Upcoming Events for August—
Aug. 8—RCSV Board meeting prior to lunch—10:30 am.
Aug. 8—Randy Sueskind with a 4th of July video
Aug. 15—Meet at Vinny’s New York Pizza to participate in “Tip a Cop” to fund the Torch Run for Special Olympics
Aug. 22—Stillwell Learning Center, Chuck Stillwell
Aug. 29—5th Monday—No noon meeting. Meet and greet hosted at Mike and Janet Strange’s home, 4231 Paseo Quieto, SV 85635
President Nathan opened the meeting by explaining that he had been “out in the Chiricahua mountains, camping with some young people from his church.”
Guests/Rotarians: Katy, a Sierra Vista Satellite Rotarian, and her husband Joe Faucault.
Announcements:
The club will be meeting will be in Rm. 901 in the library building; thereafter the library conference room (Horace Steele) OTHER THAN on August 15 when it will be at Vinny’s New York Pizza to support the Tip a Cop campaign. The campaign is to raise money for the Torch Run for Special Olympics. The Board of Director’s meeting changed to 11 AM.
Foundation Minute: Club Foundation Director, Les Orchekowsky then presented a surprise Paul Harris Fellowship (PH +7) to Mike Strange. Les emphasized the efforts put forth by Mike to support the Rotary International Foundation in all the areas of interest from clean water to literacy, environmental safety, and
all other areas.
Program: Katy Regan and her husband Joe presented on “A halfway to St Patrick’s Day Event - An Irish Fest Arizona, Kegs-N-Eggs Poker Run.” To explain what this was all about, Katy began with some information about her family’s 20+ combined years volunteering in the St Patrick’s Day Parade. Her family, of course, is anchored by her father (our own Jerry Regan) and her husband Joe. Katy said that with the family's involvement in St Patrick’s Day parade activities, they were introduced to the St Baldrick’s Foundation supporting Kids Cancer Research. They watched the “shave-a-thons” in Denver and became supporters of the great foundation. This year Candy had her hair shaved for the foundation. Katy says that shaving her mom Sandy’s hair when she was losing her hair following chemotherapy made the cause even more meaningful. After she and her husband Joe moved down to Sierra Vista from Denver to be closer to Jerry, they all three missed the St Patrick’s Day events and longed for the activity, especially after COVID. After a night of Irish whiskey, the reminiscing and brainstorming on how to bring St Patrick’s Day events to Serra Vista began and Clovers for Kids Cancer was born (a project done by the Rotary Club of Sierra Vista Satellite Club). Here is where we are to date:
a. 2021 – 3 block walk/parade for a cause, 1 location- Paul’s Pub
- Food and merchandise sales (T-Shirts, Hats, and Stickers)
- Raised approximately $1,000
b. 2022 – An Irish Journey at 3 locations – High Heat, Bone Dry, and PC’s
- Event had Irish Music, Irish Food, Dancers, and raffles at all locations
- Raised approximately $4,000
c. 2022 Continued - Halfway to St Patrick’s Day
- Kegs-N-Eggs Poker Run – expand to 5 locations, Piper, food, music, cash, and other prizes
- Anticipated earnings approximately $5,000+
For the future, Katy has a complete package of activities to include in a Grant request to the Rotary Club of Sierra Vista. In Katy’s proposal, these are the points she likes to make. The vision is to have an Irish Fest in Veteran’s Park that will contribute, significantly to Kids’ Cancer Research and create an Irish Village as a primary focus.
a. Our growth in events and participation has been amazing and demonstrates the hunger for participating in Celtic Heritage festivities and how impactful kids’ cancer research is to this community.
b. With the assistance of this grant, it will help establish an Irish Fest in Southern Arizona utilizing Veterans’ Memorial Park in creating an Irish Village is our future goal and a primary focus.
c. The formation of an Irish Village will be complete with local vendors selling their goods, food vendors selling a variety of dishes, beer and wine tent offering beverages, entertainment including Irish Dancers and Irish music on the stage and a demonstration of an Irish Hurling match performed
at Howard Field.
d. Fundraising for St. Baldrick's to be continued soliciting Sierra Vista salons/barbers’ assistance with the Shave-a-thon on stage will accommodate both the St. Baldrick’s Foundation and local Sierra
Vista businesses.
e. The economic development for Sierra Vista will be promoted in sponsorships, advertisement, vendor exposure, cultural diversity, and community wellness through encouraging and promoting Celtic Heritage.
Katy was thanked for a great presentation and she shared the flyer for the Kegs-N-Eggs Poker Run, to be held on September 17, 2022. For more info, go to www.irishfesta.com.
In closing, President Nathan related a story about the ‘spotted rattlesnake’ that he learned about during his week in the mountains. The snake is very small and has a limited range in our Sonoran Desert. Another group in the area near his son and the other campers was taking time to study and tag, record, and document the snakes they found – being very pleased to share the information with others as a point of education for the community. Hopefully, you are a snake lover. Cheers. Submitted by John Spengler, Reporter