Welcome to the Bloomington Rotary Club's weekly celebration of service. I'm Steve Wicks and I'm honored
to serve as your president this year. Please silence your electronic devices. On this day in history,
March 24th, 1989, the Exxon tanker Valdez struck a reef and spilled approximately 11 million gallons
of crude oil in Alaska's Prince William Sound.
David Wright will deliver today's reflection. Well, it's May 10th, 1940, and a young couple are in their
backyard in Antwerp, Belgium, bearing a small marionette in their backyard.
His name is Isidor Osnowicz, and her name is Francis, and they have made a deal with each other that
if the bombs start to drop, they are going to flee the country. You see, the Nazis have just invaded
Belgium, and his grandmother has told him that he needs to bury that puppet
because that is a puppet of Adolf Hitler. You see, he's been doing political satire about the Nazis
and doing anti-fascist performance theater. And the Nazis take notes of these kinds of things before
they invade. So they take their bikes and they flee the country. Problem is,
They have to flee through France and the Nazis are invading France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands all
on the same day. So now they have to flee France and they make their way through France over a few weeks
and find themselves in Northern Morocco. If you've ever seen the movie Casablanca, that's about that
evacuation route.
And there, they end up in an internment camp because Vichy France, France has fallen and now the Nazis
are present there too. With some help, they manage to escape and they make it to Lisbon, Portugal. Their
hope is to come to America to escape
the problems of Europe. But at that time, immigration is clamping down in the US. I know it's hard to
believe in our modern times, but at that time, there was a movement called America First, and it was
out for America itself, anti-immigration. And they were shutting down the avenues for the war refugees
coming. So he gets in on a boat
and goes to England if he agrees to fight for the allies, they'll let him and his family come. Eventually,
the war is won and he tries again to come to the US. He goes to the immigration office every day for
several weeks. He said his goal was to pester him until they finally agreed.
He had to find a job, which he did. He found a job in Montana doing store design, storefront designs
with his artistic abilities. And he brought his family over in 1950. He had to put them on a train because
he only had enough money for his wife and his son. So he hitchhiked his way to it. And
Basically, they were refugees looking for a place to escape the threats of Europe and the hardships
there. And they found that home in America. His son would go on to grow up and become part of the Muppets,
Frank Oz. So the next time you see the Muppets and see Miss Piggy,
or you watch Star Wars and you see Yoda, know that that was Frank Oz, a son of a refugee from Europe
that became an American and was able to become a fun little immigrant story for our nation. Thank you, David.
Sam Udeck will introduce our guests today. Hey, we have a few guests in person today. We have Danya
Jaburi, a guest of art, Shane Gibson, guest of Jim Bright, Nick Capus, a guest of David Meyer, and Anne
Edmonds, a guest of Judy Schroeder. And do we have any guests online? We have Marianne Pelleck from
100 Women Who Care. Welcome, everybody.
Then if you would like to learn more about Rotary, turn to the person next to you or across the table
and ask away. A couple of birthdays to observe this week. On the 29th, Liz Irwin, and then on the 30th,
Carol Ann Hussler. Two anniversaries to observe. On the 27th, Mr. Rotary Jim Bright, 19 years. And on
the 28th, Future Club President Hank Walter, nine years in Rotary.
Announcements. So we're doing something different this week. If people like it, we'll continue. But
subsequent to last week's discussion. Anyway, the announcements were flashing across the screen for
about 15 or 20 minutes before the meeting. But I'll go through them quickly. Rotary District Conference,
May 8th and 9th, Golf House in Louisville. Lots of fun things to do Friday evening.
And then on Saturday, lots of informative sessions. Chambers business after hours tomorrow, 530 to 730
at One World Catering. See me if you'd like to learn more. Tree planting, April 18th, Lake Monroe, subject
to the water being down. We'll have more details in the weeks ahead.
On April 14th, which is a Tuesday. That's one of the days where we're kicked out of the union as per
our agreement with the IMU And our gathering that day will be joining the heading home of South Central,
Indiana at their regional housing summit We'll have more details soon But at this point just remember
that unlike one of our regular meetings when you show up, this will be one of
that will need to have a head count probably a week in advance so we can make sure that we have the
right number of meals for all the Rotarians. Need a Zoom host and someone to deliver a reflection for
next week? See me if you have an interest. The deadline for this year's district grant is on the 27th,
so it's coming up. If you have any interest in applying for what hopefully will be a $6,000 grant,
See Sarah Loughlin who's back at that table or Diana Hoffman over there can help you, but please get
your application in. Next Rotary Book Club meeting on the 22nd of April, home of Judy Schroeder. The
book is Audrey McCluskey's Girl Child. We heard from Audrey McCluskey a few weeks ago, did a really
good job. So see Judy Schroeder or Sally Gaskell if you have questions. My Sister's Closet organizational
member, they have an
hosting an evening with Maya Angelou, a dinner theater April 10th and 11th. And they planned a really
elegant event at the Bloomington Country Club. Proceeds will benefit the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra
and the My Sister's Closet Relocation Fund. For more information, see club members Sandy Keller and
Marcy Hibbard. They're both here today. Wave your hands, Sandy. And there they are, kind of in the tables
in the back. Or you can go to My Sister's Closet website
and find out more. Finally, we heard from organizational member Health Net a few weeks ago. And anyway,
they're in the middle of an advocacy campaign. They'd like you to check it out. And if you have an interest,
file something online to provide support. So you want to go to indyhealthnet.org, search for 340B advocacy.
