Congratulations to our Lima Rotary Club for getting the District 6600 Significant Achievement award for the Opiate/Homelessness Project. It was the first time our club was awarded this certificate!
Jim Bowsher tells stories from our region's racial history.
Jim Bowsher is best known in the area for turning his property in Wapakoneta into the Temple of Tolerance. The stories behind many of the things found there brought him to Lima Rotary Club Monday, and he used several of those artifacts to bluntly talk about the country and region’s race relations history.
Bowsher told the story of locating an African-American man who fought in World War II living in a St. Louis slum. He found the man and his Congressional Medal of Honor in a shack. Bowsher was ashamed of his country and asked the man why he fought for a country that disenfranchised him.
“I wasn’t fighting for the country it is now,” the man said. “I was fighting for the country it will be.”
Closer to home, Bowsher had with him the skull of an African-American man who had been shot in the face in St. Marys in the 1950s, and had a newspaper account of the incident. Bowsher has many things like this in his home, and some people don’t understand why he keeps things such as artifacts from the Holocaust.
A Jewish woman spoke up for him once, Bowsher recounted, to a woman who was uncomfortable seeing such things. “Someone needs to keep evidence of the crime,” she said. “If not, people won’t believe it happened, and it will happen again.”
The Temple of Tolerance is at 203 S. Wood Street, Wapakoneta. It’s open to visitors all day, every day.
In other Rotary business Monday:
The Lima Rotary Foundation presented four checks Monday: $2,500 to the Lima Area Freedom School, $1,000 to Amil Tellers / Encore Theatre, $500 to Team RoadRunners, and $2,000 to the Celina Rotary Club for medical missions.
The club also presented two checks to the foundation totaling $3,433.60.
The club awarded several Lima Rotary Foundation Scholarships to non-traditional students Monday. With the current group of students, Lima Rotary Club has given 962 scholarships totaling $694,000 in 17 years. The scholarships are funded mainly by voluntary member contributions and the annual Rex Perry Memorial Golf Outing, which will be held June 13.
The club celebrated and contributed to Red Nose Day this week with donations of cash and cereal for the Lima City Schools food pantries. Everyone donating received a red nose and participated in a “red nose” photo for social media.
The club received information about this year’s MESA Bike Tour, which will happen June 1 through June 5.
Rotary will move its June 11 meeting to an 8 a.m. breakfast, still at the Civic Center. The meeting will be shared with other service clubs and the Lima YP, to help kick off Love Lima Week.
Rotary will hold a blood drive with the American Red Cross before, during and after the June 18 meeting at the Civic Center.
Midwestern values serve Devin Rumer well in Hollywood.
Actor, writer, director and Lima native Devin Rumer joined the Marines when he left home and then took a government job in Washington, DC that he hated. At the age of 30 he was fired, and decided to follow his heart and become an actor. Since moving to Los Angeles in 2007, Devin has worked in front and behind the camera on television and in films such as Criminal Minds, Young and the Restless, Body of Lies, Burn After Reading and J. Edgar, which was directed by his hero Clint Eastwood. Devin told Lima Rotarians that the midwest lessons and values he learned growing up in Lima have served him well in Hollywood, such as, "Something given has no value," and, "If you value something you must fight for it." Devin has also written a book for beginning actors, “So you want to be an Actor, now what?” In 2015 he formed Delta Echo productions with his partner Eve Cerda. Their goal is to produce high quality, low cost films with substance. Devin will be conducting a workshop at Encore Theatre on May 26 for anyone interested in becoming an actor. Devin roadtripped to Lima from Los Angeles with his dog Casper who joined us for our meeting.
The Lima Rotary Club turned out to support the kickoff of the Click It Or Ticket campaign to promote seat belt use.
Although the rain came down right at 11:15 Monday, the exact time the Click It or Ticket Campaign Kickoff was scheduled, the CIOT Kickoff was a great success. Thank you to everyone who spoke to those in attendance, Chief Kitchen, Sheriff Treglia, Kirk Slusser, and especially the students from Allen East. Thank you to the Rotarians for allowing traffic safety advocates to “hijack” your luncheon to promote seat belt use. Also, thank you to the Civic Center for allowing us to come in out of the rain. Finally, thank you all who took time out of your busy day to attend. Kudos to you all!
The Rex Perry Memorial Golf Outing is June 13. Please sign your team up now and help us raise money for scholarships for non-traditional students. You don't have to be a Rotarian to play, so please join us!
The program committee would like your input on the 2018/2019 programs. Please fill out the short survey.
Do you know of someone who has something interesting, provocative, or informative that would benefit our club members? Do you have an interesting hobby you would like to share with our members? The Education and Program Committee is seeking speakers for the July 1, 2018 to June 30, 2019 program year. Topics could be just about anything: favorite hobbies, travels, social services, a unique life experience, your Rotary insights, businesses and unique services/products, pets, humor, community initiatives, economic development, entertainment, or anything very interesting. If you do, send an email to Chuck Wolfe at cewolfe53@gmail.com, Education & Program Chairperson with the subject and contact information and we will get the speaker scheduled. You can also fill out our online survey or print and fill out this form and return it to. Thanks for your input!
On June 11, the Lima Rotary Club is proud to be a sponsor of the I Love Lima breakfast. We are moving our meeting that day to 8:00am instead of noon. We'll still be in the north hall of the Civic Center. Please join us, Lima's other service clubs, the YP, and everyone else who loves Lima for this fun breakfast!
June 18th is the Law Enforcement Special Olympic Torch Run and Red Cross Blood Drive.
Please register on this form to donate blood on June 18th. The Red Cross will be having a blood drive alongside our partnership with the Special Olympics Torch Run Program. The drive will be in the North Hall of the Civic Center. Email the completed form to marianne.hardesty@redcross.org.
The Movies in the Park are back for another fun season!
We will be handing out 200 swag bags for Black Panther on August 25th that we will have all the sponsor logos printed on it. We are looking for promotional swag items to put in the bags. If you have promotional items you wish to donate for the event, please let Cat know. We anticipate over 300 attendees for the event. The flyer will be going out to all the local schools prior to their last day. We hope you join us this summer for two great movies under the stars! If you wish to contribute financially, we’d like to purchase Black Panther comic books for the swag bag.
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