Lawrence Central

Archive for the ‘Service’ Category

Courtesy of Karin Feltman.
Above, Karin Feltman, a Lawrence Memorial Hospital nurse, performs an eye exam on a boy while serving in Haiti on a 10-day mission trip, one year after a devastating earthquake rocked the country.

Lawrence native Karin Feltman  told Rotarians at Lawrence Central Rotary on May 22 that she has a “heart for service.”  Feltman, a nurse, has been on 15 medical mission trips between 2005 and 2011.  Now she’s raising funds and making preparations for a medical mission in Nepal that she believes will last five years.

“I’ve been  to Kenya, Malawi, Honduras, Haiti,” Feltman said. Every trip has  begun because she was listening to her “little voice” that gave her a sense of what she needed to be doing to find meaning in her life.  Now the trip to Nepal will be longer lasting because, she said, that while help with emergencies is good, there is a need for sustainable service that involves truly living in a place. “I want to work with wellness, teaching, and to improve family life there. “

Feltman will work through  Evangelical Alliance Mission TEAM  at Dadeldhura hospital in the Himalayan foothills.  TEAM is an organization that has pioneered medical work in Nepal since the 1960s. It has grown out of a mission movement begun in the United States in  1890 by a Swedish immigrant, and has sent out thousands of workers.

Fund raising is important as she will need to support herself, which costs approximately $3600 per month. Several fund raisers have already been held in Lawrence and she said donations are welcome.

Feltman, (whose first name is pronounced Car-in; her mother was Belgian, she said, and pronounced it that way) is studying to  learn the Nepalese language. “It’s difficult and very different from the romance languages  common in this country. I  do my best to adapt to the customs, the language  and the food wherever I am,” she said, although she admitted to having a hard time on some of her trips with the native wildlife, primarily spiders.

She plans to leave for Nepal in January 2014.

“I walk by faith and not by sight,” she said.

Support for Willow Domestic Violence Center was identified by the Community Service Committee as a project for 2013 to be recommended to the Lawrence Central Rotary Board. The proposal was discussed and approved at the March 20 board meeting.

The Willow Domestic Violence Center provides safe-shelter, peer counseling, advocacy and other services to survivors of domestic violence in Douglas, Franklin, and Jefferson counties. The Willow Domestic Violence Center works towards the elimination of violence in our communities.  Therefore, The Willow Domestic Violence Center is dedicated to the empowerment of women and children, providing a safe environment; the promotion of equality and respect for all people; the appreciation of difference; and the social action necessary to achieve these goals.

Lawrence Central Rotary will be a Willow sponsor for the month of May.  Items like soap, tooth paste and cleaning supplies will be collected at each of the May meetings.  The board also voted to make a $100 cash donation to Willow to be delivered with the supplies.  Fred Atchison agreed to be the coordinator for the project.

For more information about how to help the Willow Domestic Violence Center contact one of us here at Lawrence Central Rotary or go to their Website.

At this week’s Wednesday 5/1 meeting Steve Lane will tell us about this year’s Community Bike Ride scheduled for July 20th. This is our club’s signature community project. If you’re interested in hearing more stop by the Eldridge All American Room!

Lawrence Central Rotary, LiveWell Lawrence, Ride Lawrence and a host of others present a FREE community bike ride Saturday, July 20th 2013 to promote cycling as a part of a healthy lifestyle at the The Rotary Arboretum at Clinton Park (by the YSC Soccer fields)

We’re firming up plans, but be sure to mark your calendar!

More info soon!

After 25 years of hard work, Rotary and its partners are on the brink of eradicating this tenacious disease, but a strong push is needed now to root it out once and for all. It is a window of opportunity of historic proportions. Reaching the ultimate goal of a polio-free world presents ongoing challenges, not the least of which is a hundreds of million dollar funding gap. Of course, Rotary alone can’t fill this gap, but continued Rotarian advocacy like Lawrence Central’s drive can help and this year we did our part by selling holiday wreaths where all the profits made went to the Rotary Foundation’s End Polio Now Campaign.

In addition to in-person  internet sales, the kind people at Weavers Department Store allowed Lawrence Central to set up a table to sell wreaths and tell people a little more about all that Rotary does.

The totals are not in yet, but we’ll soon post how much we were able to donate.  Thank you to everyone who purchased a wreath, we appreciate your support.

If you haven’t ordered there’s still time to get a wreath in time for the holidays.  Use this link ( http://bit.ly/LCRPolioPlus ) to  place an order and 25% of your order will go directly to eradicating polio.