Lawrence Central Rotary

Author: Kate Campbell

Boys and Girls Club Provides “Great Futures”

Megan Hill, Major Gifts Officer for the Boys and Girls Club of Lawrence, highlighted a robust history and a “great future” fof the organization.

She described the new Don and Beverly Gardner Center for Great Futures that will open in the fall of 2018 to house teen activities, replacing the small Teen Center on Haskell Avenue. Situated adjacent to the College and Career Center in southeast Lawrence, the new building will allow the school district and the Boys and Girls Club to share and maximize the spaces of each facility. The new construction includes a gymnasium, maker-space, performing arts area, a culinary arts kitchen, admininstrative offices, and classrooms. Although they have raised most of the $4.25 million capital campaign goal, fundraising will continue to complete capital donations and to raise on-going money for programming.

The local club is one of the largest per capita in the country, serving 1,500 young people each day. It partners with the Lawrence school district to provide after-school programming in all fourteen elementary schools in Lawrence. Middle school and high school students are bussed to the Teen Center on Haskell Avenue. All programming supports academic success, healthy living, and character and citizenship, fulfilling the organization’s mission: “To enable all young people, especially those who need us most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens.”

Hill asked Rotarians to explain how Boys and Girls Club had impacted their households. The responses from the group echoed the reasons why others say the program is so valuable: supervision after the school day when working parents cannot be at home; tutoring and help with homework; physical activity and good nutrition; welcoming friends, mentors, and tutors.

October 21, 2017
DG Adam Ehlert Is Committed to Making a Difference

During his year as District Governor, Adam Ehlert wants to encourage healthy clubs that are engaged and enthusiastic about “Making a Difference,” the Rotary International theme for 2017-2018. The motto “defines what we do day in and day out.” Such energy will attract additional members better than any membership drive, he believes.

Ehlert’s “Rotary moment” struck during a Group Study Exchange that he led to Finland during 2011. His team bonded after an evening of “ice swimming”—repeated trips between a steamy sauna and a icy river nearby. The experience is the epitome of local culture. As the GSE team members huddled in comradery, wet and exhilarated, after several hours of the activity, the group spontaneously voiced heartfelt thanks to Rotary and to their hosts for the powerful impact of international exchange. The emotional situation committed Ehlert even more deeply to Rotary and its work and led him to his current leadership role.

October 16, 2017
Simply Smiles Helps Cheyenne River Sioux Children

Lawrence Central Rotarian Margaret Weisbrod Morris found that her experience as an arts educator in low-income urban settings helped her appreciate of the quality work done by Simply Smiles in the plains community of Le Plant on the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Reservation in west-central South Dakota.

In June, Weisbrod Morris accompanied her daughter Ruby and other high school students and adults from Plymouth Church, Lawrence, when they joined the staff and interns at Simply Smiles in welcoming about 30 children from the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe to a week-long summer camp. The project, the only such effort sanctioned by tribal leaders there, aims to alleviate the high suicide rate among young people.

Not only did volunteers help conduct the camp, they spent half the day doing construction work. During those mornings, Margaret learned how to wield a power drill as the group raised roof trusses on a new bunkhouse. Others painted and renovated existing homes in the community and dug a trench to connect electricity. After the work, the volunteers had time to have fun with the children, playing basketball, creating huge bubbles, and swimming in the Missouri River–their one bath during the week.

The experience was the epitome of the Simply Smiles approach: ask what is needed, listen to the answer with empathy, devise ways to solve the problems together, and during the process, develop lasting individual relationships. The formula has made Simply Smiles impactful, sustainable, scalable, holistic, and successful.

Simply Smiles is a not-for-profit organization that provides bright futures for impoverished children, their families, and their communities. Founded in 2007 by Bryan Nurnberger, its first projects were in Oaxac, Mexico. The Simply Smiles’ partnership with Rotary was recognized with a Paul Harris Rotary Award from a club in Naugatuck, CT in 2012.

September 30, 2017
Vietnam POW/MIA Wives Challenge Traditional Silence

In the late 1960s, POW/MIA wives bucked government protocol and broke public silence to demand accounting for their husbands and to pursue their safe return after years of imprisonment and torture by the North Vietnamese. Audrey McKanna Coleman, Senior Curator at the Dole Institute of Politics and member of Lawrence Central Rotary, highlighted how these women worked with Congress and the Nixon administration to challenge the traditional role of “military wife.” Senator Robert Dole helped them to gather a coalition in Congress and to sponsor the 1970 May Day event when they stepped forward publically as advocates for their husbands.

The story of these courageous women is chronicled at the Dole Institute of Politics in “The League of Wives: Vietnam’s POW/MIA Allies and Advocates.” The display is the most recent of a series of exhibits conceived by Coleman that highlight the people and events with whom Senator Robert Dole interacted during his career. Past exhibits included one in 2015 on Dole’s leadership in enacting the Americans with Disabilities Act and one in 2017 commemorating Dole’s nomination in 1976 at Kemper Arena to run for the Vice Presidency on the Republican ticket with Gerald Ford.

Curated by 2017 Dole Archives Curatorial Fellow Heath Hardage Lee, the current exhibition features 200 items that tell the story: documents, photos, oral histories and memorabilia from the Dole Archives, personal collections of POW/MIA families, and other institutions. Lee has written a book on the subject: The League of Wives: a True Story of Survival and Rescue from the Homefront (2019, St. Martin’s Press).

September 16, 2017
Midco Connects in Lawrence

The numbers are impressive! Midco’s core network of fiber-optic line is 8,600 miles long, forming a web connecting 335 upper-Midwest communities in five states and delivering 99.9999% network availability. In January, 2017, Lawrence and six other Kansas towns joined the customer mix as Midco acquired the WOW! market in the area.

Debra Schmidt, Business Development Manager for Midco in Kansas, is an eighteen-year veteran of the company. Her perspective makes her an ideal spokesperson for Midco.

Schmidt explained that Midcontinent Communications, or Midco, is a regional Internet, cable TV and phone provider. Begun in 1931 to manage a collection of movie theaters, Midco has evolved and matured. It is known today for delivering some of the fastest Internet speeds in the country. It also offers services such as WiFi home management, Smart Home, and Whole-home DVR. Midco Lifeline subsidizes phone and Internet service to qualified low-income households. The company’s products can scale to fit very small businesses to large enterprise organizations.

The Midco Foundation has given away $4.5 million since 1987. The impact is already making a different here in Lawrence: Midco was a major sponsor for the Cottonwood Salute fundraiser; sponsored movie nights for Downtown Lawrence; and gave away water bottles to KU students as they returned to campus. Another major gift to the Lawrence community will be revealed in the coming weeks.

Another innovation sure to please Kansas customers is the launch of Midco Sport Network (MidcoSN). Channel 32/232 will broadcast local sports events beginning in September with prep football. Kevin Romary and producer Kyle Haas joined Debra to talk about this exciting new program.

September 12, 2017