PLEDGE: President Joan
PRAYER: Gerri Lewis
SONG: Andy Anderson
BRENT'S FLIM/FLAM: Low hand won by John Donnelly
RAFFLES WINNERS: Mike Velgouse, President Joan and Al Lindquist
HAPPY $s: Many for the beautiful sunrise, John Bubella's wife has undergone surgery for cancer
many concerned prayer $s for her, Matt Vogt for getting closer to finishing his Master's
studies, Keith Wescovich for being close to his Master's (for the past 10 years), many for our
guest, Ed Pinn for son finishing his studies and the end of a financial committment, Bob
Antoniac for 'leaving Dodge' and heading to Florida, Andy happy Bob's going to Florida. Al
Lindquist for winning a raffle prize.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
President Joan announced a Community Outreach Committee meeting after the regular
meeting this morning.
Paul Moore indicated he'll be ready to write scholarship checks out soon. Also that Ron
Scott will be stepping down this year form the Scolarship committee and we will need some
new members.
PROGRAM: John Donnelly introduce our speaker today, Steve Mecca, Professor of Engineering
at Providence College.
Steve is a fellow Rotarian from the RI area. He's had extensive experience in support of the
educational system in Ghana. He's spent the last several years making trips to Ghana the last
being for a period of several months. Next year he'll be taking a sabbatical from Providence
College for the whole year working in Ghana. He believes the youth of Ghana are very
interested in education and very motivated. The main university in the capital city has an
enrollment of over 40,000 students. Lecture halls have an attendance of up to 450 students at
a time. There is a lack of textbooks in the country so the students take copious notes during
the lectures since that is their only source of written material on the topic. His focus has been
to provide textbooks to the school libraries for the students. He also claims the secondary
education system is in the same only worse shape. No books, adequate classrooms and
many times no toilets. Some of his efforts have been to establish libraries in these rural
towns and villages to bolster the educational system. His daughter and grandaughter have
also spent time in Ghana helping to set up libraries. His daughter is a librarian and has
helped establish library checkout sytems. Students have had to spend endless hours in line
waiting to check out the books they need. Part of Steve's efforts have also been to bring
automated, current library computer systems into the country. To date he has collected and
shipped over 30,000 books and computer technology. He's colaborated with colleges in NH
and the Rotary Districts for assistance and matching grant funding. Our District currently
hasn't participated to date and he's hoping they will. He claims a $1700 donation from a club
(ours) can get the ball rolling in our District. The Board will be discussing this in the future.
Although President Obama has praised the country for it's strides in democracy and human
rights, there is still a lot of 'petty larceny' in the country. His efforts have been to provide
aid to the country through the Rotary Clubs, that way he feels the aid will get to the places
it is needed.
Steve is a very dedicated Rotarian, doing a great deal of good works. He projects are
worthy of our consideration.
asl
