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wESTCHESTER R TARY CLUB PRESENTS
Five-day book sale! Friday, May 27 to Tuesday, May 31
e P ro ce ed s fr om th e bo ok sa le pr ov id be r su pp or t fo r a nu m e th of pr og ra m s in co m m un it y.
Thousands of books will be on sale at the Rotary Club of Westchester’s 61st Annual Book Sale from Friday, May 27th through Tuesday, May 31st. The event will be held in the parking lot of the Westchester Village Ralphs at Howard Drollinger Way and Sepulveda Boulevard in the Westchester Business District. Among the thousands of almost new books are dozens of categories as well as audio and video tapes. Books have been presorted and placed in selected areas to ease the search in locating specific kinds of books. Proceeds from the event provide support for a number of programs in the Westchester community, including the Vision to Learn, providing eyeglasses to students in need. The Rotary Club of Westchester also provides financial assistance to the Scouts, the YMCA and other youth organizations, as well as scholarship programs at our local schools and many other community, senior citizen and youth activities. The Rotary Club of Westchester also supports the International Rotary polio eradication program, which hopes to eliminate polio from the earth; and the Polio Corrective Surgeries Program, which sends doctors and other volunteers to third world countries to perform much-needed surgery on victims of the disease
and helps fund clean water program in Thailand. Book sale hours are Friday, May 27, from 1 PM to 7 PM; Saturday, Sunday, Monday, May 28-30, 10 AM to 7 PM; and Tuesday, May 31, 9 AM to Noon. The book sale is located at 8824 South Sepulveda Boulevard, Westchester, 90045. The books are generously donated each year by businesses and residents in Westchester and the surrounding communities. The club is continuing to seek book donations throughout the sale. Books can be donated by calling Christa Ramey @ 213-447-4743 or by emailing to ramey.christa@gmail. com for free pick-up. The club asks that the books be in boxes or bags. You can also drop books off at the Westchester Family YMCA, Covenant Christian Church, the Drollinger Office Building, Airport Marina Counseling Services, the Westchester Senior Center, or at the book sale location in the Ralph’s parking lot. u
May 26, 2016 rotary Club of westchester – Special Advertising Section PAGE 21
Rotary Club of Westchester
Why Rotary Matters to Us and Our Community By Christa Ramey, incoming club president, Rotary Club of Westchester
Rotary Club of Westchester incoming president and book sale chair Christa Ramey
“...the club has exciting things planned in its four avenues of service: International, Vocational, Community and Youth.”
I feel like I have always been a Rotarian. Before joining Rotary Club of Westchester five years ago, my husband was a member and served as president. I traveled with him to service projects in Mexico and the Dominican Republic, and to an international convention in England. Inevitably, I asked myself, why am I not also member of Rotary? Now following in my husband’s footsteps, I’m about to become president of our club. It’s a club with more than 60 years of tremendous service to our community. This service includes providing mini-grants to teachers, doing beach clean-ups, tutoring students in math, buying back-to-school clothing for children, and of course, our home and community make-over projects. I am excited about taking on this year. In addition to serving the local community, the club partners with clubs around the world on international projects, including water, and sanitation. Our club has helped fund a water project in Thailand. Perhaps our greatest international project has been the eradication of polio. In this effort, Rotary joined forces
with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2013. Today, there are only two countries left with incidents of polio – Afghanistan and Pakistan. We are *THIS* close to ending polio. If you want to help, please visit www.endpolio.org. During this next Rotary year, the club has exciting things planned in its four avenues of service: International, Vocational, Community and Youth. As our club’s incoming president, I want to make sure that the community knows what we are doing and the many ways everyone can help. Vocational Service includes education and literacy. We tutor kids in math. We provide teachers with micro and mini-grants. During the annual book sale, we will be reading to kids. Every child that comes for the reading will get a free used book of their choosing. We partner with Vision to Learn, helping kids see, learn, and thrive in school. Rotary actively involves youth in our community and around the world. Two of our local high schools, Westchester Enriched Sciences Magnet and Saint Bernard’s High School have active Interact Clubs. Loyola Marymount
University (LMU) has an active Rotaract Club. The goal is to help young people develop an understanding of the importance of service to others, and many end up Rotarians! This year’s banner community service project will be a makeover on the Safe Place for Youth (S.P.Y.) facility, in Venice. S.P.Y is a youth drop in facility in Venice that provides services to the homeless youth population on the Westside. Our makeover is planned for the weekend before Thanksgiving. I am getting overwhelmed with the idea that our little club can help so many people. Our club is helping folks in Westchester, Venice, Playa del Rey. We are helping provide eyeglasses to children all over Los Angeles. We are helping families all over the world in an effort to eradicate polio, in providing sanitation and clean water. If you think that this might be something you want to be involved in, please come to our Wednesday lunch meeting. We meet almost every Wednesday at the Crowne Plaza on Century Boulevard at 12:10 p.m. We look forward to meeting u you!