And Tyler, I think we're ready for the PowerPoint.
So we did this particular membership quiz a couple of months ago, but we have so many Rotarians who
exercise at the Southeast YMCA. Some of them probably think they're exercising anonymously, but unfortunately
I've seen them. So five Rotarians and four of them exercise at the Bloomington Southeast YMCA. One of
the individuals does not.
And here are the five individuals. Upper left, we have John Diltz. Upper center, Jim Bright. Upper right,
Lauren Snyder. Bottom left, Mark Peterson. Bottom right, Art Omick. So, when I ask the question, put
up your hands online, put up your hands electronically.
Put up your hand if you think that John Diltz is one of five in this list who does not exercise at the
Bloomington Southeast YMCA. Uh-oh. We have quite a few, including John. How about past district governor,
Club President, Mr. Rotary Jim Bright. Does he even have time to exercise at the Southeast YMCA? Put
up your hand if you think Jim is the one. Oh, I see a couple of votes in the room. I can't tell what
we have online. Third choice is Lauren Snyder, past Club President. Put up your hand if you think Lauren
is the one. Oh, we have quite a few for Lauren as well.
All right, our club secretary, Mark Peterson, who's sitting over there, put your hand up, Mark. Put
up your hand if you think Mark is the one who does not exercise at the Southeast YMCA. Mark, you're
not getting, oh, okay, Forrest kind of gave you a half-hearted vote. Yeah, it might've been a sympathy
vote. And the last one, Art Omick, put up your hand if you think Art does not. Okay, Art, you're,
Art, you're generating a few votes. Oh, and John Diltz voted the second time. Online.Lauren had the
largest amount of votes. Okay. So Lauren, thank you, Leslie. Lauren's doing really well online. Okay.
Well, if you voted for John Diltz, you would be incorrect because I've seen John participating in YMCA
classes, sometimes in the same class with Rex Hillary. So,
John, good dodge there. You confused others. They'll admire you, but they'll never trust you again.
Jim Bright. Mr. Rotary, Jim walks. I've seen him riding the stationary bicycle. When he's feeling well,
he is a regular at the YMCA. Mark Peterson. If you voted for Mark, which one of you did, you would be
incorrect.
Just recently had hip surgery, but he is a regular on the stationary bicycle, and I think he'll be back
at it soon. Art Omek. Just a few people voted for Art. Art is a regular swimmer in the YMCA pool. And
if you look at this picture, this is Art on a sailboat. If he ever falls off, those swimming will come
in handy. And then finally, most of you voted for Lauren Snyder, and you are correct.
because Lauren works both in Bloomington and the Franklin offices of Baird Wealth Management. He actually
lives in Indianapolis, but he golfs. And if you've ever seen Lauren in person, no surprise, he is an
avid runner. So Lauren's in good shape, doesn't exercise at the Y, but he does a lot. So anyway, you
did really well. John, you probably had about 10 people. You swayed their votes. So anyway, good job.
Show this slide all the time, Rotary seven areas of focus. And a reminder that March is water, sanitation,
and hygiene month. We've seen a couple of videos so far this month on Rotary water projects around the
world. And we have probably five minutes for happy dollars. Is anyone happy today?
There's always a reason to be happy. I just got to see the Chicago Cubs play in Arizona. It was a little
bit hot, but we survived and I didn't get a sunburn. Yay. I'm happy because my son and granddaughter
visited me from Texas for the last week. We just had a great time.
I'm happy because my daughter, who is pregnant, is expecting soon and three weeks earlier than I thought,
but I'm 13 pieces into my 24-piece quilt, so I'm doing well. I'm happy because my daughter and I had
a wonderful vacation to Marathon Florida recently
She managed to get me everywhere I was supposed to be when I was supposed to be there, so we didn't
miss any flights. So if I could have just one more moment though, I'd appreciate if this $5 could be
used to provide some remedial training to John Deltz with regard to the four-way test.
as I was one of them who trusted to raise my hand. Thank you. I just recently learned that a second
cousin is here as a head oboe teacher in the School of Music. And I haven't seen her father in probably 60 years.
