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Meeting Summaries - Meetings 2020-2021
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June 24, 2021 Rotary Learns About Free Local Dental Services for Low Income Persons

At the June 24 General Meeting of the Morrisville-Yardley Area Rotary Club, Speakers John Sisti and Rick James explained the Healthlink Clinic’s purpose and origin. John, who retired after 35 years in

running manufacturing plants and developing startups, got involved by chance in refurbishing dental equipment and then donating the equipment to the Healthlink Clinic. Rick, who is the current President of the Central Bucks Rotary, is the President of Healthlink. He explained that the organization was founded twenty years ago by philanthropist Eugene Jackson to provide accessible medical and dental services to working, uninsured adults. About five years ago Medicaide and the Affordable Health Care Act dramatically improved the medical care landscape but not for dental care. Healthlink, in response, opted to focus solely on dental services and oral health education. Through the generosity of volunteer dentists, a small paid staff and various community partnerships, it provides free services to low-income working adults and U.S. military veterans living in Bucks and Montgomery Counties. From 2016 through 2019 the organization served 10,807 patients with the value of services amounting to $4,141,696. For more information go to www.healthlinkdental.org.

 

May 17, 2021  Morrisville-Yardley Area Rotary Club Meeting has an International Flavor!  

Vice President Mike Yagar conducted the meeting from the Valley Day School in Morrisville where several members were present in-person. Speaker Carlos Rafael Rosales (lower right in picture) joined the meeting from Guatemala, club member Juan Proano (lower middle) joined from Peru and Axel Augspach (lower left) joined from Argentina. Two members joined the meeting from their homes locally.

  

Speaker Rosales talked about efforts of his club, the Hermosa Club of Guatemala, to develop nutritional and agricultural strategies in improve maternal and child nutrition. The focus is on hydroponic farming which can be done on a local level by small groups of families working together. These hydroponic units can provide for better nutrition and yield surplus food that can be sold to provide income for the families and help break the cycle of poverty. Only minimum land space and modest investment in equipment are required compared with traditional farming. Guatemala is suffering from severe drought is many places and hydroponic farming takes only about 10% of the water necessary for traditional farming. One hundred families, in groups of 10 families per hydroponic unit, currently are involved in the pilot program with the hope of replicating the model all over Guatemala. A Rotary Global Grant of $78,000 US for the pilot is in process.

 

May 13, 2021 General Meeting

    

Morrisville-Yardley Area Rotary Club Hears About the Science behind Covid Vaccinations

Speaking at the Rotary club’s hybrid meeting, Sergio Buitrago spoke about the science behind the Covid vaccines and the arguments in favor of getting vaccinated. Sergio, who lives in Morrisville, was a doctor in Columbia, SA, and came to the US a refugee. He worked in medical R&D for several years and now is in the pharmaceutical industry. Vice President Mike Wager welcomed several guests who were present at the Valley Day School including Assistant Governor Gail Linenberg and former Assistant Governor John Ortolf.

April 22, 2021 General Meeting 

          

First ever hybrid meeting of the Morrisville-Yardley Area Rotary Club!

The General Meeting was a combination of in-person attendees at the Valley Day School in Morrisville, hosted by Rotarian Dr. Ron Hall, and attendance by others via ZOOM. The main speaker was new Rotarian Noel Sperry who spoke in-person and gave a sketch of his background and is very interested in service projects around Morrisville. In-person guests included Sergio Fonseca Buitrago and spouse Cristian Ruizzf. Asst. Governor Gail Linenberg and guest Scott McCrea of the Valley Day School Board of Directors attended via ZOOM. VP Mike Yager made the introductions in person while President Danielle Larison attended via Zoom. Other members attending in-person included Tom Miller (shown with mic) , Juan Proano, Denny Lanctot and Dave Sample. Member Tom Mack and new member SA Vanewaran participated via ZOOM, which was hosted by member Hal Long. The Valley Day School has full technology support capabilities, including large screen projection of the ZOOM participants for the in-person attendees and a cordless microphone to ensure good sound quality for benefit of the ZOOM participants. 


