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Rotary Club of Marana
After two “dark” weeks to celebrate the holidays, we rang in 2020 with a joyful breakfast meeting featuring lots of warm greetings and guest speaker Jana Jorgensen, FBI special agent for the New York Field Office.
John Dooling subbed for President Richie Benner to run the show. We also welcomed Alaska Rotarian Martin who has recently moved to the Silver Bell and Ina area, and is looking at local clubs.
Announcements included the following:
• Dan reported that he’s likely finalized the Tour de Cookie route. We need more sponsors, but the ride is coming together. It was suggested that we order Marana Rotary t-shirts to wear so that riders know who we are.
• Mary reported that our Global Grant totaling $33,000 for the Cameroon project got fully funded! John thanked Mary and Randy for their “tremendous efforts in shepherding it through.” Great work, Mary and Randy!
• The Rotary Leadership Institute will be January 25th. Sign up to register here: https://rotaryd5500.org/event/rli/
“Happy Bucks” were offered for the New Year, for holidays spent with family, for winning at “high stakes” poker (John), for her daughter’s recovery from being kicked by a horse (Beckie), for everyone who made the holiday season special, and for our guests Jana and Martin.
We were thrilled that member Don Jorgensen used his special connections to score a very special guest, FBI Special Agent Jana Jorgensen. Jana delighted us with her story about how she decided to join FBI after serving as a prosecuting attorney in Seattle. The two-year FBI application process required three interviews, three physical fitness tests, and a lie detector test. Her training at the FBI Academy at the facility in Quantico, Virginia (https://www.fbi.gov/services/training-academy) included being pepper-sprayed, tactical training, and classroom training.
Special Agent Jorgensen explained that the FBI has 56 field offices, plus satellite offices. After graduating, the new agents rank the field offices by preference. Jana was assigned to New York City, the biggest field office. Specifically, Jana has worked the Metro Safe Streets Task Force, and her team conducted the search of Jeffrey Epstein’s mansion after his arrest. We won’t mention the super-creepy stuff the team found, but I think we all can agree it was super creepy, and the world’s a better place without that person being in it.
Special Agent Jorgensen also kindly disabused us of the notions that FBI trainees at Quantico wear stylish training outfits (as seen on tv), that the FBI barges in and takes cases away from local law enforcement (story arc as seen on tv), and that FBI field offices have state-of-the-art technology with touch-screens and fancy graphics (as seen on tv). It was a gentle reminder that separating fact from fiction simply requires talking with a first-person source!
All in all, it was a grand start to the new year and the new decade. Happy 2020!
The Club presented a check to GAP Ministries, the largest Foster Care program in Pima County. Jason Ayers represented GAP and received the check of $1,100, which constituted 100% of our net proceeds from our poker night a couple of months ago. By the way, the big winner that night was an 80 plus year young lady who gave a lot of her winnings to adopt a family through GAP Ministries. Again, a big thank you to Dan Contorno for leading this fund raiser. By the way, GAP qualifies for the Foster Care State Tax Credit should you be so inclined.
Next up was the Executive Director of the Marana Chamber of Commerce who was representing the Marana Food Bank on whose Board she sits. President Benner presented Audra Winters a check from our club in the amount of $800. Audra replaced Ed Stolmaker, a former member of this Rotary Club, last February.
Our own Don Jorgensen was the presenter today and spoke on an organization he has supported with time and money for several years, ShelterBox, USA. Begun as a Rotary project by a Club out of the UK, ShelterBox has grown by leaps and bounds over the past ten years. Stepping in wherever there has been catastrophic natural or man made destruction ShelterBox has made a name for itself rivaling organizations such as Red Cross and Red Crescent. Necessities such as tents, tools, blankets, solar lights and even personal water purification systems have been given to over a million people in need. Don noted our club has generously donated the $1,000 needed to sponsor na ShelterBox several times in the past, but not last year. He is hopeful we can again this year.
From Literacy Connects, community outreach coordinator Susan Friese explained some of the life-changing programs of the Tucson non-profit, which works for social justice through reading literary and creative expression.
o make an impact and how we can grow our membership. At the district level, Ellie said she sees “1-50-1” – 1 district, 50 clubs, 1 team. A collective leadership team at the district level combined with individual team members will continue to propel Rotary forward. Folks join Rotary because they are people of action who enjoy connecting through fellowship and purpose, she said.
d folks of what we do to change our community and the world. For example, Rotary’s efforts to eradicate polio globally have been largely successful but the costs have risen because vaccines have to be delivered to remote and politically sensitive locations. Local, district, and global grants allow us to target specific needs within the local community and across the globe.
Our guest speaker was Trevor Edwards, the Community Recruitment Program Coordinator for Pima County’s Community Justice Boards. “Restorative justice” is the philosophical underpinning of the program. The purpose is to focus on at-risk youth who have been arrested for non-violent infractions and divert them a 90-day, non-punitive program that focuses on the impact of their actions and creates individualized plans to help them gain strategies and skills to make better decisions for their future.
from MCAT introduced us to Student of the Month Alexas Rowe, who was joined by her Grandpa Bob and Grandma Linda. Ms. Coronado explained that Alexas had fallen into the wrong crowd at MHS, but found her path at MCAT where she is on course to graduate next May. Support from her grandparents and her stepmom Sharie has made a big difference in Alexas’s turnaround as well.
hnson then spoke to us about Rotary’s peace building history and in action. He reminded us about Rotary’s long-standing commitment to peace building, which dates back to 1921, and the 1940s when 49 Rotarians participated in the drafting of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
