The Wheel For January 7, 2021

by Jan 7, 2021The Wheel0 comments

Listen to Ciara Byrne – Green Our Planet

The Wheel


Ciara Byrne – Green Our Planet

In March, 2013 Ciara Byrne and Kim MacQuarrie co-founded a non-profit called Green Our Planet based in Las Vegas that runs one of the largest and most comprehensive STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) school garden programs in the United States. The mission is to increase student academic performance in STEAM through project-based education, which includes nutrition, financial literacy, and conservation education in PreK-12 schools. Green Our Planet has impacted more than 140,000 students across the United States and works with more than 5,000 teachers. Over the past seven years Green Our Planet has built 200 school gardens, helped organize over 800 student-run farmers market, over 600 chef demos, trained over 3000 teachers to use the Green Our Planet STEAM curriculum and implemented a hydroponics program at 75 schools from New York and Florida to Alaska and Montana. Before running Green Our Planet, Ciara ran a film production company called Lion Television with offices in New York and LA and made films all over the world for channels including PBS, BBC, TLC, Discovery Channel, National Geographic and more. Ciara was selected along with 19 other nonprofit leaders from around the world, from 5,000 applications to be a 2019 Obama Fellow.

Message From The President

Dear Rotarians,

Happy New Year 2021

In a few days, our Rotary District 5300 will hold our annual mid-program year conference, and we will take stock of how our plans and goals for the current program year are working out. A person not familiar with Rotary would probably laugh at this, and perhaps offer up the John Lennon quote about life being what occurs while we are preoccupied with planning. Mid-course corrections are, after all, for when a breeze has blown your ship slightly off course, not for when you are sailing in a hurricane, as we have been recently.

Rotarians know better. Based on a century of experience, we set realistic goals and make realistic plans to achieve projects within Rotary’s avenues of service. These are goals and plans that we believe in and are committed to, so if even a gale force wind pushes us off our original course, we do not give in, we make the needed course corrections, and we move ahead. As RI President Holger Knaack notes in his message in the January 2021 issue of Rotary magazine, the quote we remember is “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

Our club has done a remarkable job during this program year of remaining focused on what we intended to accomplish and on accomplishing those goals. Every member of our club has played a part in achieving that, and for that you can all take credit for how well we are positioned heading into the final half of this Rotary program year and the new calendar year 2021. Happy New Year!

Richard Jost
President
Las Vegas Rotary Club

Member Highlights

Scribe – December 17, 2020

Las Vegas Rotary Club Meeting:  December 17, 2020

President Richard Jost called the meeting to order.

  • Inga Almquist gave the invocation.
  • Kirk Holmes played Auld Lang Syne performed by the University College Dublin.
  • We had 4 guests of rotarians and 1 visiting rotarian. Rotarians bringing guests were Mike Mewborn and Kirk Holmes. Membership committee members Rosalee Hedrick and Toni Kern introduced three prospective members.
  • Kim Nyoni recognize new Paul Harris recipients. Jerry Engel earned Paul Harris + 2, Rob Telles earned Paul Harris + 1.  
  • Jim Hunt and John Williams announced that we continue to support the state of Nevada through the Wheelchair Foundation. Wheelchairs are being donated and used all over Nevada. President Richard Jost fined John for being on Channel 13 News.
  • Mike Ballard and Kathy Mahon announced a grant to Karen Iglesias with Cure 4 The Kids Foundation. Karen shared a story about a little boy fighting cancer who needed a bone marrow transplant.  His mother lost her job and they lost health insurance and they lost the funds to move forward with the operation.  Our contribution will go towards families like them.
  • The raffle ticket winner was Kathy Mahon who received a prize of $10, and the Lawry’s Bucks winner was Karen Whisenhunt.
  • Tom Thomas introduced our program. The topic today was our sharing of our various traditions during the holiday season.  Arleen Sirois, John Engel, and Brock Fraser all shared their very personal holiday traditions. 
  • President Richard Jost adjourned our meeting.


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