Rotateller Rotary Club of Owego, NY
Tuesday, July 24, 2007 Gary Williams, Editor

WE MAKE A LIVING BY WHAT WE GET, BUT WE MAKE A LIFE BY WHAT WE GIVE. Norman MacEwan

VISITORS AND GUESTS:

Speakers of the day, Brianna Cart and her mom Maryann Van Burger. The rest were pure Rotarians!

FINES: Bill Russell

All those who did no work or physical play over the weekend, those who wasted more than one hour watching the Yankees, those who did not use sunscreen over the weekend. Learn from Bill.

THERE WERE MANY HAPPY DOLLARS TODAY:

Judy heard from Mrinalini. She is living home and doing well with complicated subjects. Al B. was happy to get to Canada; Bill Moon was happy about finally getting his Rotarian of the Year plaque from last year's awards - well deserved, Bill. ;-) Bill Russell was happy to get his car back after two deer in 1and 1/2 weeks, and Ann was happy to get her car back after being "un-stunk"; Doyle was happy for Bill Moon while Laura saw two black bears on the way to work; Al S. was happy for those who've already signed up to help with Bike Tioga; Harry was happy no one present could report on him from the Dick's Open booth, and for playing golf and actually making money; Maria was happy 80% of Rotarians donated to the Cancer Society for the Relay for Life held last weekend; Orv was happy to be back at his own club on a Tuesday after making visits with the District Governor for the last three weeks; Bill saw six or seven eagles. Orv announced the 3.5 med's tennis team has won the local championship.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Annette gave an announcement $1 for the Blues day coming up. Purchase a ticket before the day and get 10 hours of Blues for only $10; John gave a thank you for those who helped at the Dick's Open. $80 was collected in contributions. Suuz will be returning from her bus trip on Thursday. The planning committee will meet this Thursday at 5 PM at the Wright's house; Laura and Matt attended the District Conference planning meeting and they say the District Conference, to be held in Owego in May 2008, will be AWESOME!

PROGRAM:

Maria introduced Brianna Cart and Maryann Van Burger, her mother, who talked about Brianna's good habit of sending packages to US soldiers in Iraq. Brianna is 10 or 11 years old and just a beautiful young lady. When Owego Rotary collected money for articles for soldiers, we turned to Brianna to get the supplies delivered to Iraq. Brianna had visited the library to use the computers to write to anysoldier.com. She corresponded with soldiers to determine what they needed to make life better. Sgt. Alexander developed a good relationship with Brianna, as a dad and grandpa might. He let her know some of the things his soldiers would like which were sometimes a little different than we might have suspected: fly strips; shoe insoles; stockings. Brianna added the harmonicas in the stockings! The soldiers took some of the toiletry gifts to give to kids and families in town. That gave reassurance that soldiers were not there to harm the locals. Sometimes the gifts would lead a native to point the soldiers toward the enemy. Brianna is still sending boxes to Iraq. Now a chaplain's assistant is her contact and he distributes the goods.

Although there was supposed to be a video showing soldiers coming to Brianna's school to surprise her as a thank you for her help, modern technology would not allow that video to be shown. Our loss.

When questioned, Brianna also told about her fundraiser "Angels Over Iraq" held at the P&C. She and friends spent some hours collecting goods and money for the soldiers to "brighten a soldiers day." Brianna is one wonderful action girl.

50/50 Orv Wright - AGAIN.

This time he gave the winnings to Brianna for her Iraq project. Thanks Orv!

NEXT WEEK:

"Future" news and plans. The week after we will welcome Lindsay Adler talking about fashion photography. She's a great speaker and a great photographer. Don't miss her.

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