And I'm sure he will be delighted when I tell all of you that I was one of the babysitters that diapered
him. And I have some happy dollars because we got to see Patrick's family over the weekend and we don't
see them as much as we used to. So that was fun.
Do we have any online? We do not. OK, I have some happy dollars for a couple of things. One. Oh. Tali,
you got one. Oh, hello. Thank you. I am happy because I survived my first ever MRI this morning for
my icky wrist, which is sprained. $5, $5 for happy dollars.
Sorry, Mr. Talley. And then I have some happy dollars, a couple of reasons. One, my son-in-law,
Justin Bailey, who lives in town, his book is on sale, and he's actually selling some. If you get a
chance to go to Morgenstern's, look for a book by local author, Justin S. Bailey. And then my brother,
who is a Vietnam veteran, he was managing partner of his law firm, retired, has become a very
good photographer, and his exhibition
Coming Home from Vietnam is starting in Maxwell Hall. The evening of Friday, April 3rd, there'll be
a kickoff event. There's something else the following week. But anyway, if you get a chance, get to
Maxwell Hall, and you can see photos and interviews of Vietnam veterans and specifically their experiences
upon coming home after the war, how they retreated, what they ran into.
Anyway, thank you for all the happy dollars and a good response. Dave Meyer will introduce our speakers
today. And just so you know, the format today could be a little bit different. So just kind of go with
the flow. I think it's going to be a really good presentation. Thank you, President Steve. I am delighted
to be a little part of what is
an opportunity to shine a little bit of light on two volunteer organizations here in the community that
are engaged in very important private philanthropy. One is 100 Women That Care, and the other is 50
Men That Care. So I have two people to introduce today. Kathy Romy is the two-time convener, which is
the organizer, annual organizer of 100 Women.
She's also now on the steering committee. She's a former Meals on Wheels director. She was also previously
the general manager of Bloomington Pops Orchestra. She won an award in 2016, the Excel Woman Award from
the Chamber of Commerce.
is a DJ at WFHB Community Radio, hosting Golden Age Radio each week. And she enjoys music, performing
music, reading and writing, and loves to root for the underdog. Ken Buzzard, who I work with closely
on 50 Men because I'm on the steering committee this year,
He is the convener that is the grand master organizer of 50 Men this year. He is a retired Navy engineer
who most recently worked at Crane. He is the former president of the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra
and has been served as an adjunct professor of aviation management at Ivy Tech.
So give it up for our two conveners or one former. So I'm microphone. I'm talking to see if we can hear.
Cool. So hello, everyone. I'm Ken Buzzard. And before I start my presentation, our organizations are
It's kind of similar functionally to how Rotary works for your meetings. You invite people like me to
come up here and talk for, you give us 25, 30 minutes and that's cool. We meet quarterly and we invite
guests to come up to talk to us, but we only give them seven minutes. Okay. And we have multiple present
presenters and the presentations are competitive. So I'm going to explain how all that works. I'm going
to limit myself to seven minutes.
followed by three minutes of Q&A, then Cathy's gonna come up and do the same thing, seven minutes of
presentation, three minutes of Q&A, and then I will join her at the end, whatever time we have remaining,
if there's something I wanted to say that I ran out of time, I'm gonna throw it at you at the end, Cathy
will do the same, if there's any follow-up questions at the end, we'll have time for that as well. Here
in front, Emily is from the Community Foundation, and she is our timer. She holds up green, yellow,
and red cards. Green means go, yellow means I have one minute left,
And red means finish that sentence, Ken, say thank you, and ask for questions, okay? So, are you ready
to start the clock? Off we go. Okay, I'm Ken Buzzard. I am the convener of 50 Men Who Care. Somewhere
around here is a slide. I'm going to advance it for a second just to see if it works, and then I'm gonna
go back. Okay, I'm the convener of 50 Men Who Care, together with 100 Women Who Care, our sister
organization. We are a pair of philanthropic
giving circles, which I'll explain how that works in a bit. We convene once a quarter to raise money
for worthy nonprofits that serve the community in Monroe County. So I'm going to talk about first how
it works before I talk about who we are and who we support. So the coolest thing about our meetings
is that when our meetings begin, we have no idea who we're raising money for.
We have a social hour for the men at 30 minutes because we're able to be twice as social in a shorter
amount of time. The women have a full hour. Okay. And we also needed a brewery where the women meet
at the country club. So it's a lot easier to be social. Okay. During the social hour, any gentleman
there who wants to nominate a nonprofit to request that we consider supporting them with our financial
support, we'll throw his name and the name of his nonprofit on a slip of paper into the hat.
After the social hour is done and we begin the business meeting, we draw three names out. The first
gentleman, and the women work the same way, so when I talk about gentlemen, if you're a lady,
the same thing, the ladies do the same thing because we're actually patterned after them. The first
gentleman will speak for seven minutes about his nonprofit. He'll tell us things about who they are,
were they founded locally, are they a regional group, a national group that serves locally,
They'll talk about the population that they serve, the individuals, the needs that they're addressing.
