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Leticia Cole is Lawrence Central Rotary Club’s point person for recruiting young people to participate in the annual Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) program. Most Rotary Clubs participate in RYLA, which typically consists of a week long summer camp for students 14 years and older. Students learn a variety of leadership skills and the value of civic involvement. Rotary District 5710 sponsors RYLA on the Kansas University campus the first week in June. District Rotary Clubs select and cover the costs of student participants who learn leadership and communication skills, form new friendships and have fun. Community leaders are utilized as presenters and mentor figures, and students may engage in community service projects. Typically, our selected student will visit the club to report on their RYLA experience. Leticia states that her work with RYLA is very satisfying.

Lawrence Central Rotary’s own Sam Camp presented an update on his work as an Economic Development Analyst for the City of Lawrence. The City received a grant for ecosystem analysis and Sam has been working on creating a resource map for entities that can assist local entrepreneurs in the development of small businesses. Sam explained that prosperity and economic security are important outcomes in the Strategic Plan for the City. Part of the plan focuses on diversity and assisting minorities and women entrepreneurs. Accordingly the City has worked with various groups and organizations including CORE and Black:30. These efforts have made a new loan fund, training opportunities and coaching available for entrepreneurs. Sam moved to Lawrence from Florida and is very enthusiastic about his work and the community.

Children’s Mercy of Kansas City is a premiere health care provider for children in the region. Mathew Briggs and Liz Wolfe, Philanthropic Giving Officers, talked about the array of medical and health services provided by Children’s Mercy of Kansas City. The institution boasts some 800 pediatric specialists on staff and last year served over 600,000 patients from the region, including 47 states and 14 foreign countries. Children’s Mercy is a nonprofit organization with various locations and partners in the area and maintains a productive Research Institute.

Mathew and Liz spoke about Illuminate, a new program designed to address the growing crisis in mental health disorders in children. Nationally, one in five children have a serious mental health disorder and treatment resources are particularly inadequate in our region. Children’s Mercy has experienced a 67 per cent increase in referrals of children with mental health problems. Gifts to support the work of Illuminate will provide early intervention, increased specialty services, expanded hospital care, and new research and innovations. Some 82.3 million dollars of the 150 million dollar goal has been raised to date. A show of hands from the group showed a majority present had some family member who had received services from Children’s Mercy.

Rotarians Kate Campbell and Bob Rademaker love to travel, so their recent trip to Panama was no surprise. However, this trip was special for Bob as he became fascinated with the Panama Canal as a school boy. Bob shared some early history of canal building in Panama noting that early Spanish explorers made the dangerous overland trip from ocean to ocean. It was a dangerous trip through the jungles and over the mountains. The French were the first to try to dig a canal, but the climate, disease, and difficult terrain put an end to the project. President Theodore Roosevelt championed a United States effort which benefitted from power equipment and the eradication of yellow fever. The construction was a marvel of engineering as lakes and a series of locks were built that made it possible to raise and lower vessels 85 feet on their 40 mile journey between oceans. The canal opened in 1914, saving vessels as much as 8,000 nautical miles.

Panama assumed ownership and operation of the canal in 1999, providing the country with its main source of income. In 2006 a system of new locks were added to accommodate the bigger cargo vessels. Today considerable cargo is offloaded and transported overland and reloaded to continue its journey. Kate said she enjoyed the trip, meeting new people and learning lots. Both travelers agreed that the trip was enjoyable and worthwhile.

A local steering committee came together in 2008 to discuss how county entities could work together to advocate and advance good health in the community. Live Well Douglas County, a non profit advocacy group. was the product of those early efforts. Ginny Barnard is Executive Director and has been on the job one year. Barnard is a former Douglas County Extension Agent and took degrees in Public Health from Kansas State University. Live Well consists of over twenty groups that work together to create policy and system changes to improve life and good health in Douglas County. In 2020 Live Well benefitted from a four year Pathways to a Healthy Kansas Initiative grant.

There are six Live Well work groups, including Healthy Built Environment, Health Food for All, Healthy Kids, Sexual Violence Prevention, Tobacco-Free Living and Work Place Wellness. Some examples of the group’s accomplishments are Farmers Market Grants for people of color, assisting the revamping of policies and building improvements for Positive Bright Start, prescription assistance programs, school bike programs, and updating rules for tobacco sales. The Douglas County Community Foundation and Lawrence/Douglas County Public Health are significant partners and Douglas County Extension plays an important administrative role. The organization will conduct an Annual Spring Summit on April 11.