Stefan’s Story
Pledge of Allegiance by Art Diaz (nice to see him)
Inspiration by Maureen Merrill: Joy is whatever that is happening at the moment minus your opinion of it!
Song and English lesson: Bill Arnone To Troll is to Sing. We trolled, “Deck the Halls”Guests:
-Our wonderful Domingo, who is now the under the legal guardianship of Renee, which will enable him to start an application for a green card! Yay!
-Pegi Ball introduced culinary students Vanessa and Monica who baked cookies to raise funds for an Italian trip.
-Our exchange student and speaker was Stefan!
This was a big week for our club:
– We collected almost $600 for our weekly server, Janet.
– Pegi Ball organized and cooked a delicious lunch for the residents of Bell Manor, and lots of Rotarians showed up to help serve!
– Mike and Maureen Merrill hosted a delightful holiday party (with Pegi in the kitchen again!)
– Bill Bolster led the ringing of the Salvation Army bells who raised about $1400. Thank you to Jo Timmsen, Mitch Grande, Pam Moulton, Tom Boylan, Sandie Krutz, Wally Krutz, Gabi Serafim, Stefan Neuber, Sue Nelson, John Nelson, Leah Hansen, Kurt Mitchler, Doug Williams, Pegi Ball, Brian Ling, and Jen Senkocoski for ringing the bell for charity
– Larry McCabe reported that the Windsor Food and Toy Drive was a terrific success with about 270 families receiving food and over 800 children receiving a toy. This was an incredible joint effort of service groups (Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions, Masons, Soroptimists, Odd Fellows) Police, Sonoma Fire, Churches (Presbyterian, LDS, Catholic) High School Leadership, Key and Soroptimist, Chamber of Commerce, Grocery Outlet and other Windsor businesses, C*Star, Grange and community members. Thank you to all who helped donate, buy, wrap and distribute. Special thanks to Carol and JB for their website and accounting help and Monica for lots of general work.
Coming up in 2023
NYE Windsor Chamber, Comedy Night at Mary Agatha Furth
January 31st is a 5th Tuesday, Rumor of a bowling night is afloat
February 4 – Monte Carl Night fundraiser (organized by Londa)
Environmental Governor’s Citation Award : Barbara reminds us that Kurt has information on pollinators, and that every act of green living counts. Put a ticket in the box if you are making changes!
We are dark next Tuesday, December 27th. Have a good holiday!
Presentation: Stefan
Stefan, a German citizen, from outside the town of Halle, waited two years to come to Windsor via Rotary because of Covid. He has two younger brothers. This guy is trying all sorts of activities! He even tried American Football (with no previous experience) and ran Cross Country.
What does Stefan enjoy? Sports, Cross Country, Reading, Table Tennis, Chess, Travel, Coding, Accordion, Family and Friends, food and especially pasta, & watermelon!
Stefan has entered coding competitions and has built a robot. (He came in 3rd of 2 competitors, he jokes).
He won a prestigious German High School competition that garnered him a trip to Silicon Valley! He has won Pirate Pitch for an app called MatheX, a speech based math application for elementary school children.
He won a Big Idea Competition and recently won our local Congressional District App competition which will mean he will be going to Washington, D.C.! And he hinted at another competition coming up!
He is very grateful to Barbara McChesney and David Doht, and Heather and Reg Cullen for hosting him so far!.
Stefan says “an exchange year is not a year in a life, but a life in a year.”
We will be hearing about this young man in the future!
Thanks to
Set up: JB Leep, Kurt Mitchler, Bill Conklin , Larry McCabe
Greeter: Pegi Ball
Submitted,
Monica McCabe
Scribe