February 10, 2020 Meeting Bulletin
                    
BIRMINGHAM ROTARY WEEKLY MEETING
FEBRUARY 10, 2020
Welcome by President Elect Bill Roy at 12:15pm
Pledge of Allegiance
4-Way Test recited by all members
Song: America the Beautiful was nicely done by Chris Winans 
Weekly Invocation/Inspiration: Molly Swart gave a nice invocation and let us know that  the water well that we fund is up in Uganda.
Guests:There were many guests today. Fernado Rodriquez from Kirk In the Hills, Karen May, Sarah izzo friends of Charles Wickins. Ashok Gupta from Troy Rotary, Judy Powers, Waterford Rotary, Emma Tracy from Micha 6. Tina Rowan, Accent Pontiac. Dave Smyk, husband of Molly Swart
Birthdays:    None
Volunteers:
-Lunch Tickets:    Mark Anderson
-Raffle Tickets: Mark Cooper
-Greeter: Mark Cooper
-Invocation/Inspiration: Molly Swart
-Sheriff: Peter Kreher
-Bulletin Editor: Linda Hatfield
-Host to Speaker: David Underdown
2-minute Business Update: Chris Winans 
Bottom line… now is the time to purchase a house it is at an all time low.
-Literacy Update: Paul Toepp/John Mucha (need readers Wednesday at Owens Elementary from 9:30 to 10:30 am
-Social Committee/Masters Raffle: Bryan Frank let us know that 120 tickets have been sold and to keep Friday, March 27 open for the Masters Gala.
-Masters Madness Gala Planning Committee Meeting: February 18, 2020 at noon at Bill Roy’s office
-Hope Warming Center: sign-up sheet - Bill Roy on March 17. Thank you for all who went to Hope on Sunday and to Marsha for making 180 yummy cookies
-BBCC Member Coffee at Baldwin Library Rotary Room on 2/27 at 8 am 
-Raffle Card Drawing: Mark Anderson drew the winning ticket that went to Dave Smyk whose better half is our lovely Molly Swart. The pot still lives
-Sheriff: Peter Kreher shared that he any some of his “friends” sipped some very good wine the previous week and asked if others had some good wine or beverage as well. Some of us were not as lucky!
Speaker/Host to Speaker: David Underdown
Speaker: Coleman Yoakum of Micah 6 Community
            
In 2011, after graduating from college, Coleman stated several of us wanted to move somewhere that needed good neighbors. Coleman moved first to Detroit where he spent time getting to know local organizations who were trying to turn around neighborhoods there. 
In 2012, it became obvious that doors were opening for us in Pontiac and in August, we moved into our house at 32 Newberry. 
After some time, we learned some of the challenges in my community-- lack of access to healthy food, lots of our homeless friends sleeping in vacant houses, there wasn't much for kids to do when they weren't in school.
 
So, after a year of listening, we set about to tackle some of these issues including growing community gardens, hanging out with neighborhood kids, living with an open door to our homeless friends for showers and a place to cook food.
What an amazing story and what a great job Coleman did and is doing getting the word out. He was very entertaining and could be a comedian in another life.
SMILES was sung with much enthusiasm
Thank you – Connect the World!