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310-417-9900 PAGE 22 Rotary Club of Westchester – Special Advertising Section May 26, 2016
Rotary Club of Westchester
High School and College Students Dedicated to Service Above Self Whoever said that young people today are apathetic has never visited the Interact Clubs of St. Bernard and Westchester High Schools. Sort of a junior Rotary Club, Interactors are high school students dedicated to making their community a better place to live. Founded more than a decade ago, the Interact Clubs have thriving memberships. The students volunteer their time and energy to help raise money for worthy causes, perform volunteer community service, and display the highest level of citizenship and character. Projects undertaken by the St. Bernard group have included helping run the Rotary International Foundation Dinner and holding a T.B. (tuberculosis) clinic at the high school for local teachers, aides and school volunteers. They’ve also worked on the Home Makeover Project, Jet to Jetty run for the Airport Marina Counseling Service, Westchester Senior Citizens Holiday party, a Mexican orphanage Christmas party, Rotary Rose Parade float decora-
tions, Pediatric AIDS benefit dance, the Rotary’s Casino Night, Palm Sunday Pilgrimage and the Rotary used book sale. The Westchester Interact Club advances worthwhile causes close to home and across the seas, including the Mary Magdalene Project, which helps prostitutes get off the streets; Project Angel, which collects baby blankets for County USC hospital; a mobile dental clinic in Latin America; and the LAX Food Pantry, which collects food for the needy. They have also purchased shelter boxes that ease the suffering of international refugees. The club has also collected food and gifts for the poor in developing countries and aided relief efforts for bombing victims in Kenya and Tanzania. The clubs’ members also volunteered at the local fire stations, city marathons, beach clean-ups, and the Rotary Scrabble Challenge. In addition, Interactors play a major role in the Every 15 Minutes Program, a drunk driving program at the school that
A performance by exchange students from New Zealand. includes a staged auto accident in front of the school. The Westchester Rotary Club also pays for several Interactors to attend leadership training events, the most memorable of which is an annual mountain camp retreat. The Rotary Club supports a number of scholarships at high schools that recognize academic, essay writing, and community service achievements. In March, 2000, the Rotary Club of
Westchester was proud to oversee the chartering of a Rotaract Club at Loyola Marymount University, marking the establishment of a Rotary sponsored club at all of Westchester’s secondary schools and universities. Rotaract, the college equivalent of Interact, has proven to be a wonderful addition to the LMU campus, providing a wide range of community service to Westchester. u
May 26, 2016 rotary Club of westchester – Special Advertising Section
PAGE 23
Rotary Club of Westchester
Westchester Home Makeover Projects
Inducted into Westchester Rotary in August 1954, Rotarian Lloyd Hild served as club president in 1967-68, and was honored with the club’s “Lifetime Achievement Award” in 2006. Hild passed away in August, 2015.
Westchester Rotary has a long history of helping our community. From scholarships, working with schools, supporting Eagle Scouts, the Club has invested time and money into Westchester. In the early 90s, we decided that we wanted to do fewer, but more impactful projects. This is when Geoff Maleman brought to us the idea of doing Home Makeovers. Our first one was for the Odom family in 2006. Scott was an adjunct professor at Loyola Marymount University who had stage 4 cancer. Redoing their home relieved a great burden for the family so that they could focus on each other. Just as importantly, it brought our community together as people who heard about the project came and volunteered throughout the weekend. The project also energized our Club and we developed a process and structure so that we could do makeovers every other year. We have done the makeovers for three houses since. Each family had unique needs that led to each being a different project. Whether it was helping a home become more handicap accessible or providing upgrades after the death of a loved one, each project had a great
sense of purpose and touched our community. Without the support of people in Westchester and PDR, these projects really wouldn’t be possible. For the last makeover project we adjusted our direction and worked with the City of Los Angeles to upgrade the Westchester Senior Center. The Rotary Club has a long relationship with our community’s seniors and it was our pleasure to improve this community asset that is used by our friends and neighbors every day. This year, we are again looking into our community and the makeover recipient will be Safe Place for Youth (S.P.Y.) in Venice. S.P.Y. provides valuable services to homeless youth in West Los Angeles. These young people have great needs in education, counseling, obtaining job skills, and healthcare. S.P.Y. provides all of this and more. They recently acquired a new space and we are working with them to make it more usable and efficient so that they can deliver more services to more people. The project will also lower their carbon footprint and allow them to grow food for program participants. Given the scope of what we have
W e ’r e p r o u d t o s u p p o r t t h e R o t a r y C l u b o f W e s t c h e s t e r.
