Dear Fellow Rotarians,
Another meeting in the books! We had the privilege of welcoming our new District Governor, Margarida Eidson, and hearing about her personal story as well as her plans and objectives for Rotary District 5240 in the upcoming year. A few interesting points on her background is she was originally from Portugal, she was a dancer, and she came to the United States working on behalf of Portugal’s embassy in Washington, D.C. In addition, she has (4) sons and one of them is the new President for the Rotary Club of Ventura East. As for her district objectives, the biggest takeaway was that we should all consider District 5240 a resource for any questions we have that our own club cannot answer or for ways to collaborate with the larger Rotary family. I encourage you to go to district5240.org to learn about what’s happening at the district level. They’re a wealth of information.
Speaking of wealth, we had our annual Santa Barbara Rotary Foundation meeting where Chairman Andrew Hicks provided us an update on our own local foundation and the tremendous work it’s doing in the community. Not only is it the 501(c)(3) vehicle we utilize for our club to manage donations on a tax-deductible basis, but our local endowment is now over $850,000, we’re annually distributing nearly $30,000 in local grants to non-profits in the community, and over the last (13) years we’ve distributed over $700,000 to the Santa Barbara community in various capacities. What a tremendous testimony of the power of Rotary! In addition, we approved two new Foundation board members, Joanne Nava and Judie Lugo. Thank you, ladies, for your important service.
Though I will unfortunately miss the next meeting on September 3rd, you’re in capable hands with Past-President, Jim Stretchberry. In addition, we’ll have Stephanie Ornani provide an overview of her plans for the Community Service committee as she will be seeking to invite new members to join that initiative. Lastly, we’ll be pleased to have Chris Hastert (Airport Director, Santa Barbara Airport) as our speaker giving us the latest update on their plans and initiatives.
Best Regards,
Dan Aldrich
Dan Aldrich