They'll talk about their size. They'll talk about their financial health. They'll talk whatever information
that the presenter wants to share with us to give us what we need to know, to know whether or not this
is a group that we want to support financially. After his seven minutes, and he gets the red card, he'll
shut up and he'll have three minutes to take questions from the crowd. Anything he may have forgotten to ask,
the crowd will be certain to follow up. Then he sits his butt down, gentleman number two comes up, does
the same thing. After 10 minutes, gentleman number three presents, and 30 minutes after we've begun,
we're done. Now it's time for the group to decide who are we going to support tonight, okay? And it's
done democratically. There's no campaigning, there's no deal making, there's no talking, there's no,
it's not like it's silent or anything, but every gentleman gets a voting slip. His name is not on the slip,
And on that slip, he writes a one, a two, or a three. I sound like Lawrence Welk. A one, a two,
or a three, okay? And he'll put that in the hat. We will collect the votes and count them up. Whichever
nonprofit received the most support from our members is our winner that evening, okay? And then at that
point, every gentleman will pull out his checkbook. I'm dating myself. We don't actually use checkbooks
anymore, but he'll pull out his checkbook and he'll write a check
for that nonprofit. Now the ladies write checks for $100 and they have 100 members. So that's $10,000
of support to a nonprofit. Their numbers, their membership numbers go up and down. Sometimes they have
as many as 200, sometimes as few as 80. But typically 10 to $20,000 from the women's group. The men,
we write checks for 125 because we have fewer numbers, fewer physical men in the room. So we have to
dig a little bit deeper. And our donations are generally in the scale of 65 to 75 or up to $10,000.
The ladies got started back in the fall of 2011. That was 15 years ago. And they have met every quarter
for 15 years. The men started 26 months later in the spring of 2014. So they had a two-year head start
on us. And they had twice as many people. And OK, is that? Am I doing OK?
they persevered through the pandemic where the men did not. And then our founder passed away right after
the pandemic and our group kind of went silent for a few years. But Dave and I and Nick and a few other
members that were in the old steering committee got together last year and said, we need to bring this
group back because we can't let the ladies have all the glory. Okay. So we had our kickoff meeting in
January. So the ladies have been doing this for 15 years straight through and have twice our numbers.
We've only met
half as many times and have half the numbers. So they've generated four times as much money than we
have, which makes all the sense. But between our two groups, we have been responsible for $1.2 million
in support for groups in Monroe County. If it's a local group, they get all the money. If it's a regional
or national group, I've got two minutes left.
regional or national group, we stipulate that the support needs to stay in the county, and it does.
Now the women, bless them, had been eligible for a corporate match that expired in December of last
year from the Shultz Family Foundation. Shultz Family owns Best Buy. To be eligible for that grant,
you have to meet quarterly, you have to be registered with the 100 Who Care Alliance, which both of
our groups are. That's a national clearinghouse of about seven or 800 similar
100 blanks who care groups spread out nationally and internationally. You have to be a women's group,
which disqualified us. We tried identifying as a women's group, but they saw through our charade. And
you have to raise at least $5,000 at that meeting. If you do, they kick in $5,000. They did this for
seven years. The women qualified for that support every single quarter for all seven years.
raising an additional $140,000 for local nonprofits, bringing our total up to 1.23 million. But of that
money, 101.09 million of that was all from local members in the form of checks for $100 or in our case,
$125. In 15 years, that's roughly 10,000 individual tiny donations
from folks in the community supporting the community, okay? Now right here, I'm talking to Rotary right
now, but I'm not talking to Rotary because we're not here asking for Rotary support. I'm letting you
guys know about these groups because I'm talking to the Rotarians right now. I'm talking to all the
gentlemen in the room. We would love to have you consider joining us in the philanthropic endeavors
that we're doing to join us in this participatory philanthropy.
I swear to God I've been practicing those two words for the last week to not stumble across them, okay?
And my time is up. So that sentence is the last sentence. Are there any questions for me before Kathy
comes up? Three minutes. My question is how many nominations are there on Everett before you draw three?
It varies. At our kickoff meeting in January, we had seven. We've had as many as Nick, 15-ish.
in the hat at one time. And if a group is nominated and doesn't get pulled, they stay in the hat for
the next cycle, unless that person who nominated them wants to pull them out and put somebody else in.
You guys meet four times a year? We meet four times a year. Our next meeting is in, when is our next
meeting? It's April 23rd over at Heartwork Brewing. And the ladies meet two weeks later at the country
club. I'll let the guy with the microphone figure who's talking next.
