Lawrence Central Rotary

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Lawrence Central Rotary to Help Support Willow Domestic Violence Center

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 sponsored Willow for the month of May 2013. Items like soap, tooth paste and cleaning supplies were collected at each of the May meetings. The board also voted to make a $100 cash donation in addition to any funds raised to Willow to be delivered with the supplies. Rotarian Fred Atchison was the coordinator for the project.

Over the course of the month hundreds of pounds of personal care items were collected as well a cash donation.

We recently received a thank you from them along with this certificate of appreciation. We’re honored to be able to help!

Willow is truly a great cause and for more information about how to help the Willow Domestic Violence Center contact one of us here at Lawrence Central Rotary or go to Willow’s Website.

May 30, 2013
Curious about Japan and Today’s Japanese Business Culture? Come to our May 29, 2013 Meeting.

If you are at all curious come to the Lawrence Central 5/29 meeting to hear Japan Outreach Coordinator Erika Norikami from the University of Kansas Center for East Asian Studies who will speak on general information about Japan and the Japanese business culture today.

Erika is from Osaka prefecture, Japan’s third largest city and known as the country’s kitchen. She graduated with a degree in English language from Kansai Gaidai University in 2009. During her college career, she studied abroad at the University of Colorado at Boulder for 10 months as an exchange student. Outside of the classroom, she served as a resident assistant at an international students’ dormitory helping them with their daily lives and their Japanese studies. Since graduating from university, Erika spent time working as a global training and operations client coordinator in the English education industry then took a six-month course to become an English instructor for children. Through a grant provided by the Japan Outreach Initiative, Erika will spend two years as the CEAS Japan Outreach Coordinator promoting Japanese language and culture and conducting Japan-related activities at schools and community organizations.

May 28, 2013
Karin Feltman Discusses Medical Mission Trips to Lawrence Central

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.

May 22, 2013
District 5710 and 9200 GSE/VTT Exchange 2013 Visit Lawrence Central May 15th

Group Study Exchange is Rotary’s International Exchange Program for Young Professionals. The GSE team will visited District 5710 April 28 – May 28, 2013, and visited the Central Lawrence Rotary at our May 15th Lunch Meeting. The team is from East Africa and all are medical professionals and their leader Caroline Abeja Apunyo is Medical Doctor from Uganda working as a public health consultant. She is also Past President for Rotary Club Kampala South and Past Assistant Gov D9200.

District 9200 comprises the six East African countries Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. The geographical variation ranges from beautiful coastal beaches (both in Kenya and Tanzania), to Mt. Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa and Lake Victoria, the largest fresh water lake in Africa. The Big Five – lion,

leopard, elephant, rhino and buffalo – still roam our vast savannahs and bush land. The equator passes through Kenya and Uganda. The total population of all five countries is about 130 million in an area of 3,139,000 sq kms.

Kate Campbell and GSE/VTT Team Leader Caroline Abeja Apunyo

Caroline Abeja Apunyo, Group Study Exchange (GSE) Team Leader from Rotary District 9200, poses with her Lawrence Central

Rotary host Kate Campbell during the team’s visit in Lawrence in mid-May.

Apunyo is medical doctor with a specialization in Public Health in Kampala, Uganda. Since 2010, she has run her own business, ABJA Consulting Services, providing public health consulting services in Uganda and neighboring countries. She has been a Rotarian since 1996.

While in Lawrence, the GSE team of five medical professionals shadowed physicians at Lawrence Memorial Hospital and toured Health Care Access, Heartland Community Health Center, Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center, and the Lawrence/Douglas County Health Department.

Below are scans of the Rotary trading banners the team exchanged with our club.

May 16, 2013
Lawrence Central Cleans Up on Awards At 12-13 District Conference

Rotary District 5710’s annual conference club president Bob Swan was on hand to receive two awards on behalf of the club.

The first award is the 2012-2013 Peace Through Service Presidential Citation. The Presidential Citation recognizes Rotary clubs for achieving an array of accomplishments that help them become stronger, deliver more effective service, and enhance their public image. By qualifying for the Presidential Citation, clubs contribute to Rotary’s organizational goals and multiply the impact of their good work through the collective focus of 34,000 Rotary clubs worldwide.

In order to qualify Clubs were asked to assess their accomplishments this Rotary year. In order to qualify for a citation, clubs must meet the Presidential Challenge and complete one required activity, along with at least three additional activities, in each of the three categories listed. All activities had to be undertaken and completed between 1 July and 31 March of the 2012-13 Rotary year.

We’re proud to say we accomplished these tasks and we are a better club for it!

The second award Lawrence Central was for being a District 5710 Eastern Kansas Rotary Star Club for 2012-2013. District 5710 recognizes as a STAR CLUB every club whose annual contribution to the Annual Program Fund averages $100 or more per member.
(Per capita calculation based on APF giving.)

In order for a club to receive STAR CLUB designation, and be recognized at the District Conference, the club MUST turn in its Annual Fund contributions by March 31 each year. This will allow enough time to determine which clubs will be recognized at the annual District Conference.

Lawrence Central is proud to continue our designation as one of the District 5710 Star Clubs that achieved this annual level of support for our Rotary Foundation.

May 10, 2013