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Our 2024-2025 Club Leadership Team

We installed our new Leadership Team at the Stone Creek Club House in Springfield (images below) on June 24, 2024. The casual atmosphere was perfect for our "picnic" event, and the food, catered by Maldeners, was delicious.

A team of Rotary dignitaries (image below) assisted with the installation of our new Club President, Megan Reynolds at our June 24 club meeting. The group included Bob Stuart (club member, former Rotary International Director, and Past District Governor), Dan O'Brien (member of the Rotary Club of Carlinville and new District Governor for Rotary District 6460), Harry Mitchell (club member and former Assistant Governor for our area), and Travis Magoulias (our outgoing Club President). Each spoke about the responsibilities of the club president.

Bob Stuart asked Megan if she would pledge to fulfill the duties of the President to the best of her abilities, to the lead the club following the highest principles of Rotary, and to conduct the business of the club following the constitution and bylaws of Rotary International and the club. She enthusiastically pledged "I do" to each (image on right).

Bob asked Travis to present Megan with the President's badge and gavel (image below), which Travis did with great glee.

Bob then asked Jim Theis, Treasurer (not present, first image below) and Marty Michelson (image to left), Secretary to take the pledge of office. Marty pledged to full fill the duties of his position, follow the constitution and bylaws of RI and the club, and exemplify the highest principles of Rotary. The President Elect position had not been filled at the time of the installation, but John Webb was later appointed to serve in this capacity (second image below). Travis will also continue to serve on the Board as Past President.

The other elected Board members were announced and include:

Club Service Director: John Webb (and later appointed as President-Elect as noted above)

Community Service Director: Ken Gilmore

International Service Director: Bob Stuart

Youth Service Director: Travis Magoulias

Membership Service Director: Harry Mitchell

Directors at Large: Loretta Meeks, Ross Hodel, Bonnie Styles, and Barry Tobias

Board members pledged to do their duties to the best of their abilities following the constitution and bylaws and to exemplify the highest principles of Rotary.

Bob Stuart concluded that all the Officers and Directors were now installed, and everyone applauded.

Megan presented Travis with the Past Presidents Badge (image below).

Megan concluded the session by praising our club and conveying some of her plans for the future. These comments were provided in the President's Comments Section of the July 4, 2024 Newsletter.

It was a joyous event. We are starting off the new Rotary Year off with a bang!

Building Peace and Fighting Racism

Posted by Jim Applegate

Editors Note: Jim Applegate, Chair of our Club's Peace Builder Committee (second from right in image below), spoke about our Peace Builders Committee and the Social Justice Sewing Academy at our July 8 Club Meeting. At that meeting, District Governor Dan O'Brien (second from left) and past District Governor, Bill Durall (far right), presented President Megan Reynolds and Jim Applegate with a Rotary International Certificate recognizing our Club as a Rotary International Peace Builder Club (image below). We are very proud to be recognized for our peace-building efforts.

Our Club's Peace Builders Committee secured grants from the Healing Racism in Illinois Program (https://fieldfoundation.org/healingillinois) and the Rotary Literacy Grant program to create a partnership with the Social Justice Sewing Academy (SJSA) (www.sjsacademy.org) and The Outlet (www.theoutletillinois.org) supporting an SJSA academy for the African American young men and boys (as well as some of their parents, grandparents, and young girls) served by The Outlet. The Outlet largely serves youth in families without present fathers.

For three nights about 25 participants (a) talked about what it means to be an African American male in Springfield and America (b) worked with SJSA staff and experienced quilters to translate the ideas and emotions sparked by those discussions into visual images imprinted onto quilt squares and (c) created artist statements expressing what their squares meant to them (images above and on left provided by The Outlet). Each of the young men were given a copy of the book “Stitching Stolen Lives” authored by one of our SJSA partners (image below provided by The Outlet) and a picture of themselves with their square.

These squares will be transformed into a beautiful full-sized quilt by SJSA. The Peace Builders Committee will organize community events where the quilt will be displayed, and the young men will be engaged to talk about their work with leaders and citizens across Springfield. The goal of these events is to spark community conversations about what Springfield needs to do to address the issues raised by these young men and their quilt and build greater peace in our community.