April 3, 2021  Annual Egg Hunt

      


For more than 70 years the Morrisville-Yardley Area Rotary Club has sponsored the Morrisville Borough Easter Egg Hunt in Williamson Park. This event drew hundreds of families to the park to get their share of the thousands of candy-filled eggs made available by the efforts of our club members and generous donations from the community. Unfortunately, with continued COVID19 restrictions on large gatherings, the egg hunt had to be canceled for a second year.

To keep the tradition alive (to some extent) members of the club, accompanied by the fully vaccinated Easter Bunny, delivered candy and prizes to children in the area so they could have an egg hunt in the privacy and safety of their own homes. We also spent a day with the Easter Bunny handing out candy to children at the Interfaith Food Alliance which is located at the Morrisville United Methodist Church. Based on the smiles from the children involved. We intend to return to the park next year, as gathering restrictions are lifted. (In the IFA pic: Eileen Heitman, Diane Casey, Easter Bunny (a.k.a. Kurt Holthenrichs), Alen Ibric, Judy Dallas & Daniel Paton. In the last pic: Mike Yager, the Bunny and Danielle Larison. In the 5th pic: Juan Proano & Danielle)

March 25, 2021 

 

Guest speaker was Tom Gump, Governor District 5950, speaking on how to form a cause-based club. Tom was speaking via ZOOM from his home in Minneapolis, MN. Tom was introduced by ADG Gail Linenberg and Club VP Mike Yager. Tom has been featured in the Rotary magazine and is in demand throughout the world of Rotary for his innovative approach to membership growth and retention, especially through cause-based clubs. He founded the first-ever Rotary club for veterans and is co-founder of the End Human Trafficking Rotary club. (Lloyd Campbell and Anya Magnuson who were present are part of Bob’s team.) Click here for slide presentation

 

March 11, 2021 

S.A. Vanewaran was introduced by VP and Pres. Elect Mike Yager, who explained that “SA” had expressed interest in joining the club through the club’s website. Mike, after talking with SA, invited him to speak to the club about himself, his background and his interest in joining Rotary.

SA explained that in his home country, India, he had worked in the aerospace industry for a large part of his career. A medical condition caused him to move to the U.S. where he became employed for several years by Lucent Technologies in Bridgewater, NJ. (Lucent was a spinoff of the Bell Laboratories after the breakup of the Bell System in the 1980’s). Lucent was bought by Nokia in 2015 and SA, at the suggestion of his son who lived in Morrisville, decided to move to Morrisville.

Throughout his career SA was always interested in philanthropic projects and has a website in India devoted to promoting service projects to help the poor in India. He has utilized his network of important contacts to raise money for various projects including education of the poorest and some 6000 cataract surgeries for older people. He also worked with Lucent in India to develop a water purification system that would serve some 2000 villages. Implementation has been stymied, unfortunately, by the pandemic.

He now has a website in the U.S. that complements the one in India.  At some point he was advised to get in touch with Rotary as a potential partner in his philanthropic interests. Hence his interest in joining.

District Governor-Elect Bob Hobaugh was in attendance and noted that “India is the place to be for Rotary”, citing that the Rotary International President-Elect is businessman in India and noting that Rotary has been and is involved in significant service projects in India beyond the polio eradication program.

 

 

January 28, 2021


The club was honored to have Bob Hobaugh, District Governor-Elect, as its guest.(2nd row, right)

Zachary Mahon, Director of the Solid Rock Youth Center in Morrisville, (2nd row, middle) was the guest speaker talking about the newly-formed Morrisville Community Coalition. It’s purpose, he explained, is to bring together organizations and leaders in the Morrisville community to identify things that can make Morrisville a healthier and safer community and to implement action plans addressing the needs and opportunities. He presented a number of interesting charts from a state-wide survey of school districts about student and parent attitudes on relationships and issues within the family, the school and the community, comparing Morrisville responses to state norms. For instance, influence of drugs and gangs was not as high as might have been anticipated but factors related to teen suicide and thoughts of suicide identified a definite need to provide more help. Hal Long is currently representing Rotary in the coalition.  