I love your timing system. Does it really work? Do you have dominators that don't? Yes. And in fact,
when I speak, I'm actually, I take every one of the seven minutes they give me because I love public
speaking. But the one thing about our group is that public speaking is a terrifying thing for almost
everybody. Okay. And even if we've got, if somebody has a nonprofit that they want to nominate, that
doesn't seem to be worthy of support.
The fact that one person is standing in front of a bunch of strangers and asking them to give them their
money endorses the group that they're presenting for. It doesn't matter what the group is, if you're
standing in front of strangers asking for money, that says a lot about the individual or the group that
you're supporting.
I know how it works with 100 women who care. Does 150 men who care, do you have to be a member or can
you nominate somebody else to do your presentation for you? And on a side note, you guys give $125 and
we give $100. Does that mean you care a little bit more? Well, to the second question, it's not that
we care more because we're guys, we're not touchy feely like the ladies are. It's that we understand
from a math perspective,
that we don't have your numbers. And for us to be able to have an impact and to be able to attract other
members, we need to have an impact. Basically, I got dragged in because I was at the time on the board
of the Bloomington Symphony. And the ladies group had given them a gift a while back to help our children's
instrument recovery program. Our executive director, Donna Lafferty, said, hey, Ken, why don't you join
50 Minutes so you can get some of their money too?
By having a $125 donation, it's basically to try to encourage more nonprofits to send their guys in
to try to fight for the money. And as to the first question, I forget what it was. Oh, yeah. No, you
have to be a member. For a kickoff meeting, we kind of wait. If you promise to join before the night
is over, we'll let you speak. But you have to have skin in the game from our perspective.
And I think we have a, I have, this is, this is the, I'm out of time. Save your question, save your
question. I talk too much. Save your question for Kathy. I'm gonna hand it over. Kathy's got seven minutes.
So that advances that. Good afternoon. Thank you so much for this opportunity to come and speak to you
today. Ken did a wonderful job at telling you what we do
and how we do it. But I wanna talk to you about the impact that this money has had on our community
because it's amazing. So you can see, or you saw from Ken's slide that we raised $1.2 million for local
nonprofits here in Monroe County between the two groups. 100 plus women alone
raised $890,500 since 2011, and that's just individual members contributions, those $100 checks that
we write. And then you add the Schulz grant on top of that, which was $140,000 over the last 11 or so
years. And that brings us to
a total of $1,022,000 that 100 plus women alone has raised since 2011. You know, there's an old saying,
it says, if you want something done, ask a busy person. You know that saying? I will add to that, ask
a busy woman, because it's really true. So I want to tell you some of the highlights, all right, of
how these quarterly awards
have changed people's lives and what they've done in the community. Back in 2023, Bloomington Meals
on Wheels was a recipient of award from 100 plus women and they used their award to support six months
of their operations of their brand new program, which is called the mobile pantry groceries to go. That
money that they won
They were able to serve 200 families during that six months and deliver over 1700 meals to those 200
families. One of the recipients said he would have to take two buses each way to get to another pantry
to get the food that he needed. He had emphysema. It made it extremely difficult for him to do so. Now
the food is brought to him.
he now has the energy to prepare his own meal. Another individual said he was so grateful that drivers
bring the food right inside his door in his apartment complex because he has such a hard time breathing
that it's hard for him to walk. So he always calls our office afterwards every single time and he thanks
us, which is really lovely.
In 2023, in addition, Ivy Tech Community College has a program called the Student Emergency Assistance
Fund. Basically, it's set up for short-term crises for these students that are studying. Things come
up, they can't make their rent, they get sick, whatever, and they want to be able to continue their
schooling. We did award some money to them that quarter.
And in particular, I was shared an impact about a young woman who was a student there. She had two children
already. She was ready to give birth to the third. She was balancing work and kids and school, right?
She finds out that her job does not offer paid leave. She wasn't eligible for short-term disability.
So Ivy Tech came in with their short-term assistance fund
and helped her, otherwise she would have had to go back to work three to five days after giving birth.
Not a great thing. I would also like to point out that 92% of all Ivy Tech graduates stay right here
in Indiana to live and to work. So that money, helping those individual students, it extends far beyond
just that individual.
And last but not least in 2022, Teacher's Warehouse was awarded money from 100 plus women. Three of
your Rotarians came and made a presentation to 100 plus women, Peggy Frisbee, Nancy Richmond, and Sarah
Laughlin. And they were awarded the money that quarter. $20,000 jump started their fundraising, which
was fabulous because they got additional grants
from the Community Foundation that year and also the Smithville Foundation. And that allowed them to
purchase warehouse shelving and professional-grade dollies and display bins to get everything up and
running. And now they have at least 1,200 shoppers a year, and I believe that's growing. And their endowment,
because of that initial fundraising, has grown.
