Woodland Rotary - The Rotary Club of Woodland Website

With President Karl Diekman still traveling President-elect Bob Nakken once again took the helm today in front of a modest sized group on a pleasant late summer day. President-elect Bob inducted Chuck Bruns, who was sponsored and introduced by Membership Chair Yvette Roy, as the newest member of our Club.

We were joined by three members of the Woodland Sunrise Club today: Don Sharp, Byron MacConnell, and Sue Westwood. Sue reminded us dinner and grand prize raffle tickets are available for Woodland Sunrise's Annual Salmon BBQ scheduled for October 14, 2033 at Waite Hall in the Yolo Fairgrounds.

Carl Rodegerdts will be celebrating his 87th birthday (Woodland) on Sep 22. Tom Schwarzgruber thanked those who attended and helped out at our special evening meeting last Tuesday in their backyard. With the pot at $371 and 20 cards remaining, Lisa Dunham managed to find a free lunch! Chuck Moore fessed up to celebrating his 66th birthday (Woodland) on Sep 6.

Rotary Beer Booth Chair Gary Wegener reported the Club will receive $3100 from our work at the County Fair this year. President-elect Bob fined Gary Bunch for his many complaints about how the SF Giants are playing this year. Bob proposed a friendly wager between them: if the Giants finish this season with more wins than losses, Gary will donate $100 to the Rotary Foundation. If the Giants finish the season with more losses than wins, Bob will donate $100 to the Rotary Foundation. Gary accepted the challenge! Rob Beggs was happy his granddaughter competed well in a recent gymnastics tournament and will move on to State-wide competition.

Don Huff III was in charge of today's Recognition, asking about a memory from the late Gary Wirth, a story how you enjoyed this summer, or a good memory from your childhood. Don's father, Don Huff Jr., was happy to be back in town after spending the summer at his family's place in Lake Tahoe.

West Sacramento Estate Planning and Probate Attorney Lauren Jones was our guest speaker today giving us a presentation on Estate Planning Misconceptions. Thank you to Wendy Casas for arranging and introducing this excellent program. The complete visual slide presentation Lauren presented can be found here. More about Lauren's firm can be seen at her website: https://laurencjoneslaw.com

The Club enjoyed a special evening session on Sep 12, as 54 members, spouses and other guests gathered in the beautiful backyard of hosts Tom & Gail Schwarzgruber for a dinner of BBQ dinner of hamburgers, salads and ice cream and received an extensive demonstration by Woodland Police Department's K-9 Officers Dave Shepherd and Ryan Royal, along with their K-9 partners Ricky and Lochi. President-elect Bob Nakken presided as President Karl Diekman is traveling for Rotary. In addition to the Schwaragrubers, thanks also go to members of the Woodland High School Interact Club who helped out, as well as Aniek Pflager, Carl Rodegerdts, Tabb Randolph and Don Huff III for their assistance.

With President Karl Diekman traveling (see post below), President-elect Bob Nakken took the helm at today's meeting. Prospective new member Chuck Bruns was introduced by Yvette Roy as her guest.

Club Grants and Service Committee Chair Blair Voelz reported the Kenya WASH Phase Two project (see project explanation below on this page) is on hold today because of a decision by Kenya Rotary authorities to 'suspend' the project for unknown reasons. Blair indicated Club President Karl Diekman is in Africa now and plans to be in Kenya soon in an effort to learn more about the situation and hopes to get this important, yet long-delayed project going again.

Tim Pettit fessed up to celebrating his 20th wedding anniversary with wife Nadine on Aug 31st (Murphy's CA). Kris Kristensen got an early warning on his Sep 19th wedding anniversary with wife Kathy (2015 in Live Oak CA). Marie Galbo plans to celebrate her 78th birthday on Sep 11th (Trenton NJ). Dick Hoppin 'rang the bell' in thanks for being reminded last week about his 59th wedding anniversary with wife Muffy coming up tomorrow. Sep 6.

Eric Sharp 'rang the bell' for a recent trip to Hawaii where he watched is granddaughter play volleyball, but he also got some successful deer hunting accomplished in the rugged mountains on the Island of Molokai. Christian Sherrill was happy a family member come down to Woodland's truck show over the weekend and Christian got to ride up and down Main Street in the big truck parade. Mark Ullrich was in charge of today's Recognition and asked questions about the history of the Labor Day holiday. Mark was also happy about a recent family vacation to visit Disneyland and Universal Studios, though he discovered he no longer enjoys the rides that much.