 

November 12, 2020


The club was informed about hospice services by  Terry Bennett, Nurse Referral Liaison for Chandler Hall. She talked about hospice care and services provided by Chandler Hall in Newtown.  .

New club business: The club will be donating a bus shelter in Morrisville to help protect riders during inclement weather. The shelter will be installed by the Borough of Morrisville and will be located near the intersection of Bridge Street and N. Pennsylvania Ave. 

The club also is donating $500 to help the Guatamalan Rotary Cub deal with extensive flooding as the result of Hurricane Eta.

 

October 22, 2020

General Rotary Meeting. VP Mike Yager conducted the meeting and welcomed Asst. District Governor, Gail Linenberg, who encouraged participation in the district’s “Purple Pinkie” Polio fundraising activities. Mike then introduced his long-time friend and business associate, Daniel Umstead, as the speaker.  Daniel spoke on "Building your brand through social media" and gave a number of tips on engaging others. His central message was that on social media people are more interested in getting to know who you are on a personal basis, rather than what business affiliations you may have.


Sept. 24, 2020 

Diane Marseglia, Bucks County Commissioner, explained to the club the county's plans for handling the expected heavy load of mail-in ballots in the coming election and talked about efforts to establish a Mental Health Court to better address the issues of clinical and criminal justice outcomes for people living with mental illness.

 

Sept.10, 2020 

At the first meeting in September, the speaker was John Scott of the District talking about the Purple Pinkie/Race to Zero,

a District event to raise money for the polio fight. Click Here for more info.

Pleased to have Asst. District Governor Gail Linenberg attending and introducing John.

 

August 27, 2020

At the second club meeting of August, Rob Grau, owner of Horizons Advertising in Morrisville, spoke via ZOOM to the club about developing the Yardley Car Festival website, which he did at no cost to the club.. He also talked about his development of the new Make It Morrisville website, which he disigned to promote everything in Morrisville. Go to MakeItMorrisville.com and look around. Other info shared in the meeting was that Peruzzi Auto Group had made a $500 donation to the club for its Major Sponsorship of the  Yardley Car Festival.

 

August 13, 2020 

District Governnor Janet Kolepp talked to the club about the goals and resources available from the district and RI to aid in Growing Rotary. She noted the five core values of Rotary: Fellowship, Integrity, Diversity, Service and Leadership. (Go to the RI website rotary.org/learn and select Learning and References in the drop down menu. Scroll down to the menu selections and explore.) Janet was introduced by Asst. Governor Gail Linenberg. The entire Zoom presentation is available by clicking here   pwd GM$v.4j+

 

July 23, 2020 Asst. District Governor Gail Linenberg spoke to the club via it's Zoom General Meeting. She offered some ideas about fund-raising and member recruiting in this pandemic. She also cited Welcome to the World of Rotary New Member Event Aug. 3 being offered by the district and the July 27 Changeover Celebration for the district leaders. (Go to the District 7430 website for details.) She also described the new Rotary International Area of Focus which is on the Environment. 

  

July 21, 2020  

Rotarian Mike Yager, 3rd from right, led the club in arranging for food and gift card donations to the Interfaith Alliance in Morrisville which helps local families that are food insecure. The funding was through a Rotary District 7430 cornavirus grant. Rotary 1st VP, Danielle Larison is on the right and Exec. Dir of the alliance, Diane Casey, is 2nd from right. The others are Rotarians and spouses.

  

July 17, 2020 The Virtual Yardley Car Festival has ended. Go to the festival website (Click here) to see the winners and thank the advertisers by looking over their ads. Thanks to all who particpated, entered vehicles, provided ads and gift certificates, voted and helped spread the word. The website will remain open for anyone who wants to relive the experience!  

   

 

Denis W. Lanctot, Esq.Luke McKeeThomas J. Mack, Construction, Inc.