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Scott Searl with ICA Updat

Our Program on Tuesday, January 3^rd was Scott Searl, Director for Philanthropy for ICA. We had an amazing turn-out of 20 members in spite of the blizz

ard and 5” of snow! Prior to Scott’s presentation we inducted Keith Stuessi as our newest member. Tim Litfin handled the formal induction and Garry Thompson introduced Keith to the members and is his club sponsor. Keith gave some brief comments and was unanimously voted in as our 4^th new member since July.

Scott Searl is well known to many of us as a pastor in our community for many years and is now the Director of Philanthropy at ICA. Scott started by saying ICA is known as a food shelf but it is much more that. He said, “ICA is all about food, Jobs and Housing.” He started by talking about the food distribution and that ICA distributes 8,000 pounds/day and serves 938 families. Coming out of Covid with federal programs ending there is a historic demand for food and assistance. Scott noted that qualifying recipients still need to make an appointment and that 20% of the people they are serving are coming from outside the traditional boundary lines of ICA. They get their food to distribute from three sources: Lund’s and Beverly’s provide 1/3; rescued produce is 1/3; and ICA buys fresh produce for the other 1/3^rd. Due to the economy and inflation the cost of buying these things costs ICA and additional $200,000 to $300,000 which is an increase of 33% over budget! Now ICA’s volunteers make home deliveries to shut in’s and disabled and often those volunteers find out that recipients they deliver to do not even have the basic implements to even open the delivered canned and fresh foods so they supply them also.

ICA also helps recipients to find jobs and housing assistance. They have a full time employment consultant Kerry Fisher to help people in their job search and she has contacts that are willing to employ immigrants, ex-felons and others that have been terminated due to budget cuts. They also provide housing assistance to the tune of 1 1/2 million dollars in rental assistance! They can only provide one month of rental assistance and have 200-300 families receiving assistance. ICA gets high marks for keeping their overhead to 10% with the rest going to their clients. Over the last several they have become very efficient in their new location that gives their clients the feel of a regular grocery store. We also found out during the Q&A that they provide books to all ages and our club will make them a recipient from our spring book collection project. They also provide dog, cat and rabbit food for pets. ICA also provides snacks for needy kids in the Hopkins Schools.

Scott Searl is an amazing addition to ICA and we look forward to volunteering our club for a work day and part of our charitable giving program.

Scott McGinnis Biography

Our Program on Tuesday, January 17^th was Scott McGinnis giving us his Personal Biography. Gary Thompson kicked things off as Opening Marshal by giving us a short history lesson and quiz of Rotary and our club. Pres. Elect Randy Schumacher presented Pres. Steve with Paul Harris major donor award. Then Pres. Steve s

howed the website he and Scott Zerby did which features each of this year’s Rotary Events on our revolving slide show (Check our website at www.excelsiorrotary.org )

Our member speaker Scott McGinnis gave a great biography of his life! He started by telling us that he always puts his middle initial “D.” (i.e., Donnivan) when in his name to honor both of his grandfathers. Being a Historian, Scott then took us through the chronology if his life with dates and

a good amount of humor! His parents married young and he was born on 12-4-1965 and is the 3^rd of 4 children. His sports of choice were Hockey and Baseball and a lifelong love of fishing. He graduated from MHS in 1983 and got his Bachelor’s Degree from the U of M in History in 1987. He married his wife Beth, who he met in college, on 9-19-1987at Trinity Episcopal Church in Excelsior and was the 4^th generation in his family to be married there. They have two sons – Alexander and Andrew.

Scott has had a lifelong love of restoring old cars. He started by restoring a 1929 Model A Ford and has now restored 5 automobiles and did the restoration of the last one with his son. He also helped Darel Leipold rebuid the engine for his 1910 Model T Ford. Scott also enjoys building homes and built the family cabin in Nisswa. He is also a canoe enthusiast and has done many trips to the Boundary Waters and Mississippi River. He recounted his near death experience on 6-1-2022 when he and his son’s canoe capsized in a storm and was saved by his son from dying of hypothermia.

He then shared his love of History all the way back when he was 10 years old in Carl Orstad’s class when he researched Winston Churchill’s life for a call project. He loved history so much he even landed a job at the Mn Historical society and from high school through college. He combined his love of history and research to become a consultant on Environmental historical contamination using his research for legal adjudication in contamination cleanups. He retired in 2013 to care for his Father-In-Law after having a heart attack and passed away this last September 21^st. He continues the love of history and serves as President of the Minnetonka Historical Society located in Excelsior.

