Monday, january 29, 2024

Seventeen guests from District 6650 will join RCY members for a special Rotary International 119th Anniversary Celebration at Wick Park Pavilion. President Deanna Rossi is urging us to fill the room with Rotarians and guests.

Immediately after the meeting, Beerfest tasting mugs will be washed and dried in the pavilion kitchen. Please help!

Speaking of Beerfest, it’s time to sell your tickets, turn in ticket money, like and share the club’s social media posts, and show up Saturday at Stambaugh Auditorium.

Members continued to learn about each others’ vocations through the Givers’ Exchange. Participants stuffed tote bags from the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County with pens, flyers, magnets, coupons and other swag. Enough bags were assembled to send home with Rotarians and share with future members. 

Volunteers are still needed at the RCY Groundhog Craft Beer Festival on Saturday at Stambaugh Auditorium. Rotarians and their age-appropriate family members and friends can work at the sign-in table, pour beer, or clean up after the afternoon and evening sessions. Please, give a few hours to this cause.

John Fahnert needs chaperones during the Youth Exchange Overnighter on Saturday, Feb. 10. The inbound and outbound students will attend training sessions, experience the Monster Truck Show at the Covelli Center, swim in the Downtown YMCA pool, eat late-night pizza, and talk. Join their conversation!

Mike Latessa weighed all bags of donated plastic film during lunch, and then announced that 47 lbs. had been collected, which put us over the top for a third park bench. Congratulations to all!

Welcome to the club's newest member, Youngstown City Councilman Julius Oliver.

You are invited to Rotary Club of Youngstown's 109th Anniversary Party!

This is a special evening in which every Youngstown Rotarian should attend.  

We will be honoring our Paul Harris Fellow Inductees and Celebrating the great work we are doing in the community.

Please note that Registration ends Feb 12th

Early Bird Discount Until Feb 6!

REGISTER HERE

Graduates of Youngstown public and parochial high schools may apply for The Rotary Club of Youngstown Scholarship for full-time students at Youngstown State University. Applicants must have a minimum 2.8 grade point average. This is not an income-based award.

The RCY Scholarship is managed by the YSU Foundation. The due date is Feb. 1. The application is available here. Call the YSU Foundation at 330-941-3211 for more information.

RCY has supported local college students since 1946, beginning with a student loan fund that evolved to the scholarship fund. It is yet another way the club demonstrates Rotary’s motto of Service Above Self.

Love of butterflies galvanizing people across the globe

By Ariel Miller

ESRAG Newsletter Editor

Rotarians all over the world are inspiring their communities to embrace Operation Pollination.  It starts with signing a non-binding Operation Pollination Partnership (resolution) to work together on two goals: to educate the community about the vital importance of pollinators to human well-being, and to restore pollinator habitats.  

Led by Rotarian and naturalist Christopher Stein, this ESRAG initiative has expanded to 70 Rotary Districts on six continents in just three years.  Clubs and District Governors are uniting local and regional governments, schools, parks, nature reserves, businesses, and civic groups to sign pledges. Then, the fun begins: a feast of education, discovery, and cultivating flowering plants so pollinators can flourish again.  People of all walks of life, from toddlers to titans of business, are pitching in. As one Rotary Director told ESRAG co-founder Karen Kendrick-Hands in 2020, “well, Karen, I don’t know anybody who doesn’t love butterflies.”  

“With 7 of 10 people thinking of any environmental concern as a future problem, Operation Pollination has helped many Rotarians and community partners in my ten-county District embrace the plight of our essential pollinators,” says DGE Elayne Bozick of District 6650 in Ohio. “Talking about THE food web and how all life on earth is connected, makes it easier to engage others as an important player in a much larger global effort. And, with every educational activity, with every pollinator project, we have the opportunity to capitalize on promotion and messaging. We’ve actually had people join Rotary because of Operation Pollination.”

She persuaded her entire class of Ohio DGEs to sign a pollinator resolution. “I had been witnessing - with concern - changes to my immediate environment for many years,” she explains. “When Rotary declared Protecting Our Environment as a global concern, I knew the power of Rotary had my back. With that framework, after describing the what and why of Operation Pollination – magically - every one of the Rotary and community partners I asked agreed to help. On top of all that, thanks to the Operation Pollination international network, I now know Rotarians in England, Costa Rica, Australia and other members of our global community.” 

