Our speaker today was Anita Deranleau, the McKinney-Vento homeless coordinator for the Rapid City School District. This federal law protects houseless students and requires a liaison in every school district to eliminate barriers to education. She makes sure these students are identified and provided basic needs like food and transportation to school. Annually we have about 600-700 houseless students who are helped by this program and are able to get an equal education. For more information please go to: http://doe.sd.gov/title/mckinneyvento.aspx.
On Saturday, January 11, Rushmore Rotary hosted its annual Rotary Leadership Institute (RLI) workshop offered to all of the Rotary clubs in the Black Hills. A casual and interactive environment lead to a day of inspiration, creative ideas and fantastic fellowship while learning more about Rotary. The evaluations revealed all loved learning more about the Grants process, how DDF works, and that all would like to see more time given during the workshop to interact with each other. Congratulations RLI Class of 2025!!
We welcomed the Rapid City Alternative Academy Students of Distinction for the 1st semester of 2024-2025 along with their families. Each was presented with a $50 Walmart gift card from Rushmore Rotary. Congratulations, and keep up the great work!
This morning we heard a terrific presentation from our own Kibbe Brown and Tianna Yellow Hair who shared their experiences on the Rotary Group Study Exchange Cultural Exchange. This was the first Rotary exchange involving indigenous peoples from District 5610 Lakota tribe members and District 9705 Wiradjuri tribe members in Australia. This was a 3 week district wide tour through Australia where they exchanged and compared experiences, enjoyed cultural foods and programs and spoke at the District 9705 Conference, receiving huge accolades. For more information on Rotary’s GSE program visit www.rotary.org.
Our speaker today was Doug Bates from Sleep in Heavenly Peace (SHP), a non-profit organization that builds and delivers beds to children in need. SHP is a national organization that was brought to Rapid City by Doug and his wife in 2019. So far they have made and given away 675 beds here. They do 2-3 build days through out the year and receive great donations from Forest Products and Lowe’s. The beds are for kids ages 3-17, and those in need can apply at their website www.shpbeds.org. You can also donate here and get more information on volunteering.
We had 3 Paul Harris Fellow recipients receive pins today for their support of the Rotary Foundation.
Congratulations to Kyle Bargman, Kim Nearhood +2, and Jeff Kingsbury +4. Your support helps Rotary projects continue around the world.
Our speaker today was Beth Walz Davis. She is a certified End of Life Doula. She assists clients and their loved ones by planning and coordinating end-of-life care and grief groups. Beth shared some personal experiences with death and grief. She emphasized that while death is part of a natural cycle, our culture is "death phobic", afraid to think about or plan for death; and have what she calls an aversion to grief. We have the capacity to choose when we leave and our bodies know how to leave. She encourages her clients to plan, to help them have those conversations on how "end of life" should look. For example, does the person like to be touched, read to, sang to, or they may just want you Present. She provided some insight on dealing with grief -- honoring grief no matter when it shows up. It is important to find a way to talk about your loss and to tell stories. For more information on Beth go to: https://bethwalzdavis.com/end-of-life-doula/
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