I hope that everyone had a relaxing holiday! Many of us were fortunate to spend the holiday with family and friends. I spent the holiday in Brookings with my wife Tiffany, in-laws and fellow Rotarians Larry and Marcia Janssen, and brother-in-law Matthew Janssen. We should remember, however, that many professions don’t have the luxury of time off during the holidays. Thanks to all of our police officers, firefighters, paramedics, corrections officers, doctors, and nurses who needed to work on Christmas and Christmas Eve. Also, I would like to send a big thank you to the snow removal crews in Brookings for working over the holiday. I’m sure they will have more work to do in the coming months!
We have an exciting program for the month of January lined up by Erich Olson and Devan Schaefer. Immediately after the start of the new year, Paul Briseno will speak to our club. Mr. Briseno is the City Manager for Brookings and he will discuss the proposed Brookings Marketplace. Residents will have an opportunity to vote on this proposal on Tuesday January 30th. Unfortunately, the vote means we will be kicked out of the Brookings Activity Center that Tuesday. However, we will still meet by Zoom! We are encouraging Rotarians to come together in small groups at people’s homes to have lunch and join the Zoom call. We will also hear (in person) from Jared McEntaffer from the Dakota Institute, who will also speak about the state of South Dakota’s economy, Kurt Osborne, who will speak about a new First Generation scholarship being offered through the Brookings School District, and our very own Erich Olson (along with Mark Siemonsa), who will be speaking about their trip to Romania this fall with Hope Haven.
Erich and Mark’s talk is a great reminder about opportunities Rotarians have to volunteer and network with other Rotarians internationally. For example, many of us have benefited from travel to other countries as part of Rotary friendship exchanges. We also sponsor a student (Lidia) at the School of St. Jude in Tanzania. Many Brookings Rotarians over the years have attended the Rotary International Conference and my wife Tiffany and I are planning to travel to Rotary International in Singapore this May. More locally, the Brookings Rotary Club is volunteering for the Brookings Backpack Project this month and we are beginning to plan volunteer efforts to help host the South Dakota National Alliance on Mental Illness conference this fall. Finally, we just finished a major fundraising and volunteer effort for Feeding Brookings in December. We raised $1,568.16 and nine Rotarians volunteered their time to pack and deliver food to people in need this holiday season. To put this dollar amount in perspective, the amount we raised provided food for 157 families in Brookings County. We received the following message from District Governor Rich Burns about our efforts:
“Wow! This is exactly what we were thinking when we talked about how the "Food 4 the Holidays" would work. Brookings Rotary is amazing and exemplifies the Rotary model. We totally appreciate all you do throughout Rotary and your support on District-wide initiatives like this one. Congrats on a job well done and have a great holiday season.”
Yours in Rotary,
Michael Gonda