Woodland Rotary - The Rotary Club of Woodland Website

President Dan Stroski, counting the days before his June 28th Demotion, got us started today. Tony Delevati introduced Taryn Cadena, a 2021-22 Rotary Foundation Global Grant Scholar at the University of Plymouth in the United Kingdom. Taryn is a graduate of Woodland High School (2009) and UC Santa Cruz (2014). Our Club and Woodland Sunrise are her International sponsors. Rotary Foundation Chair Tom Schwarzgruber presents Blair Voelz with his Paul Harris (+2) pin in recognition of Blair's significant financial contributions to the Foundation.

Woodland Sunrise Rotarians Byron MacConnell, Don Sharp and Wayne Ginsburg visited today. With the pot at $640 and getting help from Tom Schwarzgruber, Mike Chandler still managed to drawn a free lunch.

Dick Hoppin made his successful debut in leading Recognition today, asking questions about legal challenges and their outcomes. Eric Zane, Mike Russell and Ernie Hodges were among his victims.

Woodland City Manager Ken Hiatt was our guest speaker today, presenting an overview of the many issues and project the City is addressing these days, including the Woodland Research and Technology Park in Southeast Woodland. Thanks to Derrek Kaff for arranging and introducing this informative program.

President Dan Stroski presented Paul Harris Fellowship pins to Tom Schwarzgruber (+3), Tabb Randolph (+5), Les Engelmann (+3), and Mike Chandler (+7) with the thanks of the Club today in recognition of their extensive financial contributions to the Rotary Foundation. Steve Venables was the lone lead singer for Rotary Grace today. Rotarian Susan Lundquist (Luna Vista) visited us today. Steve Venables introduced his guest and prospective new Club member Mark Pemberton.

Under questioning from President Dan Stroski during today's Recognition, Marie Galbo could not recall Richard Dreyfuss' name in a picture from 'Jaws', Chuck Moore could not indentify Gene Kelly in a picture from 'Singin in the Rain', Tom Schwarzgruber could not identify Tim Holland in a picture of from 'Spider-Man: Homecoming'. Bob Nakken correctly identified Charlton Heston in a picture from 'Ben Hur'.

Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig was our guest speaker today, providing us with a sobering report on the Fentanyl Crisis happening across the United States and here locally.

President Dan Stroski announced on May 3 two long-term Club members have recently passed away: Major General Jim Taylor (1931-22), USAF Retired; and Clancy Duppong (1936-2022). They will be missed.

Marie Galbo, Brian Dwyer and President Dan Stroski helped the Shredathon event at Umpqua Bank on May 6. The event was sponsored by the Yolo County District Attorney's office to provide residents with a document shredding service free of charge.

The 2022 Rotary Mystery Golf Trip took about 50 members of the Sunrise and Noon Clubs, and some guests to the Cypress Lakes Golf Course just outside Travis AFB in Vacaville on May 4. Many thanks to Chuck Santoni (Sunrise) and Chuck Maltese for arranging this great outing!

Under the leadership of President-elect Shawn Seyk, we enjoyed a very successful 2022 Dinner Auction on Saturday, April 23 at the California Agricultural Museum raising funds for

Woodland Girls Fastpitch Softball. We had 226 paid guests attending and preliminary financial estimates indicate $50,000 was raised.

Edward Jones - Jen Ward, Craig Miyamoto, Mike Russell, Brian Dwyer & Kevin Haarberg

President Dan Stroski presents Woodland City Council member Rich Lansburgh with the plaque and check for the new flag pole in front of City Hall on April 8. This was a gift to the City of Woodland by the Rotary Club of Woodland and the Woodland Rotary Endowment in celebration of the City's 150th Anniversary. Other Club members attending included David Pinto, Marie Galbo, President-elect Shawn Seyk, Derrek Kaff, Lori Ross & Kris Kristensen.

Dena Lawrence joined the Noon Club on April 20, 2021 after transferring from Woodland Sunrise. Dena is a Pre-Sales Portfolio Manager for Microsoft. After a little delay, Dena provided us the following bio at our request. If you haven't already done so, take a moment to introduce yourself to Dena when you meet and welcome her to the Club.

