Andrew started the meeting by giving kudos to the pac 12 for their performance in march madness!
Doug Brent gave a great inspiration starting with a poll on poverty, literacy, mortality, and education. He then showed in contrast to our views on these topics, there is data from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation that shows the population in poverty has been cut in half, child mortality was cut by a third, literacy has improved as well. He explained that the media focus on negative events make us think we have not been making progress, where the data shows that we have.
Lydia Norcia was our greeter, and she welcomed our visiting Rotarians and guests. After the meeting Lydia shared an inspirational video; a young lady having a full life because of Inner Wheel and Hanger Corporation. Check out “We are only limited by ourselves.” by Giovanna Dubuc.
Direct link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkjuwVpAM1U
Announcements:
Speech Contest
Dessy Bonev won our local rotary speech contest, and will go on to the regional speech contest. That contest will be Tuesday April 6th.
Patti will be coming to help collect bikes for the Good karma bike donation.
First Thursday will be April 1st 5:30-7:30 at Flights restaurant in Los Gatos. They have created a nice new patio on the side of the building where we can have happy hour.
Leigh High Fund Raiser
If you have interest in having your e-waste picked up, they will do this for 15 dollars. If you have interest please contact Doug Brent.
St. Luke’s Double Paper Bags.
They are still in need of double paper bags so anytime drop them on Tina’s doorstep.
Red Badge Bio:
Terri Trotter gave her red badge today. She was born in San Mateo and went to school in Carmichael and Anaheim. Some of her favorite memories are big family car trips across the US, dinners, and gatherings. She and her kids graduated from Fisher Middle, and Los Gatos High School. She went to West Valley college and has a degree in childhood education as well as a masters in Catholic theology. Her first job was at the Los Gatos 5 and Dime, then she worked at Atari and got to try out games as well as working the front office, but she decided her passion was in teaching and she went on to work at St. Mary Church. She also introduced her family and gave us a picture of that as well. She is active in community service through many projects including resettlement, food distribution, human trafficking in coordination with several Catholic Charities, Sacred Heart Community Services, and Our Lady of Refuge Parish. Her hobbies include gardening, reading, walking and hiking, and spending time with family and friends.
Today’s program is Give a Child a Hand which our Rotary club supports. Jim Caywood is a prosthetist at the Hanger Clinic and has been doing that for 40 years, and he gave a talk on the inner wheel limb bank. The Bank consists of components of prosthetics provided by children who have grown out of them. They are refurbished, and provided to children in need. Myoelectric arms fit over a patients arm and contain electrodes that allow children to move the hand through electrical impulses. Lithium ion batteries power them because the weight is a difficulty for a small child. They start fitting children as young as 9 months with a single electrode so they can learn how to operate a simpler device. Unfortunately man insurance companies don’t provide coverage for prosthetic devices. Jim wanted to make it clear that Hanger doesn’t benefit at all from this, but passes all the moneys on to purchase prosthesis for children. Jim showed several wonderful examples of children who have been successfully fitted with prosthesis.