Hanover Rotary Club Minutes

10/18/2017

Hanover Rotarians: 18

Visiting Rotarians: None

Guests: None

Speaker(s): Mike Smith

Grace: DanPledge: David Ellington

Important Dates:

  1. Roadside cleanup on our adopted highway; Lee Davis Road on Saturday, Oct. 21st. Meet at Lee Dentistry at 8:30am. **Make sure to wear bright colors for safety!
  2. The Sherriff’s Fall Fellowship Festival is also on Saturday, Oct. 21st from 10-3. Please contact Dan if you’d like to work the Rotary booth.
  3. November 4th Bon Air Rotary Club is hosting a special event at Salisbury Country Club. Please reach out to Rich Hayes for more information if you are interested.
  4. Saturday, December 9th from 10-6pm is our designated Salvation Army bell ringing time. We will be at the Walmart in Ashland. The signup sheet is going around – please sign up if you can and see Janice with any questions.
  5. Our Hanover Rotary Christmas Party will be on Thursday, December 14th from 6-8:30pm at the Ashcreek Clubhouse – Please mark your calendars now! **We will not have our regular meeting the night before on Wednesday the 13th.

Other Announcements:

  1. Dan passed around an article that Janice submitted on behalf of the club regarding our school supply drive to support Emile’s school in Liberia. Nice job Janice!
  2. JoAnn has sent everyone an email with detailed information on our peanut sales. Please consider participating – funds go towards our club so we can support community organizations. Deadline to order: 11/15; Peanut Delivery: 12/6

Program: Mike Smith, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library

  • Mike serves on the Hanover Early Childhood Council and started his talk by sharing his passion for serving youth in their early childhood years. Mike also shared that the Council was started by the Hanover County Board of Supervisors and that they meet once a month.
  • The council is proud of the county’s Head start program for youth ages 3-4, however, they have found that there are still preparedness gaps for youth ages 0-3.
  • Mike then showed a brief video of Dolly Parton talking about the Imagination Library program which she stated in honor of her father. The Imagination Library program strives to provide free books to underserved youth and once registered, youth receive 1 age-appropriate book per month (from birth to age 5) and to combat transportation barriers, this book is mailed directly to their residence. To date they have given away over 100 million books.
  • Dolly has partnered with Rotary International to spread the message and increase their reach.
  • We then watched a second video describing the need for this program and learned that there are 700 new synapses/second in the first year of a baby’s life and that the brain stops growing at the age of 25.
  • Mike proposed that our club be the local champion for starting this program in our area. He plans to approach other clubs and a Rotary district grand for funding as well.
  • Mike is working to raise funds to get this off the ground and suggests starting with one zip code first; 23111 and 23005 have the most need.
  • If someone wanted to give a monetary gift to this project, they can write a check to our club and designate the Imagination Library as where they want their gift to go.
  • Mike is looking for volunteers to help with this project so if you or anyone you know are interested in helping, please let Mike know.
  • Here is a link to Dolly’s video describing her project’s relationship with Rotary International 

4-Way Test: Marshall 