Born in Sacramento, Dena grew up in Woodland and graduated from WHS in 2000. She returned to Woodland after spending 8 years in Southern and Central California, as well as nearly a decade in Dublin, Ireland. While in Ireland she completed her Master’s Degree in Organisational Behaviour at University College Dublin’s Smurfit Graduate School of Business. Shortly after graduation, Dena began her career with Microsoft, working various roles in software consulting. She spent much of her free time playing co-ed Tag Rugby or hiking the expansive, brilliant green outdoors. Aside from her consulting work with Microsoft during that time, Dena made a name for herself with her extensive activism for LGBT+ inclusion and equality and was named Ireland's LGBT Role Model of the Year in 2015!

Since returning to Woodland, Dena continues to work with Microsoft where she manages a multi-million dollar portfolio of Microsoft technology consulting services opportunities in the US State and Local Government market, where she specializes in Public Safety and Justice motions to harness technology to drive improvements in justice systems across the US.

In addition, Dena is a proud single mother to a bubbly, rambunctious toddler and is expecting her 2^nd child this summer.

She joined Woodland Sunrise Rotary to meet other service-oriented folks in the area and find opportunities to continue to give back to her community.

Members of the Woodland High School Interact Club (supported by our Rotary Club) recently came to Woodland Public Libary's Square One facility to make reusable sanitary pads for girls attending school in Karen, Kenya (the same school benefiting from Rotary's Kenya WASH project) to improve their chances of staying in school after their menstral cycle begins. "We take hygiene for granted in this country.", states Jaziri (Interact member). "We want to do something about it and help girls graduate from high school." Woodland Rotarian Jayne Williams provided instructions with support from Club President Dan Stroski.

The Rotary Club of Woodland has been participating in the Kenya WASH project since October ’20 to improve water supply, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) at two schools in Karen, Kenya (Africa). This is a Rotary Global Grant effort sponsored by the Rotary Club of Karen. The project is a coordinated effort to make needed improvements at the Karen C Primary School, serving 1300 students, 50 teachers (established in 1958), and the adjacent Karen C Girls Secondary (high school) school (established in 2011) with enrollment of 600 students. Phase One of the project, which installed two large capacity water tanks and hand washing stations for students, was completed in August ’21 at a cost of $40,000. Our Club contributed $5,000 toward Phase One.

Photos from Phase One of the project can be viewed in our Photo Gallery.

Kenya is located on the east coast of Africa. Karen, Kenya is a suburb of Kenya’s capitol city Nairobi. Photos below show children from both Karen schools.

Sanitation conditions at the Karen C schools today are terrible, and would be considered unacceptable for any similar facilities in the United States. As photos below show, pit latrines are in use.

Phase Two is ready to start and club support is needed to move forward. Club Kenya WASH Chair Blair Voelz indicates Phase Two seeks to build a new, modern facility at the primary school with flush toilets, fix up the existing bathroom at the secondary school, and install a septic system serving both schools. These improvements will be a major step forward in sanitation for the children and staff of both schools.

The budget for Phase Two is $80,000. Funding would again come largely from a Rotary Global Grant and a District 5160 match. Our Club, as international sponsor, will need to raise $15,000. The RC of Karen is expected to raise the same amount.

As of February 24, 2022, Blair reports Club members (Brooker, Chandler, Delevati, Diekman, Engelmann, Faye, Galbo, Haarberg, Hodges, Huff III, LaBrie, Lawrence, Maltese, Martinez, Moore, Nakken, Pettit, Pinto, Randolph, Roy, Schwarzgruber, Sonin, Stroski, Ullrich, Voelz, Wegener, Williams, and Wirth) have donated $10,850 toward the Phase Two project. We also have $500 from Luna Vista Rotary, and verbal commitments of $500 each from the Davis Sunrise and Winters Rotary clubs.

Photos shown below show facilities similar to the ones we wish to build. They were built for another WASH Project in Nairobi.

Club President Dan Stroski reports contributions from the Club and/or the Woodland Endowment for Phase Two have not yet been determined. However, he indicates interested members may now make personal contributions toward Phase Two themselves. Any amount you can donate will go a long way to reaching the Club’s $15K responsibility for the project.

Members wishing to make a donation toward Phase Two of the Kenya WASH project can do so by check made out to ‘Woodland Rotary Endowment’ with a note indicating ‘Kenya WASH Phase Two’. The check should be mailed to P.O. Box 31 Woodland CA 95776 c/o Assistant Club Treasurer Tom Schwarzgruber. Or, contributions can be made via PayPal or your credit card on the Club’s website.