planned, we have enlisted the support of Rotary Clubs all over the world to work with us. As you may know, Westchester Rotary helps other Clubs with their community projects. These include developing clean water sources, building playgrounds, and purchasing equipment for micro businesses that provide job training to recovering addicts. Our Rotary friends in India, Puerto Rico, and Thailand will be providing financial support for this year’s makeover project, along with The Rotary Foundation. We also appreciate the generous donations from the Drollinger Family Foundation and the Hannon Foundation. They have been supporters of the makeover projects from Day 1 and we cannot thank them enough. Your purchases at the book sale and participation in our other fundraising events are critical to this project happening. All of this is happening at S.P.Y. this fall, with our volunteer days being the weekend before Thanksgiving. Please keep an eye on our Facebook page (Rotary Club of Westchester) for more details as we get closer to u the project.
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Rotary Club of Westchester
A Safe, Supportive Environment for Homeless Youth Founded in 2011, Safe Place for Youth’s mission is to inspire, nurture and empower the resilient human spirit of homeless youth by providing immediate and lasting solutions, one young person at a time. The program prioritizes low barriers for entry, harm-reduction, a trauma-informed approach, and the provision of a safe, supportive environment. Safe Place for Youth (S.P.Y.) provides an integrated continuum of care for homeless youth ages 12-25 through drop-in services, assertive street outreach, case management, health and wellness programming, and education and employment services. In 2015, nearly 1,000 unduplicated youth received life-saving support through the program’s services. Rotary Club of Westchester has been
partnering with Safe Place for Youth for several years. Club members have been providing hot meals to the clients of S.P.Y. Rotary has also assisted in the collection of hygiene products for distribution to the clients of S.P.Y. This year, the weekend before Thanksgiving, Rotary will be completing its Community Makeover on Safe Place for Youth’s new facility in Venice on Lincoln Boulevard. With the growing number of homeless youth within Los Angeles County and the increasing number of youth accessing Safe Place for Youth, the Rotary Makeover will assist with vital funds to increase programming and assistance to youth. Construction of additional offices will provide space for an increase in case management staffing to assist with housing and shelter linkages and mental
health services for counseling and crisis assistance. Reconfiguration of the Education and Employment services office space, in which the current space will be opened up and walkways moved, will increase Safe Place for Youth’s ability to provide more youth the opportunity to gain essential pre-employment and life skills, job searching and educational exploration. Linked to the expansion of the Education and Employment services, the clothing closet build-out will provide space to dedicate a section of the closet to interview and professional clothing for youth attending job interviews and employment. Safe Place for Youth is located at 2469 Lincoln Boulevard, Venice, CA 90291. Information, (310) 902-2283 or info@safeplaceforyouth.org. u UPPER RIGHT: The Ian Jones Humanitarian Service Award, for Rotary District 5280 is awarded to Rotarian Nora MacLellan (left), shown with District Governor DJ Sun. LEFT: Rotarian Ted Grose places bid at Rotary silent auction fundraiser. MIDDLE: Rotarians (left) Rowena Ake, Mason Shayan, and Lek Pollard enjoy Rotary Sunset Party.
Rotary Club of Westchester Congratulations for Supporting the community for over 60 years
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Salute Rotary Club of Westchester ’s 66th year of Service in the community
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Rotary Club of Westchester
What is Rotary?
