Rotary Club of Marana
Rotary Club of Marana Meeting; September 1, 2020
President John opened the meeting by asking the two newest citizens of the United States to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. He then, on this September day, evoked the poignancy of the song September in the context of the climate of today:
say, do you remember?
dancin’ in September
never was a cloudy day
Guest: We were all heartened to welcome Eleana Acosta Zavala to our meeting today. Eleana is a Marana Club sponsored Youth Exchange Graduate of 2005-2006 and beloved daughter of John and Cindy Doolinig and Randy Brooks and Deb Hume.
Announcements:
- PDG Ellie sent congratulations to all of D5500 for hitting a record of giving to The Rotary Foundation in the 2019-20 year. She expressed particular gratitude to Randy Brooks who Chaired the District Rotary Foundation Committee.
- Board Meeting this evening at 5:00 pm at John’s office.
- El Tour de Tucson us been postponed until April
- Tour de Cookie will be on March 6, 2021. The date was chosen after Dan’s work researching the dates of other community events.
- Dove Mountain has welcomed 4 new members to its club in the first two months of the year. Congratulations!!
- Update on service projects: Neither Habitat for Humanity nor Youth on Their Own have responded to Randy’s efforts to reach them. Don spoke with the Marana Food Bank and received an update on recent restructuring. The Food Bank of Southern Arizona has eliminated the ED position from smaller sights, centralizing the administration. Marana Food Bank is now a satellite site. MFB is not currently in need of any support with services. However, they plan to broaden their community impact in the future by partnering with MHC and Marana Unified to open a GED teaching site. There might be need for computers at that time, and they will stay in touch.
Happy Bucks Highlights:
- Many of us were grateful for the hints of cooler weather of late, though disheartened by the lack of rain this year.
- Richie has been enjoying his morning bike ride. He also enjoyed a family trip to Apple Annie’s and was hoping to pawn off, errr share, the bounty of apples he acquired while picking.
- Lynne returned picking up where she left off, gracing us with a joke.
- Becky was glowing in having met her work objective for the month on the 1st day of the month. She also rightfully bragged about her daughter’s move to the Pima County Community College where she is Director of their certification program for Veterinary Practice Assistance.
- While doing yard work, Peter followed a trail of cholla that led under his car. He opened the hood of the car to find a family of pack rats homesteading in his engine. Industrious and destructive little creatures.
- Bob is getting a workout doing a lot of babysitting of granddaughters, 19-month old twins. Complicating his grandparenting, one of his family members is experiencing a mental health crisis. We are grateful to Bob for sharing this with us. One in twenty-five Americans suffer Serious Mental Illness. In addition to the individual, families are greatly impacted. Are hearts are with Bob and his family.
- Don has been blackberry picking in and around Seattle. While having the privilege of enjoying delicious blackberry pie, he objected to the blood-letting demanded by the thorns of the blackberry bushes.
- Harold gleamed telling us of getting to play in the airplane of a friend who installed the newest GPS technology.
- Dan is busy navigating parent urgency to get kids back to school. The district is caught between a rock and a hard place weighing the needs of family against health risk. Currently, Pima County has not cleared Gov. Ducey’s benchmarks, based on case numbers, testing positivity, and hospital use that are needed to reopen schools to in-person learning.
- Randy joined us from Las Vegas, where he has spent a wonderful weekend with son, boating on Lake Mead, and visiting best friend, Bert. He’ll be on the move, hopping in his car directly after the meeting to make it on time for this eveining’s board meeting.
President John introduced us to Eleana Acosta Zavala and to the power of Youth Exchange:
Eleana, from Lima, Peru, is a beloved Youth Exchange daughter to John and his wife and to Randy and his wife. The close bonds with Eleana have extended into all of her family members; her parents and her brother and sister. The Doolings, Brooks, and Acostas have traveled back and forth between Peru and the States and have shared significant family events and travels together.
Eleana, herself, is a remarkable young woman. Following her exchange, she graduated from the U of A. While there, she was an officer in the Rotaract Club, competed in synchronized swimming, and read all of Harry Potter in English and Spanish. She returned to Lima for medical school and graduated first in her class of 200. Eleana did internships in Texas and at Harvard, where she continues to be involved in research with the Harvard School of Public Health. Additionally Eleana is working with the Pima County Covid Response Development team. She is waiting to sit for the Medical Board of Examiners exam, after which she will practice medicine here in Tucson. Eleana married a Tucson man, with ceremonies both here and in Peru. She plans to reside here for the foreseeable future.
Eleana gave us a flavor for the activities she engaged in while on her exchange. Most impressive of all were the relationships she developed from these activites with the other Exchange Students who came to D5500 from other countries that same year…
- Tanguy from France is now a teacher and has 2 kids,
- Ani from Argentina has a degree in Agricultural sciences and now runs 3 dairy farms in Argentina
- Camila from Brazil currently lives in LA but works remotely in a Brazilian startup
- Daniel from the US currently lives in California and works for Google/Amazon
- Zoe from New Zealand has a young girl and works in interior design.
- Eli from Italy has a young boy and works in the hospitality industry as hotel manager.
- Ela from Germany has 3 kids, is a homemaker and is currently travelling EU with her fam in an RV
- Matt from New Zealand is an Air Force pilot, he decided to paint the exterior of his home during COVID quarantine because he was bored.
- Fabi from Italy is a lawyer, just had a baby boy a couple of months ago.
- Daniel from Ecuador works in IT in Ecuador
- Shona from South Africa works as an elite sports trainer with high performance athletes in SA.
Eleana continues relationships with each of her Exchange brothers and sisters. A very impressive group. These youth and their relationships speak to the core value of Rotary Youth Exchange: PEACE. Understanding and Goodwill between peoples in the world contribute greatly to a world of Peace, and these young people spread these values exponentially when they return to their countries of origin.
Host families of Youth Exchange students benefit equally. Many families have become extended in far-away countries bourgeoning mutual respect, care, and joy.
Submitted by Mary Straus, September 8, 2020