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Rotary Club of Marana Meeting July 13, 2021
 
 
Club Business:
  • Peace Poles are on their way.
  • Application for Grant Due Tomorrow 
  • The owner of Her and Him donated two Prom Dresses to our club.  The Services Projects Committee will generate ideas about how to use the dresses to bring to the club later.
 
Happy Bucks
  • Harold is happy for the rain, lightning, and thunder
  • Don is relishing the weather in Washington with the fog over the Puget Sound – a strip of fog with mountains towering behind and the water below.
  • Sulee is happy that husband is still with her.  He has contracted pneumonia while battling his cancer.
  • Jen is happy for the storm and is very pleased we recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
  • Becky is very happy that we got a good rainstorm last night.  Also, happy to busy and healthy.
  • John is happy about the 1 ¼ inch rainfall he got last night.  H reminiscing about dinner he and his wife once had with Sulee and Jim.  The group was talking about becoming more sentimental with age, when Jim said “I cry now when I hear rain in the forecast.”
  • Randy is excited that directly after the meeting he’s headed to pick up his great grandchildren in Spokane to bring the back to the nearby lake for a day of fun.
 
 
Program
 
Our very own Sulee Edwards spoke with us about the Missing in America Project with which she’s been involved for over 6 years. 
 
The Missing in America Project began in 2007.  MIAP locates, identifies, and inters the unclaimed remains of American Veterans.  Its mission is to provide honor and respect for those who have served our country but had been lost.   Individuals become ‘lost’ for a variety of reasons, from unknown whereabouts of family members to issues of PTSD and addiction that lead to alienation from family. 
 
To date, the project has located 21,499 unclaimed ashes of veterans across the United States.  Of those, 2438 have been given a proper military burial.  Veterans from the Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam, and the Gulf Wars have been interred. Ashes are brought to the burial service by a member of the branch in which the individual served.  Each veteran receives a gun salute, a fly over, and a flag presented to family members.  MIAP has no staff; volunteers provide what’s need for everything from locating and identifying to coordinating burial services to providing whatever is needed for the service.   Marana Veteran’s Memorial donates space in its columbarium for the veteran’s urn and Adair Funeral Home donates urns. 
 
The next Missing in Action burial service will be in October at the Marana Veteran’s Memorial.  President Randy suggested that we all consider attending. 
 
We are grateful to Sulee for bringing our attention to the honor our veterans deserve and to this non-profit dedicated to ensuring they receive it. 
 
Mary