And they're now confident that they can pay their rent every month and keep their shelves well-stocked
while helping our educators here in Monroe County. So they do a great job. And we're told that that
was a life-changing event for Teachers Warehouse. So in addition to those quarterly awards we make, we also
have an endowment at the Community Foundation. So once a year, we all write another $100 check that
goes into that endowment. And that endowment balance is now $457,000. And it is what they call
an unrestricted endowment, so it can be used for anything. I just want to mention a couple things while
I have time, that some of those unrestricted funds have
done. So in addition to our quarterly awards we're also reaching out through the community foundation
to help others. There was grant support for the community kitchen express rebuild project the one out
in Crestmont. They did a rebuild much safer space more functional. Also we had nine months ago the community
foundation awarded a hundred thousand dollar grant to support the new Beacon Center and my favorite
was the one last year where there was something called the Strengthening Monroe County Non-Profit. You
may have read about it. A matching initiative. Oh shoot, I had one more thing to say. Okay. Thank you.
Questions? Yes. What was the last thing you were going to say? The last thing I was going to say was
a quote from Margaret Mead.
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. That's true.
I hadn't realized that an organization could receive the quarterly money more than once. Is there a
period of time where they can be re-nominated? Yes. So I believe this is correct. You can be nominated
three times.
And you have to wait for two years in between those, three years in between that. We've changed that
a couple of times. Three years in between that. Men are two, women are three. Yeah, yeah. Any questions
online? Not yet. Run, Michael, run. I don't need a microphone, but since I got it here,
Does the organization have to, can it be for animals? As long as you are a non-profit 501C3 here in
Monroe County. Yes, we've had PALS has won an award. Monroe County Humane Association has received.
Sure. Absolutely.
Can you talk a little more about your nomination process, specifically having presenters come up? Oh,
okay. So we're a little bit different than what the men do. We do ask people to put their nominations
in a basket. We draw out three names of agencies to make their presentations. You do have to be a member
to make a nomination.
but you don't have to be a member to make the presentation. So in other words, I could ask the executive
director of my agency that I want nominated to come and speak if they are chosen from the basket. We
have a lot of people that are afraid to speak in public, and this helps open up more nominations and
more nonprofits for consideration. Yes, I just wondered if you have contributed
in the past in my sister's closet. Yes, we have. They've won two or we're saying three times, four times,
four times. Thank you. I just want to confirm if as a speaker, if I get selected to be a presenter,
do I have to? Well, not me, but does the presenter have to be a woman or
No, absolutely. The presenter can be any gender, okay. Yeah. So we've got a couple of minutes left over
and there are a couple of questions, but there's a couple of small things that I, because I
was so rambunctious and didn't cover all the points. Both of our organizations are partnered with the
Community Foundation. We both have endowments at the foundation. They support us. There's business cards
on all of the tables with our contact information, our schedules and our dates.
that they printed up for us. Both of our endowments collectively are over a half million dollars. The
gentlemen also write tiny little $100 checks once a year, and we've only done it for seven years because
half as much time. But at our last meeting in January, at a kickoff meeting, we actually said, hey,
we only need three or four more of you guys to donate to get over the $100,000 point. And I think Jim
might've been the one that pushed over the top.
So we have a six-figure endowment. It is a small six-figure endowment, but that helps support the community
foundation to support us and to support you and to support the community. Half of the stuff that, half
of the endowment is reinvested in the endowment. The other half supports them and allows them to continue
to do the work in the community with the rest of the endowment to support the community. So it's sort
of like that snake that eats its own tail, but it's all money.
So that's all cool. And if we have any time left over, I'm not gonna put Emily on this, but if we have
any time left over at the very end, I'll be happy to let her speak more to that. But I know there was
at least one question left over for me. Go for it, yeah. Yes, I was a member of 50 Men Who Care before
the pandemic. Yes, sir. And one of the things that our organization started shortly before the pandemic
was in an effort to get younger people involved
we had a lower threshold. So people under the age of 40, I think it was, could do $75 per meeting. Is
that still going on? Thank you. I completely spaced. I was going to mention that. We offer
junior memberships. They get the same voting privileges, the same all that. It's roughly half. It's
$75 per quarter and a $50 donation to the endowment as opposed to $100. So for the year, it's $375.
the gentleman for the full year at $600? I think for the ladies it's... Yes, a hundred plus women does
the same. If you're 40 or under, it's $50 for the annual contribution and $50 per quarter toward the
agency. So a total of $250 for the year as opposed to $500. You get a half vote or a full vote? You
get a full vote.
Full privileges. We're just trying to encourage philanthropy at a younger age and try to help those
that have shallower pockets to be able to play ball with us. Correct. That was actually my question.
Yay. We have two questions online. Go ahead. Leslie, you can go first.
Um, my question was similar and what, what do you do to actively recruit new members to both organizations?
Well, Leslie, that's a great question. And that is something that, uh, one of the things we do are things
like this. Um, then come and talk to you and tell us about, tell you about who we are and what we do.
