Woodland Rotary - The Rotary Club of Woodland Website

Preparations are underway for our 2023 Dinner Auction on Saturday, April 22 at the California Agricultural Museum. Event proceeds benefit several community organizations.

Members: If you purchased tickets with your annual dues - you still need to go to the Eventbrite website (use link below) and select TICKETS - then put in the number 4 next to the DINNER TICKET PRE PAID option. Fill in your name so we can confirm you have paid and are good to go!

Others: Want to buy dinner tickets? Register on the Eventbrite website (link below) to register and purchase.

Distribution of tickets to members to start March 21. $100 per ticket to purchase. Only 200 tickets available. Each member is asked to purchase or sell at least two tickets.

Winner gets the following Trip Options - roundtrip airfare from Sacramento, and travel insurance included at:

Maui - 5 nights at Kaanapali Shores; one bedroom ocean view condo & midsize rental car for duration of stay; or

Cabo San Lucas - 7 nights at Dreams Cabo San Lucas plus roundtrip transfers from airport to resort; or

Disney World - 5 nights at Disney Caribbean Beach Resort; two 4-day passes (Disney Park, Epcot, Disney Animal Kingdom) & midsize rental car for duration of stay;

Mark Ullrich and Roger Kohlmeier are seeking sponsors for the Dinner Auction. Sponsorship Tiers:

Blair Voelz and Brian Dwyer are looking for donations of oral and silent auction items to be offered during the event.

Jeff Burger is asking each Club member to donate two bottles of good quality wine (minimum $20 value each). Bring them either to a Tuesday Club meeting or to Jeff's office (REMAX 927 Main St.).

With a steady rain falling outside, President Shawn Seyk got a good meeting started inside the Hotel Woodland today. Dan Stroski, Steve Venables, and Jim McGibbon got us going on the Rotary Grace.

Visiting Rotarian Mack Walker (Davis Sunrise) joined us today. Jim McGibbon reported a Rotary Global Grant project to train local high school graduates to become qualified dentists, optometrists, and family doctors and provide care for a medically underserved population in Nicaragua, which our Club co-sponsored, was closed down due to contraints imposed by the Nicaraguan government. Over 250 currently enrolled students will be allowed to complete their education. Chuck Maltese is looking for signups for the Rotary Mystery Golf Trip on May 3. David Pinto handled our Zoom and visual display technology today.

Tabb Randolph reported the Club's Dinner Auction Committee is actively preparing for the 2023 Dinner Auction on Saturday, April 22, mentioning Mark Ullrich and Roger Kohlmeier are soliciting for event sponsors, Brian Dwyer and Blair Voelz are seeking items for the silent and oral auctions, and David Pinto has set up the online Eventbrite site where members can obtain their dinner tickets. President-elect Karl Diekman spoke for Jeff Burger who is encouraging members to donate two bottles of good wine toward the Wheelbarrow of Wine to be sold at the Auction. You can bring your donated wine bottles to next week's Club meeting or to Jeff's office at REMAX 927 Main Street. Immediate Past President Dan Stroski says the Demotion of President Shawn is set to take place on Friday, June 30. Aniek Pflager has Winner's Choice Raffle tickets to distribute to members for their purchase or to sell prior to the Auction. Aniek is also looking for members to signup for their preferred assignment at the March 9 Senior BBQ at Rotary Park.

Sporting a distinguished tan, Kevin Haarberg enjoyed spending two weeks in Cabo San Lucas recently with wife Lorie. Don Huff III was happy about the auctioneering help Eric Sharp provided the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation recently. Clyde Brooker took the helm on Recognition today.

Robin Taylor, Executive Director, Lawyers Without Borders, was our guest speaker today, giving us an understanding of Lawyers Without Borders. Robin is the daughter-in-law of our own Ann Taylor who arranged for and introduced Robin to us today. A complete set of slides presented by Robin can be viewed here. More about Lawyers Without Borders can be found on its website.

President Shawn Seyk presided over a pretty well attended meeting despite the rain and wind howling outside. Even the back table had to moved up closer to the front to avoid dripping water from the ceiling behind them. That's one way to get them to join the rest of the meeting!

Foundation Chair Tom Schwarzgruber presented Jim Nolan with his 4th Paul Harris Fellowship pin today, recognizing Jim for his significant financial contributions to the Rotary Foundation.

We were joined today by Woodland Sunrise Rotarians Byron MacConnell and Don Sharp. Yvette Roy was thanked for doing Meals on Wheels this week. Wendy Casas-Raviotta managed to find a free lunch today.

