Paul Harris and I had a great visit to the Eastern Lancaster County Club where we each got cool Rotary Rocks shirts, hot from the recent fundraiser by their own inhouse musical group for the benefit of the local Fire Company, a natural recipient from many of our clubs, as volunteer organizations find ways to support each other. 

 

Down the road in Paradise, it was spellbinding to hear from RYLA participants who told of great happenings last June during another highly effective annual youth session generously supported by our clubs.  The students even discussed creating an app to enable all 80 plus of them to continue the relationships established at RYLA.

 

In Palmyra, the annual community flag placing operation was planned along with the projection that there could be as many as four peace poles emerging from that part of the District.  For Veterans’ Day we returned to Mt. Joy to partake of a meaningful annual veterans breakfast, thanks to that Club’s patriotic support.

 

 

The Foundation Dinner provided a monumental setting as the paths of Abe Lincoln and Paul Harris crossed at 1 Lincoln Square--two sympatico souls seeking a better world, leaving legacies of hope and inspiration, each in their own way.   With DGE Mary Brunski brilliantly presiding, the Dinner recognized grand achievements by Clubs as the generosity of Rotarians continues to reach unimagined heights.  In brief remarks, the visiting RI rep, Celeste Herbert, illustrated the essential role of the Foundation in allowing Rotary to fulfill its many critical goals.  PDG Juliet Altenburg then showed a professional video summing up Clubs’ projects for the past year.  Foundation chair, Kathleen Stoup, then completed the cycle by describing the many remarkable goals of this year and beyond.

 

 

Two of those 100% participation recognition banners were already on display at the Northern Lebanon County Club as it provided reports of community projects, new and completed. That was followed by a visit to the Lebanon Club, which is connected to the community through four local schools, one of which just created a dynamic Interact Club.

 

The week closed with another of those PDG Alden Cunningham inspired, multi-club hosted, Rotary Means Business events, demonstrating why Rotary first got started and how it continues to provide the setting for good business and community relationships.  

 

Time now to think about the next great District gathering, the Multi-District Conference in April!

 

In Rotary,

Paul Thompson

Harrisburg Keystone Rotary Club is working with some folks from the Hershey Med Center in Kenya. They are doing a research project to determine how having access to menstrual products will affect the attendance of girls in school. This is functioning as a needs assessment for a potential global grant.

 

There is an urgent need for actions that ensure adequate parental and teacher support to adolescent girls to ensure that they receive the understanding, guidance and resources they require to navigate the crucial phase of menarche with confidence and dignity. The study will employ exploratory qualitative design to examine the influence of menstrual practices, knowledge and attitude on school absenteeism among adolescent girls in a selected school in Isiolo Sub-County, Kenya. Isiolo Sub-County is home to various ethnic groups, including the Borana, Somali, Samburu and some Bantu communities, each with its own cultural norms and practices regarding menstruation. These cultural factors can influence menstrual management practices, including the use of traditional methods and taboos that may hinder proper menstrual hygiene. The area is a dry water-stressed region with the majority of its population characterized as poor (NMDA, 2022). As such, in many rural and marginalized areas of Isiolo Sub-County, access to affordable and hygienic menstrual products, such as sanitary pads, may be limited. The lack of access could lead to poor menstrual management, including the use of unhygienic alternatives like pieces of cloth. 

 

Penn State College of Medicine aims to conduct a needs assessment of adolescent girls in Kenya with our existing partners in the Meru College of Nursing. The study involves 150 - 200 adolescent girls aged 12-15 years from Isiolo Sub-County, Kenya. The study will be conducted in 2 phases, phase one will target adolescent girls in junior secondary school in grade 7 and 8 while phase 2 will target girls in form 1 and 2 in senior secondary school. A team of 7-people, 1 researcher from Penn State and 6-enumerators would conduct this research. Data will be collected in cycles. Each cycle will involve four stages involving observation to understand the problem, planning for probable solutions, action taking to ensure change and reflection to understand what has worked and what has not worked. If the actions taken in one cycle fail to effectively address the problem, another action cycle involving different approaches will be considered until change is visible. 

 

In addition to benefiting young women to better manage their menstrual cycle without shame and detriment to their education, a goal of this project is to prove its success and make it replicable throughout other counties in Kenya and perhaps other nations. Our hope is that this may result in a project that will be eligible for a Global Grant in the future. 