And I will say that the reason that I'm a member of a hundred plus women and the reason I joined specifically
was because I
like the fact that the money stays local. That's what I like about it. I'm going to give anyway. I'm
going to give charitably anyway. And one of the things I like to do is keep that charity close to home
and, and see my community flourish. So that was attractive to me. So that's one of the things we go
out and we, we talk to groups like yourself. We encourage our members to bring friends.
just like you do here at Rotary, bring a friend and attend and see what we're all about. I can't say
that we've really done anything by mail or anything like that. If you have any ideas, Leslie, please
let me know. Peggy, you had a question on one? Yep, Peggy. Yeah, if I'm permitted.
question for Kathy to answer, but also a comment. I'm also pretty heavily involved with 100 plus women
who care and have been actually since the beginning. And Kathy, following up on what you just said about
what attracted you, one thing that I've really found so good from being involved is how much I learned
about the different charities, even though we may
read articles or news reports or be involved with a few. You saw the chart up there of all the charities
that have been supported, which I'm not even sure that's everyone. But at any rate, even with seven
minutes and three minutes of questions, we really, really learn about the needs of the community. And
then my question, Kathy, for you is,
Maybe you could talk a moment about sort of the unique structure and that we're not even incorporated
or anything. Well, that's true. We are not a nonprofit ourselves. And we are, as Ken said, we're a giving
circle or a group of women who are out there to help other nonprofits, but we are not a nonprofit ourselves.
We don't have a board of directors, anything like that. We are
truly just a circle of women who care. That's truly what we are. There's no president. Somebody gets
to take over the kind of the organization for a year, and we pass that around. Yeah, I don't know. What
else can I say? Well, I'll say two things. One is our donation checks go to the agencies, okay?
They do not go through the community foundation is our backup supporter and sponsor. You could think
of it as definitely the sponsor, but when we donate to the agencies, it goes directly to the agencies.
We do have a bit of a restriction. That doesn't mean you get on a solicitation list. It goes straight
there. The $100 a quarter goes straight to the
agencies and so it's not an incorporated nonprofit. They don't write a check to 100 plus women. They
write a check to the agency and the community foundation helps us funnel that money to the agency. It
helps us do some of that bookkeeping. If I can piggyback on that, the men do it slightly differently,
but for different reasons. When we reformed at the first of this year,
there were some lessons learned from the past. One of the things with solicitation, when we were writing
individual checks to a nonprofit, sometimes even though we asked them not to solicit, we would end up
on their mailing list individually. And we kind of frowned upon that. There was a second really good
reason why we changed. Oh yeah, collecting was a whole lot more difficult, particularly as we went into
the pandemic. Nick was our convener at that time. And when you join the group, you're committing to support
our mission for the year. Whether you come to the meetings, we hope you come to all the meetings, but
if you don't come to the meeting, that's okay, we'll tell you, oh, this quarter, we're supporting Ken
Buzzard's European Travel Fund, okay? And so everybody has to write me a check for 125 dollars. Well,
some people wouldn't do that, or some people, we couldn't get ahold of all that. So this year, how we're
doing it differently is we're all writing checks for the full year upfront to the Community Foundation,
and they're shepherding our money for us, and they write a single check
because the burden, if we are sending 100 checks to a tiny little nonprofit that then have to turn around
and acknowledge 100 tax deductible receipts with 100 letters, 100 stamped envelopes, then the time and
labor and all that, plus the risk of those individuals ending up on their solicitation list, we thought,
let's try it differently. Let's just try a different way of doing this. So we send the money to the
community foundation. The gentlemen who write that check immediately get a tax receipt for the entire
year on the spot.
And then they join us each quarter to tell us how to take that money and send it back out into the community.
Unity Foundation sends one check, one great big check to the nonprofit. And if they end up on their
solicitation list, God bless them. That's okay. We do it differently for different reasons. There's
no right way to do it. Ask us in a couple of years, one of us will say, oh, we really should have done
it the way the other group did. And then we'll revisit it and change it. But that's one of the cool
things about
We don't have a board of directors. We're just a club. In our case, we're just a bunch of guys who are
getting together once a quarter at a brewery to write a check. We're not there to drink the beer. Yeah,
yeah, yeah. We used to meet at the country club like the ladies did. We couldn't afford it.
Because again, because we don't have a bank account, we don't have resources. This is all based on individual
donations.
and the country club changed. I mean, no criticism of the country club, but the target audience that
they're aiming for is different than what we are. Okay, they've evolved, they've reinvested, they need
to recover that, and that's perfectly fine. We went to a brewery because they're like, we'd love to
have all these civic leaders come in and see our facility. They invested in us. They gave us their meeting
space for free first quarter. And they're giving, even though we're not registered, they're giving us
the nonprofit rate
for the rest of the year, for the rest of our life, for the rest of our relationship with them. So I'm
not going to pimp for hard work brewing, but if you want to go grab a Brewski. Actually, we have a couple
more. Actually, we're until 57. So we got four more minutes. So don't ask me any questions, because
I'll use them all up answering. So hang on a second, Dave. Just one quick question.
