first segment in an ongoing program to introduce our new members:  Tom Noverr.  Tom was born and raised in Battle Creek and attended St. Phillip’s High School and WMU.  His first job was with a local accounting firm and at 29 years old, he became the business manager at Portage Public Schools.  He was a long time Rotarian in Portage.  He and his wife Cindy have three daughters and three grandchildren.  He enjoys bicycling and our Rotary club.  He and his wife spend seven months in Florida, just north of Daytona Beach.

 

Sue Duval will be our featured member next meeting (July 16).

 

Announcements:

 

 

Jim Davis was our song leader this morning, beginning with the mildly risqué “Five Foot Two”.Originally recorded by the California Ramblers in 1925, the song’s actual title is “Has Anybody Seen My Gal?”We followed that with “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love”.One of our newer selections, the song was introduced by Adelaide Hall at Les Ambassadeurs Club in New York in January 1928 in Lew Leslie's Blackbird Revue. 

 

 

Don Kitchin had the lucky ticket but then his supply of luck for the day ran out and he went penniless.Deb Davidson won the big prize of the day -$2.

 

 

 

Anthony is employed by Spectrum Health and is a volunteer for Make a Wish.

 

Make a Wish was formed in 1984 and just this year granted their 10,000 wish.

 

Anthony began with a video about Why Wishes Matter.

 

There are more than 650 kids in Michigan medically eligible for a Wish.  In order to be eligible, a child must have a life threatening illness but not necessarily a fatal illness.

 

The average “wish” costs about $10,000 including in-kind donations and often involves the child, family members and even care givers.

 

The organization holds several fund raisers but the most popular is the Wish-a-Mile, a 300 mile, three day bicycle ride with over 1,000 riders.  They have added a one day 100 mile ride and even a 50 mile ride.  In addition they always need volunteers to staff the event.

 

They also have a Trailblaze Challenge, a twenty-one mile hiking experience and on September 14 they do a Walk for Wishes in conjunction with Robinette’s Apple Haus in Grand Rapids.

 

Anthony’s most intriguing wish was a young girl who wanted to be a news broadcaster to remind people to not make fun of people for the way they looked, from illness or other causes.  Her broadcast became a successful event that made a huge event on others.  A case where a selfless wish made a difference in other’s lives.

 

We were treated to several examples of local children who were granted wishes, including the grandson of Larry Lewis’ grandson who received a trip to Disney during his life threatening illness.  (He has since recovered.)

 

Make A Wish can be reached at www.michigan.wish.org

 

President Odland and our membership thanked Anthony for his excellent and educational presentation.

 

Our President offered special thanks to Rhonda Wendzel who organized our Change of Officer’s Dinner last week and Dan Thompson for his work on our new posters and membership initiative.  We closed the meeting with the Four Way Test.

 

Next week’s program: No Meeting

 

 

Greeters:  Jim Don Dobbin and Tom Fleming.

 

Editarian:  Dene Hadden