Three Speakers & Club Assembly

Our Program on Tuesday, December 20^th was a Club Assembly with speakers Bryce Lesinski, Bill Lester and David Neubauer plus and update on our club’s progress towards reaching our goals for 2022-2023. It was a marathon! Our first speaker was Bryce Lesinski who was sponsored by our

club to attend Rotary’s Camp Enterprise. Camp Enterprise is a three-day camp that took place in November for high school juniors and seniors designed to introduce students to the free enterprise system and encourage entrepreneurship and ethical business practices. The experience is often life changing. Bryce is a senior at Minnetonka High School and enrolled in the Advantage Program. Bryce thanked our club for the scholarship and described being one of the 84 participants in this year’s program. He mentioned the five entrepreneurs that spoke to the kids and also the three day task in teams to come up with a business plan and then sell it to the overall group. He found it to be fascinating and his group won the competition and he received a $1,000 scholarship for his efforts. We believe that this young man has great potential!

The second speaker was Bill Lester enlisting our help in providing a community park adjacent to the 3^rd Avenue Apartments on the Excelsior United Methodist Church property on the south-east side of Excelsior. The park would serve some 500 children that have no recreational facilities in that part of town. The name of the park will be called So-Hi Community Park (South of Highway 7) and is a 10 year effort coming now to fruition. Total cost of the project is $270 and the organizers have commitments for $125,000 and searching for sources and donors for the rest of the three year project. Currently the partners are the Excelsior United Methodist Church, Excelsior Morning Rotary, City of Excelsior, and Bridgewater Bank that is willing to carry the loan. The 1^st phase will be the playground & equipment on a year-round PIP surface that is ADA accessible. The 2^nd phase will add an updated basketball/or sports court for a variety of sports. Hopefully our club can be of assistance either as club and/or individual donations.

Our third speaker was David Neubauer who is our Assistant Governor. President Steve had asked him how our club could get this year’s Rotary Banner and pins. David wanted to let our members know that he is working on it! He also talked about the importance of member donations to the TRF (The Rotary Foundation) and his Chanhassen Club is working to get a grant to drill a 900 foot well in Kenya. He also complimented our club and on its vitality and the things our club is doing in our community.

The remainder of the Club Assembly was spent on receiving updates on our club’s 2022-2023 nine major goals and those that have already been achieved in meetings, speakers, service projects, membership, hybrid meetings and other goals yet to be achieved in Public Image and fundraising.

Alison Kirscht - ResourceWest

Our Program on Tuesday, December 6^th was Alison Kirscht from Resource West. Alison started by saying that “since its establishment in 1993, ResourceWest has been serving and supporting individuals and families in the West Metro who need resources and stability. We serve communities within the Hopkins and Minnetonka School Districts, including parts of the following cities: Hopkins, Minnetonka, Deephaven, Excelsior, Golden Valley, Greenwood, Shorewood, and Woodland.”

Alison noted that Resource West distributed coats, hats and waterproof mittens/glove to over a 1,000 children from 0-18 this winter. To qualify for the program a child must attend school in the Hopkins or Minnetonka School Districts, or live in one of the following cities and live in the cities mentioned above. Alison went on to say that there is a great need for warm winter ware and thanked our club and the larger community for their generosity.

At this point Alison talked about ResourceWest’s upcoming Toy Chest. ResourceWest provides new gifts to children (0-18) in the Hopkins and Minnetonka communities, to celebrate respective holidays or to just enjoy a new toy. Each registered child will receive a new toy and registered teens will receive a $25 Target gift card. “This year,” says Alison “we have 385 qualifying families registered with 1225 children to supply gifts to for Christmas.” Donations for gifts started on November 26^th with distribution that started on December 2^nd.

“There is also a great need for volunteers at ResourceWest” said Alison. “From July to December, we need volunteers who can assist in organizing and sorting donations for our Children and Youth Programs. We also need assistance on the distribution days for each program. These opportunities are usually 2-3 hours at a time.” “We thank you for Volunteering throughout the year!” said Alison. She concluded her remarks by saying “We would also like to invite you to our new fundraiser “Gathering to Grow” on Tuesday, March 14^th at the Hopkins Center for the Arts from 4 to 7pm. There will be food, Artists and entertainment and we would love to see you all there!”

Following Alison Kirscht’s comments Tiffany Frazier and Linda Gustafson came forward and presented ResourceWest with $1,000 worth of $25 gift cards for 40 teens in the Toy Chest program.

Kim Bowman - Way to Grow

Our Program on Tuesday, November 15^th was Kim Bowman from Way to Grow. The greeter and Opening Marshal was Darel Leipold who sang a brief introduction to the meeting and then read a poem he wrote saluting veterans and then reviewed all the Pres

idents that had served in the military. Don Draayer then introduced our speaker by telling of his acquaintance with Kim as a President Elect of Minneapolis #9 and the origins of Way to Grow.