Well, too, actually, what's the meeting like? Do you just walk in and you start talking or is there
some kind of connectivity, networking? And then the second thing, what do you do between meetings? Our
meeting begins with social hour. We open the doors at five. You can come in and meet other people and
talk, get a glass of wine or whatever and do some networking. And then our meeting starts at six.
and we do the basket draw and we're out of there at seven o'clock. Yeah, pretty quick. For the men,
we meet at six at 5.30. We have a 30 minute, cause it's the bars right there. They have pizzas and all
that. And we network as well. Our meeting starts at six. We go until seven. For our next meeting, the
group that we supported last quarter will be coming in to get the picture taken with the big check and
to let us know how they are. Thank you. They'll let us know how they are using
the money that we gave them. We need more men because when we started up and trying to get the word
out about other meetings, we're using social media, we're using word of mouth, we don't have an ad campaign.
So we were hoping to get half of 50 for our first meeting and we missed that by a couple of gentlemen.
Our personal goal is to hit 50 by the end of the year. I'm hoping we have 40 at our next meeting. The
viability of the group depends on the participation of the individuals in the community.
Okay. Um, that that's, it's all about us. So please consider becoming one of us, one of us, one of them.
Yeah. So he already answered one question. Um, what about, so you both look, you both stay in Monroe
County, right? Yes. Right. Okay. Okay. And, and you haven't had more than 50 men. We've had as many
as 84, I believe is when we were at our peak pre pandemic.
We're at 23 right now. But we've only had one meeting. Dave. This is really just not a question, but
it is a question that I got from somebody else about 50 men and that was, why participate in this kind
of giving circle? I give money to whatever organization I want to. I think I'd like to answer that question
that was asked me for the group, which is, well, it's impact.
It's the fact that your check that you give is multiplied by all the other people that are in the room
and part of that giving circle. And so if it's really a good cause that you're giving to, then come
to a meeting, participate, and make the case for why everybody should support that group that quarter.
And next quarter, try again if it didn't work the last time. Well, you're right about that. It is about
impact. And it is about, as I said before, keeping your community thriving.
you are directly affecting your neighbors and all the people that live here in Monroe County in Bloomington
with you. And that to me is everything as opposed to writing a check to a large organization that may
do good work, but doesn't always have the impact. At 12 seconds, Nick. Can you quickly explain the lessons
learned on how to divvy up to quarters for the men? Right.
I can't quickly do that. So I'll explain how we do it. How we do it is we observed that when we have
competitive presentations that groups that are sponsoring children or dogs tended to win more often
than not. Okay. If you had handicapped one-legged dog with an orphan child group, slammed up.
Okay, so what we've decided to do is we're gonna, we're dividing, we're attempting to divide, and the
women don't do this, this is just a guy thing. We're attempting to divide the donation space based on
mission each quarter. We have a free for all fourth quarter. First quarter might be children,
second quarter, dogs, third quarter, everybody that didn't get a quarter. We're still learning as we
do this. In fact, because our numbers need to be up, we're not doing that this quarter.
So we're going to delay implementing that until January of next year. But the goal is to give every
group a fair shot in their own space without competing against one-legged orphan dogs. Okay. So thank
you guys for your time to give us your time tonight. We got to get out of here. So thank you all. That
then can great job.
I understood the Lawrence Welk reference. I still write checks and I understood the Pimp reference.
So I'm not sure what that says about me, but what a wonderful presentation. $1.2 million. That is so
very impressive. And thank you both of you for what you do for Monroe County. In honor of your talk,
a donation was made to this quarter to Amethyst House. I want to thank today's volunteers, Houshee Wang, Sam Udak,
Dave Meyer, Leslie Katsenko, David Wright, Marilyn Wood, Michael Shermas, Elan Barker, our Zoom and
audio producer Tyler. You were kind of dealing with a couple of gremlins today, so thank you. And Mandy,
thank you as well. So our next regular meeting will be on March 31st upstairs in the stateroom. We've
not been in the stateroom for a long time. It's a very small
I'm not even for sure which door we'll use to enter, but hopefully we'll have that worked out by next
week. So Robert Frew and Juan Carlos Arango will speak to us about growing new farmers in new lands.
So please join us. So Tyler, if you'd put up the graphic for the four-way tests, and if you're able,
please stand. Of the things we think, say, or do,
First is it the truth? Second, is it fair to all concerned? Third, will it build goodwill and better
friendships? Fourth, will it be beneficial to all concerned? And fifth, is it fun?