The Springfield Outlet/Rotary quilt also be on display at national quilting expositions and museums along with the estimated 45 other community quilts created to date by SJSA to give voice to those who are often not heard by their communities and country.

The insights and high level of engagement of participants was amazing to hear and see. One retired veteran teacher/quilter called it “one of the most meaningful things I have ever done.” Everyone involved from SJSA organizers to Outlet staff, to Rotary and quilter volunteers came away in awe of the young men’s work as well as energized and motivated to make sure their message was heard far and wide to spark change.

Hope Humphrey Walker Recognized as Community Paul Harris Fellow

Bill Smith had the great honor of presenting our club’s 2024 Community Paul Harris Fellow award to Hope Humphrey Walker at our March 11 meeting (image above). She was accompanied by her husband, Greg Walker.

Our club has had a long history with Hope and her family. For nearly 50 years we have been selling Florida oranges and grapefruit as a fundraiser to support local charities. When we started this fundraiser, we dealt directly with the Florida citrus groves. In the late 1990s we entered into a partnership with Humphrey’s Market to improve the quality of the citrus product. We selected Humphrey’s Market because they had a long history of purchasing quality fruits and vegetables. This history started with Hope’s grandparents, who for many years purchased and sold fruits and vegetables. In 1967, Hope’s parents, Henry and Iona Humphrey, took over the business. Humphrey’s Market continued to grow and became a corner grocery store.

In 2008, Bill Smith began his involvement with Humphrey’s Market when he began managing our annual citrus campaign. This is when he met Henry Humphrey and got to know his understanding of citrus. His involvement with Hope began ten years ago when Henry died. He quickly realized that this was a seamless transition.

Hope is a life-long resident of Springfield. She attended schools in Springfield and she has a business administration degree from the University of Illinois in Springfield. Her only employment has been with the family business.

With her grandparent’s knowledge of fruits and vegetables, followed by her parents’ knowledge of fruits and vegetables, followed by Hope’s knowledge of fruits and vegetables, this looks like a pattern in the family tree. Bill is not a scientist, but it made him wonder if this knowledge is part of their DNA.

Our club has loved selling Florida oranges, except when we didn’t love selling Florida oranges. Let us explain, six years ago when the quality of Florida oranges had become an issue, we asked Hope to find an alternate grove to improve the quality of the oranges. Back then, another Rotary Club in Springfield was conducting their own citrus campaign and reported to us that they were getting quality oranges from their grove. Hope followed up on this lead and the new grove agreed to provide us with citrus. The next step was to determine the price of the citrus. Since the other Rotary Club dealt directly with the grove, the presumption was that their cost would be less than what we would have to pay. It didn’t work out that way, our cost was $1.00 less for each large carton of oranges and grapefruit than the cost for the other Rotary Club.

This change to a different grove seemed to solve the Florida orange problem until last fall. We were notified in early November that we would not get Florida oranges for our citrus fundraiser. The citrus grove reported a complete failure of the orange crop due to an extended dry spell in Florida. Naturally, we had to have oranges to complete the sales from the citrus campaign, otherwise, we would be forced to cancel all sales. This unsatisfactory result would involve returning money to customers who have already paid, and could also tarnish the reputation of the Rotary clubs who were part of the campaign.

The timing of the notification from Florida, left us with less than four weeks to find replacement oranges. Humprey’s Market, that is Hope Humphrey Walker, came up with a solution to our problem. Texas oranges were considered, but they were having similar drought issues as Florida. She was able to secure a premium California orange for us, which saved the day. We have received rave reviews from many of our customers about these oranges.

By the way, while Hope was solving our orange problem, she was already very busy with the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays that were coming up.

We have had a wonderful partnership with Hope and the Humphrey family. It was said that Hope’s father, Henry Humphrey, had a passion for customer service and instilled that in his family and those who worked with him. Hope, has followed in that tradition and provides a wonderful service to our club and to the Springfield community.

