The Board reviewed and approved two new applications for membership into the Rotary Club of Ankeny at their meeting on February 18th.  These applications were from:

 

Patty Mungia - Patty works for Wells Fargo and is an Inbound Sales Specialist.  She is also a former member of the Rotary Club of San Pedro Sula, Honduras and the wife of Evening club member Juan Aris. He was proposed by Juan and will become an Evening club member. 

 

DuWayne McDaniel - DuWayne works on HVAC with Bryant Iowa Heating & Cooling.  He will likely be converting his membership to a corporate membership as soon as he identifies the Secondary Designees.  He was proposed for membership by Laura Leutje. 

 

Tammy Heckert -   Proposed by Dave Mercer.  Tammy is a Realtor with ReMax Concepts.

 

Valerie Armington – Desiree Claypool is no longer employed by The Bridges.  Valerie is the Community Relations Representative replacing Desiree at the Bridges.  She is being proposed by Kris Baker.

 

Comments regarding these proposed new members may be directed to any Board member.

The Evening Rotary Club of Ankeny has elected their officers to serve for the 2020-2021 Rotary Year.   Those elected were:

 

President (2020-2021) - Juan Arias

President Elect (2021-2022) - Jacquelyn Duke

President Elect Nominee (2022-2023) - Nick Testino

Secretary - Brenda Powell

 

Other members have signed up for various committees.

Juan Arias a member of the Evening Rotary Club of Ankeny completed a donation to the Rotary Foundation to honor his wife, Anna Patricia Munguia Godesky.  This donation not only made her a Paul Harris Fellow but also a Paul Harris Fellow + 1.   Congratulations Patty and thank you Juan!!

There will be three paddle raisers for the 2020 annual fundraiser, "Raise the Stakes for Community".   It was decided two will be local organizations and one will be international.   A total of 12 organizations were proposed by club members and all members had the opportunity to vote on their favorites.  The votes have been counted and the paddle raisers for the 2020 fundraiser will be:

 

Ankeny Service Center/TAKE - The ASC which includes The Ankeny Klothing Exchange, TAKE, provides assistance to underserved people in the Ankeny area for support for food, clothing, and transportation.  Holiday gift baskets for Thanksgiving and family support at Christmas has given hundreds of individuals comfort.  They provide referral to human services agencies to put people in contact with appropriate resources. 

 

Family Cancer Network (Formerly Blood, Sweat, & Beers of Iowa) - This organization was started in 2016 by two men with their own family blood cancer stories.  Their goal is to raise funds to help offset the extra costs that Iowa families incur when dealing with blood cancer treatments. 

 

Timothy Heggen Yates Humanitarian Foundation - This foundation was founded in 2002 after Tim lost his battle with pancreatic cancer at age 18.  The Foundation continues his legacy of caring and compassion for others facing life adversities locally, nationally and globally.  At the international level, THY has partnered for 14 years with the Save the Rain, to provide Tanzanian children with a sustainable water source by building rain collection systems at primary schools.  THY is one of three organizations chosen by Save the Rain and Rotary International to participate in the Food Farming and Forestation Project which will secure midday meals for 90,000 primary students a year, help 70 primary schools create gardens and also build rain collection systems to free these communities of hunger ad inevitable poverty.  Rotary International will provide a 5.8 to 1 match for contributions through the THY Foundation.

Each year the incoming District Governor for each district throughout the world gather in San Diego, California to the Rotary International Assembly.  At the conclusion of the event the incoming Rotary International President announces his theme for his year as President.   Holger Knaack, a member of the Rotary Club of Herzogtum Lauenburg-Molln, Germany will become president on July 1, 2020.  He announced his theme for 2020-2021 will be Rotary Opens Opportunities.  This theme is symbolized with 3 open colored doors, red, yellow and blue.  Through Rotary, there are endless opportunities to serve.

The following Ankeny Rotarians will celebrate birthdays in February:

 

2nd - Mike Goedeke

6th - Doug Parker

8th - Terry Peter

12th - Kris Baker

26th - Steve SchraderBachar

The Board has approved an application for membership to the noon Rotary Club that was submitted by Shannon Maher.  Shannon is a consultant with Retail Success and does pricing for credit card processing for their software customers.  They have customers in all 50 states but Shannon works out of his home in Ankeny.   He is a former member of the Newton Rotary Club.

 

Comments regarding Shannon's proposed membership may be submitted to any Board member.

Gary Welch, being a high ranking elf with Santa Claus, was able to arrange several appearances for Santa during last year's holiday season.   Donations received for those appearances totaled $1,665 which Gary donated to the club.   Thank you Gary!!

Past District Governor and Iowa City Noon Rotarian, John Ockenfels and Cedar Rapids Rotarian, Peter Teahen, are preparing to fly around the world to raise awareness of Rotary's campaign to achieve a polio-free world. Their goal is to fly eastward from Cedar Rapids, raising money and awareness around the world to for Rotary International's 2 for 1 dollar match from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  Their goal, with the match, is to raise $1million.

 

Their plan is to leave on March 24th and the trip will take them 7 weeks, 135 flight hours and 19,601 miles.   The cruising speed of their six-cylinder, 300 horsepower, single-engine, six-passenger Piper Lance II will be 171 mph.   The plane will burn 16.5 gallons of fuel per hour.   Besides the 94 gallons in each wing, the seats behind the front row will be removed to make way for a 165-gallon reserve tank, as well as luggage and supplies.  They plan to drink only enough liquid to stay hydrated and eat very few solids to keep their inflight, in place toilet needs to a minimum, relying on disposable, environmentally correct bags in their confined space. When flying over water, they will wear a special kind of wet suit that will keep them warm in case of an emergency water landing and will have a life raft on board if they need it.  Each day's flight will end at an airport that allows them to refuel and leave the craft overnight but finding these airports has been difficult since most will be outside the United States.  Weather, changing time zones, airport hours of operation, and visas, all have to be taken into consideration. 

 

For more details on their flight, check out the article in the Des Moines register on Janaury 6, 2020 on page 7A.