Nic and Angie Baker, the owners of Java Cat will be on hand for our club program this week. We will learn how the obtain and roast their coffee beans for a great cup of coffee.
The Emporia elementary school principals were on hand at our Rotary Club meeting on the day of and prior to our presentation of dictionaries to third graders in Emporia. Tim North talked about the dictionaries that will be distributed.
On Tuesday afternoon after our club meeting, several members of our club assisted in the distribution of the dictionaries to every third grader in Emporia and a special version to the Adult Basic Education students. Those members participating in distributing the dictionaries were Tim North, Teresa Maley, Marshall Miller, Gary Ace, Michelle Malone and Alex Mosakowski.
ESU student Victor Sidortsov presented an interesting program to our club about his home country of Belarus. It was granted independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Tragically, Belarus was particularly hard hit during Nazi occupation during World War II, losing roughly two to three million people (about a quarter to one-third of its population).
Rotarian Jami Reever and Hannah Crowl from the United Way showed our Rotary Club one of three little libraries for which we provided funding. For use as neighborhood lending libraries, they will be located at C of E Park (adjacent to Emporia Child Care), Las Casitas Park and the Lyon County Health Department.
At our November 5th Rotary Club board meeting, it was decided to be the chartered organization under the umbrella of the Boy Scouts of America to sponsor the summer activities for Riverside and Village Schools first through fifth graders at Girl Scout Camp EE. This program has most recently operated under the Summer Scape Program within the Emporia Recreation Commission. 120 kids participated this past summer. It as run in an unofficial manner by a joint partnership of the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts under the leadership of Rotarian Alex Mosakowski. Alex made a proposal to our board for our Rotary Club to become an official chartered organization in order for them to run this program for the kids under the Boy Scouts of America. It is similar to a church (or a Rotary Club) being a chartered organization for a boy scout troop, which is very common. Our Rotary Club doesn't have any additional leadership obligation to run the program unless we choose to do so in the future, and the Boy Scouts of America provides the liability insurance for the program.
Lyon County Deputy Jacob Welsh talked about the community policing programs at the Lyon County Sheriff Department. One of those programs is the Offender Watch program. The Lyon County Sheriff Department is part of a nationwide database tracking registered offenders. There are 160-170 registered offenders shown on the Lyon County website. Notifications can be sent to those wanting them whenever a registered offender moves into your neighborhood. Go to: http://communitynotification.com/counties.php?state=ks.
The department is also active in schools, and if offering Citizens Academy with the Emporia Police Department and Fire Department for 10-11 weeks.
.JPG)
