The meeting got off to a great start with an Inspiration by Gerry Powers talking about how inspiring the Winter Olympics were, former member Harold Estes led the Pledge of Allegiance with his traditional “God Bless America”, and we sang God Bless America to the direction of Sumner Howard accompanied by Carol Sakata.  Club Treasurer Jim Sterrett introduced visitors and guests, welcoming Rotarians from Sweden, Canada and California.  District Governor Lisa Foster made an appeal for donations to Polio Plus and participation in the “Walk to End Polio” on March 15.  See the Rotary District 5000 website for details.

PP Rob Hale announced creation of the Maile Hale Endowment Fund Community Initiative.  This Community Initiative will seek proposals from qualified 501(c)(3) community organizations to support projects and programs focused on supporting young people of the community, especially those at risk, to achieve their full potential as citizens of tomorrow.  The complete announcement and criteria is included in this newsletter. 

PP Mel Kaneshige invited those who wished to make a gift to the Maile Hale Endowment to do so in fellow Rotarian Fred Weyand’s name.  Alice Tucker reminded all that next week’s meeting will be at Hongwanji Mission.  Greg Markam announced the club will conduct a Rain Gutter book shelf project on April 24 at Kalihi Uka Elementary School. 

Author David Heenan was introduced by Rick Towill.  David provided insight into his new book, “Bright Triumphs from Dark Hours." This book is about “transforming defeat into success."  David offered a synopsis of two of the individuals he wrote about in the book.  Just enough to make many of us purchase the book which he signed for each member.  Lessons from the book are that nothing is impossible; all of us will run into road blocks during life and we need to work to bounce back from these problems and move ahead.  Resilience and optimism are the characteristics of the people in his book.  In some cases, faith was also an important ingredient.  I am looking forward to reading David Heenan’s book.

Scribe,

Jake Jacobs