Congratulations to our Rotary Youth Leadership Hoop-a-thon 2021 Scholarship Recipients!
On June 27th, we gathered in MacLean Park in East Vancouver to present $32,000 in scholarship awards to 10 deserving and talented local students. The money for these scholarships was raised from our highly successful, April 24th online Hoop-a-thon event.
Congratulations John, Annie, Lily, Sara, Talon, Alex, Kevin, Kara, Kennedy and Rebecca!
Get Ready and Set to Go for Boys Who DARE
On June 2, we welcomed Wayne Hoang to speak to our members and guests about his recent work to support youth at risk in the Downtown Eastside, Strathcona and Grandview-Woodlands Vancouver communities. Wayne is a former Britannia Bruins basketball star, a youth leader and coach for over a decade in the Strathcona Basketball program, and is currently completing his Education degree.
Wayne has recently teamed up with Mitra Tshan, to initiate plans for a new program to help pre-teen and teenage boys through an after-school and weekend program life skills and peer leadership program. The program would be modelled on the successful Girls Who LEAP program, (founded by Mitra), which we support through our annual Hoop-a-thon fundraising program.
Wayne's passion for service was evident as he spoke about the socio-economic factors that contribute to youth involvement in gang violence and other risky behaviours. He became more convinced of the need to address the situation following the violent deaths of two young men from the Strathcona-Britannia neighbourhood in the past six months. After Wayne shared his story of asking himself, "Could I have done more?", our club challenged ourselves as Rotarians with the same question, and subsequently submitted a proposal on June 30 for a District 5040 grant to help launch the Boys Who DARE program. Thank you Wayne and Mitra for inspiring us. Stay tuned for updates!
Does this picture from the archives of District 5040's Rotary Youth Exchange bring back fond memories as we emerge out of our COVID cocoons? Well, then you would have enjoyed the encore visit of District 5040 Youth Exchange Chair, Gina Rawson and her colleague and Youth Exchange trainer, Sue Godey to our club on June 9th. We had so many questions for Gina at her May 19th presentation, that we asked her back to help us better understand the status and outlook of the Youth Exchange program.
Our club last sponsored outgoing exchange students and hosted incoming students a few years before the pandemic, and many things have changed since then. Gina and Sue were able to advise us about student selection, coordination with local high schools, and the challenges and expectations around securing host families (with extra space in our tight housing market) for inbound students.
Nevertheless, as Rotarians, we are always up for a challenge and the information provided by Gina and Sue will be very helpful as we explore options in 2021/2022 to potentially re-engage with the Youth Exchange program in the future. Thank you Gina and Sue for your support!
Delivering Service Above Self in Venezuela
Last October, Hilde Cabeza and Mafer Diaz spoke to our Club about a proposal for partnering in an international campaign to provide assistance to the most vulnerable people in Venezuela’s El Tigre district. Hilde is a member of the Rotary Club of El Tigre who lives in BC’s Lower Mainland. On June 9th, Hilde provided us with an update on the Canadian Venezuelan Engagement Foundation - she is the BC Coordinator for the Foundation.
Hildi was joined by Gaby Garcia, the President and co-founder of the Venezuelan Engagement Foundation and Reina Ruiz, the coordinator of one of their educational programs. Both Gaby and Reina live in Venezuela.
The Foundation works with government, not-for-profit international and local partners on the ground to deliver various in-person and online food, health and educational programs to children, women and families during the economic and humanitarian crisis. The needs have only increased during the pandemic, and, Rotarians are invited to read more about Foundation's programs - including the Geeky Latinas program! - and consider making a donation to help the cause here https://www.engagementfound.org/cvef.
Generational Excellence - A Few Words from PETS
Our Club's Vision Statement is "Building better communities through future generations." So, a few words of inspiration from fellow Rotarian, Jordan Harrison were right on target at our June 23rd meeting.
Jordan is a professional speaker, educator and social entrepreneur based in San Diego, California. He was a keynote speaker at the most recent President-Elect Training Seminar, (aka PETS) attended by our recently anointed Club President, Ed Kwan. As with most effective speeches, the message was relatively simple: “reasonable” people would not tackle the difficult goals that Rotarians take on, which arguably makes Rotarians “unreasonable.” He provided examples of the challenges and accomplishments that make Rotarians “unreasonable.” Here are a few from his list:
A Rotarian is a person who...
Digs wells from which s/he will never drink.
Vaccinates children s/he will never meet.
Restores eyesight for those s/he will never see.
Edcuates children s/he will never know.
Plants trees s/he will never sit under.
Makes crawlers into walkers halfway around the world.
Jordan maintains that the fruit of these efforts have the capacity to create generational excellence amongst the youth of today. In thinking about our year ahead, and the opportunities we face coming out of the pandemic, let us strive to stay "“stay unreasonable.”
Thank you President Carlos for an amazing year where, under your outstanding leadership, we learned to connect for Rotary business, fellowship and fundraising on Zoom, and we grew our club membership - all in spite of the challenges of a global pandemic.
Welcome President Ed (seen above here) receiving the new Rotary year theme banner from Lorne Calder, District Governor for District 5040 at the June 30th meeting.
We're over the moon!
We welcomed Antonio Rodriguez as a new member to our club and to the Rotary Family on June 30!
Special thanks to Hilde Cabeza for the referral.
The hockey playoff pool also reached its conclusion in June with nail-biting drama down to the end - outlasting a pandemic, a killer heatwave and Elliot Friedman's playoff beard.
Thank you to Cam for keeping us on track and congratulations to:
John Haley and Abigail for the Tampa Bay win
Lawrence for Montreal's runner-up position, and
Lorri (St Louis), Ron (Edmonton) and Thomas /Reyna (Winnipeg), for the quick to the Gumby Pool winners.
