The Crete rotary Club held a regular meeting on Wednesday evening this past week. It was great to see a really good member turnout and we had a couple of special guest join us. Cheryl Schnell came to the meeting and let us know she will be rejoining the club this spring. We are all excited to have her back! And Jon Lima joined our meeting to learn more about Crete Rotary. We all hope Jon will join us again! President-Elect Shay Smith informed the club that anticipated dates for the completion of our Isis Theater Floor Service Project are the evening of Friday, June 7th and the morning of Saturday, June 8th. More details on the project will be forthcoming but please plan to help on one or both of those dates. We unfortunately had some sad news to deliver at the meeting. We learned of the recent passing of John Lothrop. John was a long time Crete Rotary member as well as a valued member of the Doane University staff and a very involved and generous community member. Our thoughts and prayers are with the entire Lothrop family. One important club topic discussed was our options for this year's District 5650 Grant Project. There are two grant project ideas before the club. One involves the printing and installation of several full color digitally printed murals to be mounted on the exterior of some Crete commercial buildings. These murals would depict fun and inclusive images to promote Crete and Crete businesses. The other grant project idea is to provide financial assistance to certain Crete school students in need of dental health services. This aid would be managed through the Crete School district. After the club discussed these ideas, it was decided that the members will be asked to vote by email on which project they want the club to pursue. Members have received an email from the club secretary requesting they reply with their vote no later than Friday, May 17th. We wrapped up our meeting with an inspirational presentation from Gary Bren, next year's District Polio Committee chair. He spoke about the importance of not giving up hope on eradicating polio. Rotary International has been working to eradicate Polio for the last 38 years and the end is in sight! There are only two countries left with cases of endemic Polio! Disappointingly, he shared that only 1 in 10 Rotarians are giving to the Polio fund every year. To help with this, he's putting on a "Ride to End Polio" in Omaha on June 8th, and our very own Karen Drevo is riding in it! For the clubs that give the most per capita (meaning the most per member), he's raising funds to give to the clubs to use for any local projects. Currently Crete is in first place! But, we can't stop giving now! Other clubs are hot on our heels! Any donation to Karen is matched double by the district, so please click this link to donate: https://raise.rotary.org/KAREN-DREVO/challenge4. We have through June 30th to donate, and the winners will be announced at the District Conference in October. Club President Jack Thompson and Gary Bren Our next meeting is on Wednesday, May 22nd at Doane University at 5:30 pm. Our presentation for the meeting is the Mourning Hope organization. See you there!
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