We congratulate Hope for this prestigious recognition (images below).

Community Service Projects

Service Above Self is Our Mantra!

Under the leadership of our Community Service Directors, club volunteers have been actively serving our community. Continuing issues with Covid have not changed the Rotary Club of Springfield's commitment to improving literacy, eradicating hunger, working with individuals experiencing homelessness, fighting racism, building peace, and helping meet other needs in our community and across the World. A few highlights for our service over the past few years are provided below. If you enjoy working with People of Action, we hope that you will consider joining our club. Links to Membership information and applications are provided on this Home Page!

Following three years of Covid Pandemic issues, we have re-established regular work events with the Central Illinois Foodbank that include packing food boxes for distribution, sorting and bagging donated foods, and labeling canned goods (images below).

We have stocked our micro-pantry and our little library at our adopted school Ridgely Elementary (first image below), and little libraries at four other locations in Springfield, including the old firehouse (second image below). We have also provided supplies and donated monies to purchase supplies for Ridgely and other schools, and provided community grants for a variety of literacy and other projects.

For one project we assisted individuals experiencing homelessness in Springfield by teaming up with three other Rotary Clubs, local high school students who participated in the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards Assembly, and the Salvation Army to pack Bags of Hope full of essential items (image below) and providing meals. This project was supported through a Rotary District 6460 District Grant that we helped develop and implement along with the 3 three other Springfield Rotary Clubs.

We have secured Rotary District 6460 Club and Literacy grants to support a wide variety of community projects. One Rotary District 6460 literacy grant supported a partnership with Delta Sigma Theta Sorority to pack backpacks with books, educational toys, and puppets (images below) to deliver to Springfield agencies who work with preschool children who are experiencing homelessness. Another of our Rotary District 6460 literacy grants allowed us to purchase books for Black Hawk School so the Reading is Fundamental Program could be expanded to include younger students, and Rotarians participated in the project by reading books to students.

For our popular Flag Service Project, we install flags throughout our community (image below) for customers who pay a small subscription fee. The flags are put in place for patriotic holidays (Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, and Patriots Day). This project helps make our community red-white-and blue, and the proceeds support grants to nonprofits for projects that support community needs.

Our annual Citrus Sale (first image below) is a major fundraiser supporting charitable grants made by our Springfield Rotary Foundation. We purchase fresh oranges and grapefruits and sell them to our customers just in time for the holiday season. In recent years, our Citrus Campaigns have been dedicated to the memory of John Montgomery, a member of our club for over 53 years who passed away in 2009. The proceeds from the citrus sales support our community grants program. Over $1.4 million in grants have been provided to local charities through this annual event. Club members also purchase oranges for Ridgely School so each student can enjoy a nutritious orange to have with their lunch. Our members and customers also purchase oranges for the donation to the Central Illinois Foodbank (second image below) through this program so it's a win-win situation.

Our member volunteers annually purchase Angel Tree gifts for the Rutledge Youth Foundation, ring the bells for the Salvation Army (image below), and a whole lot more!

For the last two years, we have volunteered for the United Way's Day of Action in the Spring and the Fall (image below).

We also volunteer and donate to assist with disaster relief efforts in the United States. In August of 2022, our club partnered with Rotary District 6490, Midwest Mission in Pawnee, Illinois, to deliver 28,266 pounds of hand sanitizer and sanitizer wipes to Pikesville, Kentucky (image below) for distribution to Kentucky flood victims. Our club also donated funds to the assist in the delivery expenses for the products.

We also participate in disaster relief, clean water, and other projects across the World. We participate in fundraisers and projects for the eradication of polio for the Rotary International PolioPlus Initiative. Our club contributes funds to PolioPlus from our annual March Madness Fundraiser, and members also donate to the fund as individuals. We have also contributed to Rotary International disaster relief in Ukraine, a Rotary District International Grant project for increasing agricultural productivity in Zambia, and are participating in a Rotary International Grant project to bring clean water to a mountain village in Nepal.

We hope that you will consider joining our club. Service at the local and international level is rewarding.