Dooba Eibensteiner, Lead Pastor, Living Hope Church, was our guest speaker today presenting us with a program about his counseling work with Crossroads Christian Counseling. Thanks to Mark Ullrich for introducing our speaker today. More about Crossroads Christian Counseling can be found at its website: www.crossroadswoodland.com

As we know, in addition to being our Club President, Karl Diekman also serves Rotary as a Technical Advisor to the Health Education and Wellness Rotary Advisory Group (HEWRAG). He is in Egypt today (Sep 4) where he is seen in this photo speaking to the Rotary Club of El Tahrir in Cairo as a HEWRAG representative at the launch of the End Cervical Cancer for Egypt Project which is Rotary's latest Program of Scale. In this photo the lady looking at Karl is the Project leader, Dr. Amal El-Sisi. The man in the background on the left is the District Governor and the man on the right is the club president. Karl says he has plans to make two more presentations in Egypt. One to the Rotarians from the District there to encourage them to take up advocacy roles. The second will be to women's groups in low-income areas to encourage them to take advantage of the these services.

Phil Safran, sponsored by Gary Wegener, was installed as a new member of the Club on July 11, 2023 by President Karl Diekman. At our request, Phil provided us with the following bio. If you haven't already done so, please take a moment to introduce yourself to Phil when you meet and welcome him to the Club.

Philip Safran - Born May 5, 1955. Youngest child and youngest son of Anne and David Safran. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Attended University at SUNY Albany graduating with a Bachelor's degree in Accounting in 1976.

I worked for several Accounting firms before going to Corporate accounting. My last two jobs were working as a CFO for Corporations. Most notably, I worked for a startup company called HomewiseDocs for 11 years. The Company began with nothing except a business plan and ended up selling for a large amount of money.

I am the father of a young man named David Safran and am the grandfather of a 3 year old girl named Gabriaella Safran.

I retired from Homewise in 2018 largely due to being diagnosed with Parkinson disease. Still I was called into Homewise to work on several projects.

In my 50s I hiked to the top of half dome several times and to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. In my twenties I ran several marathons.

Woodland Rotary took 54 members, spouses & guests on a bus trip to Oracle Park in San Francisco on Saturday, July 29, to attend the Giants game with the Boston Red Sox. Thanks to Yvette Roy for organizing this great outing!

During July 2023 the Rotary Club of Woodland and the Woodland Rotary Endowment have donated more than $62,700 to local community organizations. Annually the Club sponsors a charitable banquet/auction to raise funds for specific local charities or public institutions. Examples of recent projects funded by the Club include a new scoreboard for the Woodland High School stadium; the children’s playground at the Yolo County Bauer Building; a new flagpole in front of Woodland City Hall, and new fields for the Woodland Girl’s Fastpitch League.

This year the Club decided to fund several smaller projects and sought applications for funding from the community. We are happy to announce the following local organizations have received donations:

Woodland Little League - $9,260. These funds will be used to replace the aging back stop at Camarena Field, located at Christiansen Park in Woodland, CA

All Leaders Must Serve - $5,000. This money will help provide mentoring aid for young adult leaving high school and needing help to determine their life’s path.

The Bike Campaign - $3,000. These funds will be used for several projects. New, secure bicycle racks at the local schools; the purchase of thirty new bicycles for 2^nd through 6^th Grade “bike skills training” at various Woodland Elementary Schools.

Mosaic- Woodland Children’s Museum - $10,000. This money will be used to build out their Toddler Exhibit. Designed especially for toddlers, the Toddler Exhibit puts our youngest children in charge and lets them learn through role playing and decision making in a safe environment.

Friends of Adult Day Health - $5,500. This money will help to provide services to frail or dependent adults that require an array of long-term care and services to promote health and wellbeing.

Yolo Crisis Nursery - $10,000. This money will go to help build a new nursery in South Davis, and will expand services provided to families in need.

An additional $20,000 was donated to the Yolo County Fair Heritage Foundation. This money came from proceeds of the Future Farmers of America (FFA) Live Auction which takes place annually during the Yolo County Fair. The money will be used to construct a new Auction/Show Ring where youth can display the animals they raised and cared for.

Woodland Rotary's 2023 Dinner Auction on Saturday, April 22 was a BIG SUCCESS! A sold out crowd of over 220 people attended at the California Agriculture Museum to raise funds for seven local charities.

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

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.

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.

Our Club's Kenya WASH Chair Blair Voelz reports Phase Two of the project is moving foward. Phase Two seeks to build a new, modern 1700sf bathroom for faculty, boys and girls at the Karen C Elementary School. These improvements will be a major step forward in sanitation for the children and staff of both schools.

The Phase Two Rotary grant total budget is $76,190 which includes $27,835 raised from our Club, other local Rotary clubs, and the Karen Kenya Rotary Club; $27,600 in District 5160 matching grant funds; and $20,755 from the Rotary Foundation World Fund. These funds have been deposited in a Nairobi bank account specifically set up for this project. The project is currently out for bid. Construction is scheduled to begin in 4-6 weeks and will take 6-8 weeks to build. Phase Two should be complete by Summer 2023.

Our Club's contribution to Phase Two totals $12,685, which includes $10,850 in personal donations from 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). We also have $500 each from Luna Vista Rotary, Davis Sunrise Rotary and Winters Rotary.

Photos shown below show facilities similar to the ones to be built in Phase Two. They were built for another WASH Project in Nairobi.

Learn more about Rotary Foundation projects that fund this and other international efforts to provide clean water.