North Notes
Spokane North Rotary Club Bulletin
July 29, 2019
Rotary calendar:
Aug. 5: Luncheon, noon at Nectar in Kendall Yards, The Community School.
Aug. 12: Rotary Connects Begins at 4:30 p.m. Art and Robin Rudds’ house, 1604 W. Fairway Drive.
Aug. 19: Luncheon, noon at Nectar in Kendall Yards, Spokane Transit Central Line.
Aug. 26, Rotary Serves, noon, Holmes School supplies delivered, 2600 W. Sharp- Pizza will be served!!!.
Sept. 20: Club fund-raising wine tasting and dinner at Kalispel Golf and Country Club.
Briefly:
Wine Grab: Past-President Lenore Romney has circulated four full pages of area wineries to start donations for the club’s fund-raiser on Sept. 20. The goal is more than 100 bottles, generally priced at $15 per bottle or more, for the popular Wine Grab at the Dine Out Spokane for Kids event. Proceeds go to projects at Holmes Elementary School.
Paul Harris Plus One: At the July 29 meeting, Board member Chuck Rehberg received his “One-Plus” award signifying a second $1,000 donation to Rotary International.Food Bank provides weekend meals for kids
Spokane residents generally are well-aware about the high level of free and reduced-price meal programs in area schools. But hungry kids also need meals for the weekends, too.
At the July 29 club meeting, Chris Sloan of 2nd Harvest Food Bank described the “Bite 2 Go” program which offers weekend sustenance for the needy students.
2nd Harvest’s menu provides “a good mix of healthy, kid-friendly, easy to open, single-serving, non-perishable food items to cover meals and three snacks over the weekend.”
serving, non-perishable food items to cover meals and three snacks over the weekend.”
Part of the “kid-friendly” idea is having meals which “don’t require any cooking or other preparations.”
Sloan said free and reduced-price meals cover “more than half of students in Spokane County schools.” He said more than 3,500 elementary students in 71 schools need the weekend meal program. Holmes Elementary has about 90 percent free and reduced-price program students.
Noting he served 18 years in ministries before joining 2nd Harvest, Sloan said “people are my passion, but I stand here a conflicted man. You do great work in Spokane, but we have a need to feed kids on weekends.”
“Rotary and so many churches here have stepped up,” Sloan said, but more sponsors are needed to meet the weekend meal program.
He shared videos at Sheridan Elementary and volunteers at 2nd Harvest who work with the meal program. Club President Melinda Keberle said packaging of meals may be considered for club project.
After 2nd Harvest meals are distributed to schools “staff members put the food discretely in the backpacks of students in need.”
Asked whether all of the meals actually get to the youngsters, Sloan said school administrators talk with individual students to detect whether the kids received the food.
Sloan also said the menus were varied so not every meal gets the same food each week.
He said the weekend meal program costs about $180 per student during the 36-week school year.
Since students also need some meals during the summer, 2nd Harvest also has a summer program of free cooking classes, including some at North Central High School.
That menu includes healthy options, such as “veggie quesadillas and zucchini blueberry pancakes.”
There are a number of contact points to donate or help with 2nd Harvest programs, including donation cans at “Pig Out in the Park, if you feel guilty after overeating there next month.
The bulletin producers:
Bulletin editors: Chuck Rehberg and Sandy Fink