Ms. Bowman started right out with the Mission of Way to Grow as being a premier Early Childhood Education program started in 1989 with the help of then Mayor Don Fraser. Its goal is simple says Kim, “Babies born healthy, stay healthy and read by 3^rd grade.” She then relayed a message from Carolyn Smallwood, CEO of W2G, thanking our club for the books, donation and the donations of individual club members. Also that Carolyn has been the CEO for the past 17 years and her passion that no child left behind! Kim continued by relaying that W2G helps parents to get kids ready for school with their staff of 13 Educators that work with parents to achieve the mantra of “Great by 8”. They start with parents prior to birth to educate health of the mother W2G’s success rate of healthy births is 90% where the normal population is on 70%. Then the Early Child Education program with training parents and also helping to meet basic family needs. From the age of 3 to pre-Kindergarten the W2G Educators meet with children and parents in letter identification, numbers and basic socialization concepts. Way to Grow has a nationally accredited curriculum for each phase of a child’s development. The Educators are multi-racial and cultural speaking in 10 different languages. This exposure during the pre-K years gives these children a huge benefit of readiness for Kindergarten. Then from k-3^rd grade parents are coached in helping their children with reading and home studies and the staff works with parents to know what questions to ask at Parent-Teacher Conferences. This has resulted in 93% of W2G parents attend P-T Conferences!

Way to Grow serves a needy population and have enlarged their area of service well beyond the Minneapolis boarders into other cities and suburbs. Some of the demographics include: 62% are H.S. grads, 55% are employed, 43% are single parent families, and 55% speak a different language. It is really helpful that the Educators speak the native language of the parents they are serving. As a result there is a very high level of recognition of the importance of education and results in a high level of school attendance.

Kim spoke of the difficulties caused by the Covid pandemic which necessitated the staff to do virtual home visits. Since many families did not have computers they supplied parent with 120 laptops and also headphones for the family members to do their virtual education classes. During the pandemic the staff made some 11,000 visits with families. Also during the community turmoil for the George Floyd killing they provided those impacted families with food and basic needs. Both events also necessitated individual tutoring of the children for 30 minute sessions. Kim mentions the Consolation Fund started by Andrew Dayton that projects the benefits to society of various charities return per dollar donated. W2G has a phenomenal $11.64/$1 donation benefit! Also their revised curriculum is now shown to be 98% in W2G reaching their educational goals with children. She ended her presentation by letter us know that gifting through one’s IRA is a great way to give and use the benefit of pre-tax dollars. It was an amazing presentation!

Don Draayer on Life and Rotary

Our Program on November 1^st was Dr. Don Draayer speaking on “Life's Foundation Stones and What Rotary has added to my Life.” Don gave our club an intimate look into his life of 87 years and his foundations of faith, family, education and leadership and built his presentation around stories of his life. Don’s early life on the family truck farm in Hollandale of second generation Dutch heritage that set his path in life based on faith and family. He was the first born of four siblings and parents were very faithful Christians and brought the famil

y up in that manner. At a young age he was very impressed by the visiting missionaries from China and even considered becoming a missionary. He had many good influences including his Aunts and Uncles and the migrant workers that came to help farm and harvest the crops. Working with the migrants brought about his awareness of humanity and understanding of diversity. These associations of working right along with the migrant taught him that “there is no shame if you sweat for a living” and opened his eyes to accepting other different races, cultures and religions. He related these experiences to his respect for Rotary and all of the projects they do worldwide and also for the past 49 years in Rotary has helped his mind connect to the world at large and challenged him to serve all of humanity.

He returned often to reflections of his early family life and faith and how it made him the man he is today and his love of family. Things like Sunday church- morning and evening, meals together, and Bible reading and stories in the evenings. Don recounted his mother’s conversation with him when he was 16 year old when she asked him if he was listening to God’s call for his life and was he considering being a missionary, minister, teacher or maybe even a potato farmer to feed the people of the world. He attended high school in Albert Lea and the importance of education. With a big smile he told us about as a teenager he was speeding around town and his Uncle took him aside for a stern talking to about the consequences of reckless driving and how family is always there to help you cope with life. Don had not thought a lot about college until his teachers urged him to develop his potential. He visited Bethel College and his Dad paid for two year of tuition for him to attend and get his AA Degree. He went on from there to get his BS Degree from the U of M, his MA from Western Michigan University and Doctorate from the University of Illinois.

While teaching in Michigan he had his first introduction to Rotary. He was invited to speak of the club of 80 members (all men) and they were all dressed in suits and found out that at the hour’s end members would just get up and leave which taught the lesson to stay on time and stay on task. He was impressed with the Rotary and how people of varying religions, faith, nationalities and professions all worked together to serve others and their good works in the community, nation and world. He is also pleased with how Rotary has morphed into an organization open to both genders, promoting diversity, friendships, business connections and leadership skills and service to others. Don ended by saying “This is why I have been a Rotary member for 49 years!”