The Lancaster Hempfield Rotary Club recently partnered with nonprofit organization Parish Resource Center to support expecting mothers in the local region. On Sept. 25, volunteers from the Lancaster Hempfield Rotary Club assembled 92 kits of items for infants at Parish Resource Center's facility, located at 2160 Lincoln Highway East, Lancaster. The kits will be distributed to expecting mothers through Union Community Care, a medical provider that offers prenatal services at a variable cost depending on clients' budgets.

 

In the first phase of the project, the Lancaster Hempfield Rotary Club received a list from Parish Resource Center of the items needed for the baby kits. Each kit includes a diaper bag, diapers, sanitary wipes, a nasal aspirator, a blanket and clothing items such as onesies, sleepers and hats. The Rotary Foundation helped fund the purchase of the baby kit items through the Rotary District 7390 Grant Program, matching the contributions of the Lancaster Hempfield Rotary Club.

 

The project was proposed by one of the Lancaster Hempfield Rotary Club's members who discovered Parish Resource Center's community outreach initiatives. The club decided to pursue the partnership due to the baby kit program aligning with one of the Rotary Club's missions to advocate for mothers and children.

 

"The baby kits are a good starter package to make sure new mothers have what they need after they have their children," said Tony DeVito, president of the Lancaster Hempfield Rotary Club. "We like to do service projects that are locally based, and Parish Resource Center does outreach right here in Lancaster."

 

In addition to serving mothers and children, the Rotary Club has other missions that focus on areas including promoting peace, fighting disease, providing clean water, supporting education, growing local economies and protecting the environment. In recent years, the Lancaster Hempfield Rotary Club has completed projects to install new benches at local parks and has donated books to elementary schools in Hempfield School District. The organization also hosts community meals throughout the year at a local church, and it completes a biannual project to pick up trash along a 4-mile section of Harrisburg Pike.

 

The Lancaster Hempfield Rotary Club holds regular meetings from 7:15 to 8:15 a.m. on the first, third and fifth Tuesdays of every month at Loxley's Restaurant on Centerville Road. During meetings, members discuss potential service projects and host guest speakers to highlight a variety of topics and other organizations with similar goals. The last meeting featured a local historian who spoke about the artwork inside the dome of the Capitol building in Harrisburg.

 

The Lancaster Hempfield Rotary Club holds an annual Christmas wreath fundraiser to help support its community service initiatives. This is the first year that the club will sell wreaths at a roadside stand in addition to accepting presales. On Saturdays Dec. 7, 14 and 21, club members will operate a stand near Pinnacle Family Dental Care on Harrisburg Pike in Landisville.

 

For more information about the Lancaster Hempfield Rotary Club, visit lancasterhempfieldrotary.com.

The Rotary Club of Hershey hosted and sponsored on November 13 the 73rd RMB networking event in District 7390's history and the fourth and final event of RMB's 2024 season, and it could not have been more successful. Roughly 35 to 38 Rotarians and guests attended the event representing 11 district clubs from all parts of the district as follows: the Rotary clubs of Carlisle, Carlisle Sunrise, Colonial Park, District 7390 Passport, Hershey, Lancaster Hempfield, Lancaster Penn Square, Lebanon, Palmyra, Uptown York, and West Shore. Englewood Brewing provided a perfect venue with plenty of space in a very convenient location and excellent hors d'oeuvres, beer, and wine.

President Chip Bayer and President-Elect Thomas Jones provided strong leadership and oversight ably supported by Mike Kinney and Jim Gainer. District 7390 RMB thanks them for their support over the years so important for RMB's success this year and in the future. DGE Mary Brunski stepped up as she has done so often to lead the Circle Exercise making it fun and productive. Kudos to all and especially to those that attended for their enthusiastic participation.

 

 

Celebrate Rotary’s 4-Way Test by engaging with high school students in your local communities!  The March 7, 2025 deadline for your club’s entries in this year’s District 7390 4-Way Test Speech and Essay Contests is fast approaching.  If you have not already started planning your contests, now is a great time to start.

 

All of the information about both contests can be found at https://www.rotary7390.org/page/four-way-test-speech-contest.  At this page, you can find rules, information, guidelines, suggested timelines and prize information which will help your club organize and hold its own contests, with your club’s winning entries being submitted to the District Contest by March 7.  Both contests ask students to either speak or write about how the 4-Way Test can impact their everyday life.

 

The Speech and Essay Contest Committee stands ready to serve as a valuable resource to your club.  Please contact Mike Handshew (mrhandshew@gmail.com)for questions about the speech contest and Steve Grubb, (stevengrubb@comcast.net) regarding the essays.