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This week was the culmination of two of our club's largest yearly projects. Our Grocery Grab fundraising event was finalized Saturday morning at Crete FoodMart. Owen Kuntz, our grand prize winner, filled his shopping cart to the brim with a great assortment of food items befitting a Doane University senior! Owen's family was in attendance as well as several club members. Treasurer Jim Johnson held the stopwatch that timed Owen's five minutes of shop time. Immediately after the shopping spree, 49 tickets were drawn and those ticket holders won FoodMart gift certificates in $25, $50 and $100 denominations. Final financial numbers from the fundraiser will be released at the next meeting but Treasurer Johnson indicated it looks like we had a very successful event. Thank you to everyone that helped out Saturday morning and to all members who pitched in since August in many various ways to make it happen!   At our regular Wednesday night meeting held at the CPS Cardinal Welcome Center we were honored to have the staff from Sixpence give a presentation about their program at CPS and to display some of the educational items our club purchased for them with our Rotary District Grant funds. We are in the process of finalizing our grant project and should have it closed out by the end of this calendar year. Sixpence was started in 2006 in Nebraska and now there are 30 counties in Nebraska that have a home or center where programs are available. Crete is one of the strongest programs and are often used for training or as an example to other programs. Each Sixpence family must have one of these five risk factors: low household income, parents without a high school diploma or equivalent, English Language Learner, teen parents, or premature birth or low birth weight child. Here are some statistics of the families the Crete program currently serves: - they serve 37 children (32 families)
- 16% of moms are under 20 years of age
- 12.5% single parent households
- 88% lists English as a second language, 6% list another language as their first other than English or Spanish
- 16% of families have multiple children enrolled
- 11% have prenatal mothers enrolled
- 5% have premature births
The Sixpence family educators go into homes to teach parenting skills to the parents in an effort to get their child ready for preschool. Many of the parents either weren't taught, didn't have the behavior modeled for them, or simply don't know how to be a good parent. Sixpence serves families facing circumstances facing school readiness so every child and family can succeed in Crete. The Crete Rotary Club purchased and donated books and toys for families to interact together during the visits, and it was greatly appreciated by the Sixpence employees. Thank you to Katie Bevins, Sixpence Director, and In-home Educators--Danielle Drevo, Yecenia Luna-Rodriguez, and Lorena Mendez.  Karen Drevo is heading out this week to join Rotarians from around the country to participate in the Tour De Tucson Ride for Polio bike ride on Saturday. As of last week, the Crete Rotary Club had donated $900 to the Rotary International Polio Eradication fund in Karen's name! We all wish you a fun, fast and safe trip and ride! Our next meeting is on November 29th at the VFW. See you there! |
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