Micah opened the meeting and Peter Barcus gave the Invocation.
Announcements
- Welcome guest, Thomas Phelps – from Annapolis, MD
- NO meeting 7/4
- We are in need of 2 more host families for the Brazilian Exchange Student.
- Pack-a-thon was a Success! 400 people over 3 days packed 103,680 meals.
- New Members Approved: Dianne Person & Philip Brown
Happy $
- Dick O’Donnell: his son has been visiting from WA & he now has a GREEN car!
Thank You, Micah!
Francois thanked Micah for his service to our club. Today is Micah’s last meeting as President. He has served 15 months and our club greatly appreciates his many hours of service, his positive can-do attitude and his sense of humor! Thank you Micah!
Member Spotlight – Charley Cobb
- Charley is a Past District Governor and has been in Alamance County for 3.5 years after living many years in WV. He and his wife moved to NC to be closer to their daughter who lives in Durham. Charlie and his wife have been married for 59 years.
- Charlie was born during the Depression in a mining community “up in the holla”, where the career choices were miners, railroad workers or coaching. He played Football, Basketball & Baseball. During his military service he almost went to Korea, but ended up in Germany.
- He spent 35 years as a college coach and joined Rotary in 1960. He has traveled to 700 clubs throughout the world.
Richard Gary – Allied Churches Executive Director
Sid Little is from Wilmington and is a Financial Advisor with American National Bank. He and his wife have 2 sons and 3 grandchildren who he states are the smartest and cutest, like all proud grandparents!
Sid introduced today’s speaker – Richard Gary, the new Executive Director of Allied Churches.
Richard is living in McLeansville with his wife and 2 daughters. He comes to his new position at a very trying time for Allied Churches which serves a 5 county area providing services to men, women and children. Under Richard’s leadership with the Board of Directors they are changing the business model of Allied Churches. Instead of putting residents back on the street every morning to simply look for work, Allied Churches will be providing on-site life skill training and meaningful employment services. This will include individual planning according to the person’s desired level of success.
Their services include shelter for the chronically homeless, HIV safety and testing, on-site mental health therapy, connection to VA services, and access to housing solutions & landlord mediation. They have re-named the community kitchen to “Joe’s Diner” where they average serving 100 meals/day; 1000 meals/wk meeting immediate needs including take-out. They currently work with 15 area churches to provide these meals.
Richard will be holding Town Hall Meetings to address issues and answer questions in order to build trust in the community. Richard brought from his staff, Caitlin Vatikiotis-Bateson, Community Outreach Director. Her experience as the prior Kitchen Manager provides her with a unique skill set to facilitate community conversations regarding the opportunities facing Allied Churches.
Allied Churches is appreciative of all community support including donations of $$, food, clothing, bedding and toiletry items.
Our meeting concluded with the raffle…which did not produce a winner We all stood to recite the Rotary Four Way Test. Until next week…