have no access to water. Rotarians provide educational and technical support to those trying to establish businesses Many people ask “what is Rotary?” They in Third World countries. think of Rotarians as people who meet But perhaps Rotary’s biggest and every Wednesday for lunch, assess most important quest is the eradication themselves fines for getting a new car of polio. During its 20-year polio eradior a new job and wear that funny little cation campaign, Rotarians have raised wheel pin on their lapels. millions of dollars and traveled the globe And while all that is true, Rotary is delivering the polio vaccine to tiny villagabout so much more. es in Africa and Southeast Asia. Rotarian Founded in 1905 in Chicago, Rotary is doctors have volunteered their own now the world’s largest service organiza- time, talent and funds to travel to India, tion with more than one million members Africa and elsewhere conducting polio in more than 160 countries across the corrective surgeries that enable children globe. Internationally, Rotarians build afflicted with polio to walk again. wells in poor countries where villagers Right here in Westchester, Rotarians
are making a difference in their community, conducting as many as 80 different community service projects every year. Thanks to the members of the Rotary Club of Westchester, hundreds of local students benefit from Teacher Mini Grants, which provide funds for teachers to conduct field trips, purchase important classroom supplies and equipment and establish innovative educational activities. Thanks to the members of the Rotary Club of Westchester, some of the areas most disadvantaged children can participate in a “shopping spree” to buy new school clothes each fall. For some, it is the only new clothes they receive all year.
Local Rotarians also participate in a wide range of international student exchange programs to promote cultural awareness and educational opportunities and numerous literacy programs that provide library books to local schools and encourage children to develop a love of reading. So, the next time you see that funny little wheel pin on someone’s lapel, remember that Rotarians make a difference right here in Westchester every day. For more information about Rotary or how you can help Rotarians in a local community service project, please call Christa Ramey at 213-447-4743. u
Providing kids with glasses helps them succeed in school and in life Rotary Club of Westchester partners with Vision To Learn, a not-for-profit organization that provides free eye exams and free glasses to elementary school students in low-income communities throughout California. Vision To Learn was created by the Beutner Family Foundation to help kids do better in school and provide a foundation for a better life. The program has helped over 53,000 children to date and has expanded their program throughout California, Hawaii, Iowa, Delaware and most recently Baltimore Maryland. Approximately 15% of the children in California public schools need glasses, which equates to 360,000 low-income school kids in California and 150,000 in LA County. Vision To Learn solves this problem by bringing their Mobile Eye Clinics to the source – schools and youth organizations. Nearly every day, Vision To Learn’s trained opticians and optometrists drive the Mobile Eye Clinics directly to low-income schools and communities to offer students free eye exams. Within three weeks, the organization returns to deliver free prescription glasses to those in need. One of the children served recently was a young man, Roberto. A student in the seventh grade, Roberto has been in the United States for less than two months. He does not speak English. Roberto’s mobile vision clinic test revealed +8.5 -8 in both eyes . He could not see far, and he could not read the letters on a page. Roberto’s vision was outside the ranges of the phoropter equipment normally used to determine lense prescriptions, so a special headset with trial lenses was used. As the optometrist started slipping in the lenses, slowly things started to come into focus for Roberto. Tears started running down his cheeks. He could see the letters and shapes in front of him. With the headset on, the optometrist invited Roberto to step outside for a look around. For the
WestchesterRotary Rotary ... Westchester Westchester Rotary ...... Thanks for making our world Thanks for for making making our Thanks our world world a better place! a better place! a better place! XoXo XoXo XoXo FutureRotarians Rotarians...... Future Future Rotarians ... Kaitlyn,Sydney Sydney&&Ethan Ethan Kaitlyn, Kaitlyn, Sydney & Ethan Maleman Maleman Maleman
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first time, Roberto could see branches, and leaves. Someone picked a flower from a plant and handed it to him. Through his tears as he was looking at the flower, Roberto repeated. . . . ‘I had no idea . . . I had no idea’ To date 33 Rotary Clubs have made an impact on over 60,000 children by insuring that they have had their vision screened, over 6,000 have gotten free eye exams and over 4,600 have gotten free eye glasses. Along the way the Rotary Clubs have raised over $300,000 for Vision To Learn. Austin Beutner, Vision To Learn Founder and Co-Chairman added, “We appreciate the work of the Rotary Clubs to bring the community together to support the work of Vision To Learn. Providing kids with glasses helps them succeed in school and in life.” UCLA researchers recently studied the work of Vision To Learn. Their report can be found at http://visiontolearn.org/ images/docs/ucla_study.pdf. For more information on Vision to Learn, please visit www.VisionToLearn.org. u
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May 26, 2016 rotary Club of westchester – Special Advertising Section
PAGE 27
Thanking the
Westchester Rotary Foundation for changing lives
through its endowment fund and creating a legacy in support of community projects, youth, families and vocational services.
TO MAKE A GIFT to the Westchester Rotary Foundation, please call Cozette Vergari (310) 410-4014
PAGE 28 Rotary Club of Westchester – Special Advertising Section May 26, 2016