Larry Leonardson covers homelessness

A large turnout of sun loving Rotarians appeared for our regular Tuesday morning meeting. The largest turnout of the year! Most were present to see Francia and say a heartfelt goodbye. A couple were happy to be sending Chris out the door, too. Guests included Dennis’ wife Vicky and daughters, Natalie and Valerie; Jay Fiske and Corrine and daughters Alana, Alexis, and Regan; Rorry and wife Janine and daughter Coco; Cathi Abbott in lieu of husband John; Alex and son Matthew Hopkins. Visiting Rotarians in addition to Corrine Fiske included David Holmes (Northshore) Norm Noble (Sun Lakes) Kelly Kyle (Redmond) and Rick Helberg (Bahia de Jaltemba, Mexico). Jose Garcia, a visiting exchange student from the Canary Islands visited with his host mother, Kelly Kyle.

Max read the Five Steps to Peace as determined by Mother Teresa. It reads as follows:

The fruit of quieting our mind in silence is meditation and prayer;

The fruit of meditation and prayer is faith;

The fruit of Faith is caring and love;

The fruit of caring and love is service;

The Fruit of service is peace

Jorge presented his guest Melicia Marx of United Way of King County who introduced our speaker, Bill Block. Bill is the executive director of the Campaign to End Homelessness. Homelessness is the state of being “without a fixed home”. Homelessness is not having a place to center your life. There are 8,500 people without homes in King County on any given night. 30% of these are Vietnam veterans; 80% are permanent local citizens with ties to the community; Northshore School District reports 150 kids in our school district are homeless. 24% of people in King County say that they or someone in their family has been homeless at some point in their lives. The target group is in flux with some people leaving homelessness while some revolve back and forth, in and out of their own homes. Bill says that permitting homelessness in King County is just wrong but, equally important, is the fact that it is very costly to us. Sobering facilities, transition housing costs, hospital visits, etc all make the cost of serving the homelessness very expensive.

King County, like most governmental units in the state and even the nation, have 10 year plans to alleviate homelessness. Housing units are important and being built but the availability of services to allow someone with a housing unit to become employed, and have daycare, and otherwise meet the needs of a working citizen are needed. Although many homeless people are single, there is a growing population of families with single mothers trying to work and support 1, 2, or more kids.

What can we do? For one, support those agencies that are providing services to the homeless or near homeless. These include United Way, the YWCA, Hopelink, and many others. Once they have homes, the homeless become residents are just like you and me. They are good citizens.

The future is not about “ending” homelessness but about “preventing” it by helping people get back into housing and staying there. The economy is making it tough for people with new burdens faced by retrenching government policies which will cut 40,000 people from the Washington state health insurance program over the next year. The work will continue however and the goal is in sight.

Francia then gave a tearful goodbye to Woodinville Rotary which “has taken care of me and taught me so much”. “I love the United States and I love Rotary.” Francia, with the help of Chief Dennis (and his trusty technician, Dave Weed) provided a video show of pictures from her year in Woodinville and closed with the hope that “you never forget me because I will never forget you.” Francia hopes to come back to the US in a few years.

(Kelly Kyle reported that next year’s Group Study Exchange will be to Bolivia so any Rotarian can apply to be a group leader and visit Francia at her home next year.)

Announcements:

Rorry: We are a little ahead of normal but not ahead of where we would like to be for procurements. Eric: Now is the time to work on procurements.

Linda. Table captains have been increased to 19 with Erv and Gary adding their names. The Ritz Review team will soon be calling on all Rotarians to see what they are doing to get more b---- in the seats on October 10.

Daryl reminds us that Installation Dinner is July 7^th at Willows Lodge. Bring your wine next week if you have not done so yet. No morning meeting on 7/7 so you now have the time freed up to run with the bulls in Pamplona.

Bill Schink reminds everyone to pick up their duty roster or be ready to pay the piper for a missed assignment. (Actually, your reporter said that. Bill just said to pick up your duty roster.)

Rotary picnic highlighted by the Tana/Steve top chef duo will take place at 21 Acres on August 22 starting about 4 PM. An hour of backbreaking weeding will be required of all eaters.

Jose Garcia of the Canary Islands kindly presented us with his local Rotary flag in exchange for one of ours. Very cool.

Sgt at Arms: Fines for:

Rorry for predictability (lunch at QFC daily)

Rorry, Dennis, and Jay for the wonderful and beautiful bevy of daughters (and wives) brought to grace our tables this morning. (To clarify, each Rotarian brought only one wife)

Turkey Boy introduced himself as John (Turkish last name) who smiled broadly and said Francia was his favorite Rotarian Exchange student. John has been at Mercer Island High this year. That earned him fine waivers. (Jose Garcia got one too.)

Dr. Daryl for being behind the times, technologically speaking.

Daniel Soloff is an Inglemoor High School graduate and will get his Eagle Scout award at a ceremony on July 27, proud Dad announced. All are welcome to the ceremony, 7 p.m. at DeLille Cellars.

Rosso has been lucky in life having fooled wonderful Judy for 38 years now.

Evan has put 1000 miles on his Hog in just the last three weeks.

Jon Bylin and Halley brought Robert Sheridan Bylin into the world two weeks ago. A $20 celebration tax happily paid by Poppa.

Erv paid for another hug from Francia.

Chief Dennis paid $10 for the enjoyment of having his daughters Natalie from Spokane and Valerie from Boise and grandchildren here for two weeks. Pictured here with Vicky.

David Landau was thankful for the wonderful and personal care given to the families of fallen soldiers. His nephew recently died while serving in the USAF in England.

Tana’s 23 year old nephew, Joshua is serving in Iraq and she asks for prayers for his safety.

And the father of Roger M’s granddaughter was the person killed by a railroad accident near Golden Gardens last week. Homelessness comes close to all of us.

That’s all folks.

LL!

Larry Leonardson reporting from journalism offices somewhere in Beautiful, Downtown Bothell
Photos by Snappy 1

Maltby Bill roots out green marble

Matthew provided the ticket ... Bill donates proceeds to Grace Provisional Rotary fun fund!

Next Reporter:

Art Haines
June 30

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