Rotary Meeting 1/05/21
Author - Suzi Oliver
Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties, we were not able to have our Zoom attendees share the day with us.
After a warm "Welcome Back" from President Lynn King, Kevin Courtney started us out with a morning prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance.
Steve Stauffer announced that during Kristin Keller's Presidency, Nancy Riedel will continue as Secretary, Suzi C. Oliver will continue as Sergeant-At-Arms, Jacob Hunt will be our new Treasurer with John Farrenkopf being his assistant, and Dick Storm and Kevin Courtney will be Board members.
Jon Eggert updated us that today Joah Etchells will be posting for the third time and this Thursday, 6pm at Mangiamo's will be his orientation and all Rotarians are asked to join if possible. He apologized for the late announcement of this orientation. Nancy's friend Beth Kuzmick has her first posting today and Kristin has a friend who would also like to join. Lynn and Steve reminded the Club that we need to increase our membership by encouraging others to join.
Sonny presented John D. Cunningham with his 8 year Paul Harris Fellow pin and thanked him for his generosity as a sustaining Foundation Member. He reminded us that it is a $1,000/year (or $84/month) commitment to be a Paul Harris Fellow and that you can cancel at any time. Congratulations John!
January 23rd will be the first litter cleanup of the year at the Hilton Head school campus. School is now in session so we anticipate there will be litter to remove. All members are encouraged to pitch in.
Lynn announced that John Farrenkopf was successful at obtaining a grant for $23,000 from the CARES ACT that we will be able to use for our commitment to the Island Rec Center in lieu of decreased fundraising opportunities due to the pandemic. And speaking of fundraising... Kristin Keller, who has been a dynamic fundraiser for our Rotary, is seeking a member to take over this task for the coming year. Kristin also provided an update on this past fundraiser. The club sold 480 tickets. Some members had not paid their funds so $1800 had to be billed to the members. Nasser paid an extra $200 to help with this effort as he is usually our highest ticket seller. All in all, $9,550 was paid to the winners and the remaining balance will also be used toward our Rec Center commitment.
Suzi C. Oliver asked for Happy Dollars and we had many happy Rotarians today!
photo credit Suzi Oliver
Our guest speaker was Barbara Catenaci, Executive Director for The Heritage Library here on HHI. Her passion for helping others and fundraising started back when she was in the second grade with lemonade stands and bake sales, advanced to an on-campus fundraising group for Special Olympics at UConn and she has never looked back! She joined the Beaufort County School District in 2003 and it is she that we can thank for the first one-to-one laptop computer programs for middle school students. This endeavor led her to work in a leading video conferencing manufacturer in a grants management role in the for-profit technology world. Fast forward to 2018, not quite ready for retirement, she returned to the non-profit world working with The Heritage Library as Executive Director, where she has grown the mission, preserved historic sites owned by the Library, expanded community outreach and education and made learning about local and family history fun and meaningful, all with the support of the Board of Directors and amazing volunteers. The HL is a 560 member strong organization (with 30% of the members living outside SC and one in India!) that is the history repository for HHI, keeping track of everything going on in town. She updated us on Fort Mitchell and Zion Cemeteries, both owned by the HL and a Rotarian reminded the Club that former Rotarian (and Past President of The Heritage Library) Lou Benefante was responsible for much of the HL obtaining these National Historic Sites and was very active in the HL. As for the Baynard Cemetery, 27 more graves have been discovered. At Fort Mitchell, the Boy Scouts painted handrails and safety stripes.
Barbara stated that The Heritage Library's classes are all online and membership has increased this year. Teachers are now able to obtain lesson plans on HHI history, which has been very helpful. They host events to raise money for the Library, such as Ghosts and Myths tours, Historic Holidays on HHI, the Gullah Celebration (and on that day the Gullah community is able to do free research on their Gullah descendants), and the Revolutionary War Forum in the late fall, to name a few.
Due to Covid-19, the Library will build upon a program started by the town of HHI on the community response to the pandemic - on how well we handled it, such as were there more family dinners, more phone calls, etc. It will be used for further research down the road.
Barbara is proud to announce that The Heritage Library is one of the TOP TEN places in the world to trace history!
Lynn closed out the meeting reminding everyone of this Thursday's membership orientation for Joah!