In March, Rotarians have two opportunities to discover how to put that love into action. The Pollinator Partnership (https://pollinator.org) will provide free pollinator project idea training through Pollinator Conservation 101 on March 6 and 13, by Zoom. “Everyone is invited to attend this training opportunity, but you must register,” Stein writes.

To participate in the March 6 session, at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time, register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_1klWPk91QTefkB96B_Z3_g#/registration 

To participate in the March 13 session, at 7 p.m. Eastern time, register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_HLGbHMVtS9ivLsS0Ln8eog#/registration 

NOTE: In sync with the breakthrough United Nations Environment Programme-Rotary partnership to protect watersheds, Chris Stein sent this report of the landmark signing in September 2023 of the Operation Pollinator Partnership for the entire length of the mighty Mississippi River. 

A few years ago, after reading the October 2020 Rotary Magazine article about ESRAG’s Operation Pollination environmental framework, Rotarian Rosalie (Roz) Schnick was inspired to take action to help protect pollinator biodiversity health along the entire length of the Mississippi River.  In the article, Roz discovered that then-District Governor Marlene Gargulak of District 5960 wanted to engage Rotarians and others from Canada to Mexico to help the Monarch Butterfly.  As the La Crosse County (Wisconsin) Commissioner of the Mississippi River Parkway Commission, she proposed the idea of the Mississippi River Operation Pollination Partnership.  She decided to bring together Rotarians and other stakeholders to make it happen.

On a magnificent fall afternoon in late September, on the banks of the Mississippi River in La Crosse, 10 prominent organizations including Rotary District 6250, ESRAG, the Mississippi Parkway Commission, Monarch Joint Venture, the City of La Crosse, and North Woods and Waters of the St. Croix Heritage Area joined forces at Roz Schnick’s home and meeting place - aptly named “The Monarchy” – for a joyful ceremony to sign the Mississippi River Operation Pollination Partnership (resolution).

“Whereas more than 85% of the world’s flowering plants and many of the world’s food crops depend on pollination to be successful,” the resolution states, and “given the breadth, severity, and persistence of pollinator losses, it is critical to expand efforts to reverse these losses and restore populations to healthy levels.” 

The signatories set out their vision: “Through cooperation, collaboration, and outreach resulting from this non-binding Pollinator Partnership, an interconnected mosaic of pollinator habitat may be developed to help restore and maintain populations of pollinator species throughout this region.”

Now, at the start of the new year, these 10 organizations have begun to activate this Mississippi River Partnership with their members and partners.  Each organization that signed the Partnership has a champion whose job is to recruit other members/partners who will sign a non-binding Pollinator Pledge that states what they plan to do to help pollinator biodiversity.  What an organization’s leader puts on their Pollinator Pledge is totally up to them.  At its core, Operation Pollination is non-prescriptive. However, we gladly offer ideas.  They can choose among a wide range of actions, including:

• Plant a pollinator garden.

• Hand out seed packets to school children.

• Stop or reduce pesticide use.

• No-Mow May.

• Present educational programs to their communities.

• Help other organizations restore land.

• Support a pollinator organization.

Most of the 198 organizations who have signed a Pollinator Pledge to date have decided to plant a pollinator garden. These gardens can be as small as a few square feet.

In southwest Wisconsin, District 6250 Governor Michelle McGrath, who signed the Partnership in September, is working to recruit the twenty other Rotary districts that touch the Mississippi River to adopt the cause.  These districts will then recruit their clubs to sign pledges.  This strategy applies to all of the partners who signed the “master” Partnership.  

So, on a beautiful fall afternoon on the banks of the Mississippi River, the beginning of Rotarian Roz Schnick’s dream to protect pollinator biodiversity came true.  Now, it’s up to the people and organizations who live and work in this nationally significant Mississippi River space to take action on behalf of pollinators for biodiversity health.  

Operation Pollination is an environmental framework that can easily be replicated in Rotary Districts across the globe.  If you would like more information about this easy- to implement framework and how your District/Club can get involved, please contact me at Chris_Stein@esrag.org or +1 402-881-1387.

Stein is a member of Twin Cities Rotary EcoClub in Minnesota.  He is Chief of National Heritage Areas and Community Conservation Partnerships for the US National Park Service, Midwest Region.