Blair Voelz reported on preparations for the Club's 2023 Dinner Auction on Saturday, April 22. Jeff Burger and Brian Dwyer are looking for each member to donate two bottles of good wine toward the Wheelbarrow of Wine. Blair wants all auction donations and descriptions to be submitted by April 1st. Aniek Plager said the Winner's Choice Raffle tickets will be available starting next week. The prize will be a $6,000 value this year with trip opportunities available to Maui, Cabo San Lucas, or Disney World. 200 tickets will be available for sale at $100 each. Aniek also said she is taking Senior BBQ assignment signups starting this week. Chuck Maltese is taking signups for golfers wanting to participate in the Rotary Mystery Golf Tour on Wednesday, May 3. The tour is limited to the first fifty two (52) signups. $100 per participant. 6:45am departure!

We did not have a program today when the speaker was unable to attend the meeting due to the storm.

Derrek Kaff spoke about the Community Survey on Public Safety and Law Enforcement the Woodland Police Department is conducting this month to gather opinions and experiences from residents and businesses regarding community involvement, safety, procedural justice, performance, and contact and satisfaction. Derrek said the survey can be found on the Department's website at https://cityofwoodland.org/1278/Community-Survey It takes about 5 minutes to complete and is completely confidential. Information gathered will be used to improve the Department's services, processes, and reputation.

Preston Schaub, sponsored by Frits van der Hoek, was installed as a new member of the Club on February 28, 2023 by President Shawn Seyk. At our request, Preston provided us with the following bio. If you haven't already done so, please take a moment to introduce yourself to Preston when you meet and welcome him to the Club.

Preston Schaub originally hails from New Jersey before moving to Florida just prior to high school. There, he attended college at the University of Central Florida where he received degrees in both Psychology and Criminal Justice. After graduating, Preston took a year off and worked as both a bicycle mechanic and a Kung fu instructor. However, higher education came calling and Preston soon moved to Sacramento to both attend McGeorge School of Law and to be closer to his brother, who is a Deputy Sheriff in El Dorado County. It was during this time that Preston would meet his future wife, Leslie.

Preston graduated from law school in 2014 and started his career as a prosecutor in Butte County in early 2015. After 3 years of commuting from Natomas to Oroville, Preston and Leslie decided that they wished to remain in the Sacramento area permanently. In April of 2018, Preston accepted a job as a Deputy District Attorney in Yolo County (where he is still employed), married Leslie, and they purchased their home in West Sacramento.

Preston and Leslie still reside in West Sacramento with their dog, Ned, and cat, Seymore. In their spare time they modernize their home, go wine tasting, travel, and are always looking for a new campground or great hike to explore. Preston also enjoys amateur landscape photography and has started brewing mead (honey wine). So far, he has been pleasantly surprised with the results of both.

Members of the Woodland High School Interact Club, under the guidance of Rotary advisors Jayne Williams and Marie Galbo, donated their time after school, on weekends, and over the summer of 2022 to create 150 reusable sanitary pads for female junior high school students in Karen, Kenya (Africa) who may lack the resources for the purchase of such items. The pads were shipped to Kenya last Fall. We recently received these photos of local Kenya Rotarians distributing the pads to girls at the Karen C Secondary School, as well as Thank You notes from those students to Woodland High School Interact members.

Club Polio Warrior Mark Ullrich reports Rotary has gratifying news: The last cases of wild polio were in Pakistan (September 15, 2022) and Afghanistan (August 29, 2022). This means ZERO wild polio cases anywhere in the world this calendar year. Yet polio is still out there. Positive environmental samples continue to be found. The 2023 total is currently 11; two in Pakistan and nine in Afghanistan. When samples are found it indicates polio is still present.

While polio cases have been reduced by 99.9% worldwide since 1988, it remains critical for us to continue efforts to eradicate the disease for good. Take a look at the 2 minute, 20 second video below to understand

Recently Dan Stroski came to us with the story of a local boy who was having difficulty hearing and needed hearing aids, but his family could not afford them. The problem was holding him back in school. To keep his situation private, we only know him as 'Brian'. Our Club and several Club members donated a total of $3,000 to help Brian.

We received word from the Yolo County Office of Education (YCOE) Brian received his new hearing this week (February 21-14). YCOE says Brian is over the moon about how well they work and everything he can now do. He had gone for months with limited hearing access while waiting through this process and is so ecstatic about the new aids he doesn't even want to take them off when we need to connect them with the other technology he uses! Because of these donations, Brian has the top-of-the-line hearing aids he needs to allow him to fully participate at school and at home, and that will last him for several years. When asking him about what he likes most about having the new hearing aids, almost all of Brian's answers were about being able to hear and connect with family and classmates.

'Thank you for helping me get new hearing aids. I think they are cool, because it’s very loud so I can hear everything. My favorite thing is I can hear people more and talk to them. I am also excited to use them with my Chromebook at school and with my tablet. Thank you!

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.