North Notes
Spokane-North Rotary Club
Dec.4, 2023
Calendar:
Dec.11: Noon lunch at the Bark. Yvonne Trudeau, Spokane Parks Foundation.
Dec.18: Noon lunch at the Bark. Speaker: President Nancy Hanson, quarterly report. Bring your wrapped gifts!
Dec. 25: No meeting. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
Jan. 1: No meeting. HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Announcements:
Lenore Romney shared some heartfelt notes from Holmes Elementary families thanking the club’s 40 for $60 holiday gift program.
Rotary Christmas Party
Hosted by Bill Simer and Renee Rolando
Here are some pictures of the fun times had by all who were able to attend.
Here is the file to tap to see the pics: C:\Users\hsfin\Dropbox\Rotary\2023-2024\Christmas Party
A ‘Lumen-ary’ visits
At the Dec. 4 club luncheon, T’yanna Williams, one of our scholar winners from the Lumen High School, talked about her plans.
Shauna Edwards, Lumen executive director, joined the luncheon. Lumen is the downtown high school for teens who have their own children. T’yanna works as a teaching assistant at the YWCA, working with one and two-year olds. She graduated early from Lumen this winter and has worked at the Y since September.
Her son, Lucas, celebrated his second birthday last month.
“I like to work with kids. It’s where I’m most comfortable,” Williams said.
T’yanna is enrolled in a two-year community college program for early education and plans to transfer to EWU and major as a teacher in elementary education.
“Child care can be really tough,” she said, noting she is expecting a second child in March. “It’s hard to do all the adult things,” she said.
In the club’s pilot project with Lumen, T’yanna was funded for $1,500 this year and a similar amount next year.
This “Ronald’ doesn’t clown around
The Ronald McDonald House is a much bigger deal than just a big meal.
In Spokane, since 1987 the program has provided temporary lodging, social and emotional support for families with hospitalized children who need longer-term care. There are 40 facilities serve nationally since the first McDonald House opened in Philadelphia in 1974.
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“If you are 40 miles or 40 minutes away you can stay with us,” said Trinette Baer-Kowalski, executive director at the Ronald McDonald House Charities of the Inland Northwest.
“If you are 40 miles or 40 minutes away you can stay with us,” said Trinette Baer-Kowalski, executive director at the Ronald McDonald House Charities of the Inland Northwest. The campus facility on West Fifth in Spokane opened with 14 guest rooms, but had expanded in stages now to 56 rooms, Trinette said at the Dec. 4 club meeting.
An added eight rooms were added in 2019 at Ironwood Place in Coeur d’Alene, she said.
And Seattle has its own RMHC facility and mobile care vans are located in the Yakima Valley and Columbia Basin, she added.
The reason for the expansions, Trinette said, “People were sleeping in chairs at the hospitals” as treatments for children continue.
Joining at the club luncheon was Kara Bilbo, volunteer and outreach coordinator for RMHC.
They were invited by club member Laura Zahn, who was in a class of the Leadership Spokane program with which picked McDonald House to partner.
Trinette said the McDonald House of the Inland Northwest operates with a $2.5 million annual budget. But she said the program is helped by a tremendous amount of volunteer support and donated supplies.
Of the large generosity throughout the communities, she said simply, “It’s bananas.”
She said the average stay for families is 22 days. In Seattle, she added, the stay is 63 days.
“The hospitals are struggling, so many of the patients can’t stay overnight,” Trinette said. “It’s a definite shift in how we operate. We are really operating a hotel,” she said.
When the stays are extended, she said, some of the other youngsters at McDonald House are partnered with Roosevelt Elementary School.
“We want them in school. Kids are safer in school,” she said.
Trinette said there is a large “magic toy room” at the McDonald House where the youngsters “can pick out a toy when they come and when they leave.”
And those toys are a lot more meaningful than a Happy Meal.
Lunch with Laura?
Club member Laura Zahn has challenged other members to help serve a lunch or dinner at the Ronald McDonald House on West Fifth.
She said six volunteers are needed to help with a meal and the house operates seven days a week, so a number of openings are available.
Bulletin editors: Chuck Rehberg and Sandy Fink.
Some in the club know Hancock as a key administrator who helped the Spokane Symphony’s $33 million rebuilding of the Fox Theater. Club member Bill Simer was a key volunteer in that effort. But now Hancock, president of the volunteer West Plains Water Coalition, is focused on the challenging issues of PFAS. (See below for a quick tutorial on these chemicals.).png)
Spokane, WA 99201
United States of America