Rotary Happenings
Some things never go as planned. Our guest-speaker recruiters do a terrific job of filling up the calendar with outstanding speakers, and usually all goes well, but every once in a while a speaker has to cancel or we have to reschedule a speaker for another reason. When that happens, it really is astounding that somehow, somewhere, our speaker recruiter can find someone to step in and do a terrific job, at the last minute.
Rotarian and PP John Bellino did just that and luckily had someone interesting in mind to come and talk to us about an organization that he was instrumental in starting.
David Zammitt is the chairman of Community Blueprint, a non-governmental organization that solely focuses on finding support for military veterans and their families after discharge from active duty and transitioning into civilian life. Zammitt said that records indicate that many of our servicemen and women entered the military at a very young age with limited education, and in many cases without any employment experience.
During their service they are trained for military jobs but that type of training often does not prepare them for re-entrance into the civilian job market. They have been thrust into war zones, have served more than four years of service with two deployment periods, as well as seen and experienced the brutality of war up, close and personal.
They are hardly prepared to just stop their combat ready mentality and re-enter their lives at home without some transitioning concerns and some adjustment problems. Although the government offers help for returning veterans there still is a gap in programming. The Community Blueprint program wants to find a way to help local leaders assess and improve their community’s support for veterans, warriors, and their families.
Community Blueprint focuses on eight areas for transitioning: behavioral health, education, employment, family strength, financial and legal services, homelessness, reintegration, and volunteerism. Community involvement is key here, getting business leaders to join this effort to reintegrate our returning veterans back to active and healthy productive citizens. “We thank you for our service” is wonderful for the veterans to hear, but that is not enough. The best way we can thank them is to help them when they need us.
Originally, Community Blueprint set up three pilot programs to fine-tune the methodology for identifying and providing specific courses of action that community leaders could take in identifying a broad-range of resources available within their communities and setup individual programs for each veteran and his or her family to take advantage of.
The first pilot program 2011 was located in Valdosta, Ga., where Zammitt was living at the time, right outside of Moody Air Force Base. Joined by the local Military Officers Association of America chapter, this program was so effective that this program now has 53 Community sites.
Veterans themselves have identified areas of concern: family relationships, frequent irritability and anger, problems re-entering civilian life, post traumatic syndrome (PTS), alcohol and drugs, depression, and aggression. Government programs are helping, but their weak spot is in training and employment and that is where Community Blueprint can be the most helpful. They are trying to use community leadership in finding or initiating programs to fill in this gap and put our veterans back to work. Community Blueprint’s goal is to coordinate services between the government, non-profits, and the community to help our veterans.
The Sanibel-Captiva Rotary Club meets at 7 a.m., every Friday morning at the Dunes Golf and Tennis Club on Sanibel Island. Guests are welcomed.
Rotary Happenings
It seems that our snowbird Rotarians are already talking about flying the coop and heading back up north, although no one is quite sure if that’s a good idea. Weather is still unpredictable up there and we always miss our friends when they’re not here. That being said, now they can catch up with us by going on our newly designed web-site sanibelrotary.org by PP Joel Ospa. No excuses now not to know what’s going on back here in Sanibel.
During season our Rotary club goes full steam and snowbird Rotarians are there working shoulder to shoulder on all kinds of projects including fundraising efforts and involvement with committees that identify projects the Sanibel-Captiva Rotary are or will be working on for the year. Before they start heading home, club President Scot Congress called for an assembly to bring everyone up-to-date on the club’s financial footing.
John Danner, treasurer, first went over the account balances including our recent Rotary Arts and Crafts Fair. Sanibel-Captiva netted, give or take a few dollars, close to $85,000 from this year’s fair. Line items on the income side were all basically up, but our Silent Auction area shot up considerably thanks to the fantastic efforts of Rotarian Rodger Triftshauser.
Although the club has other fundraisers throughout the year, they are usually dedicated toward a special project such as our recent Classical Piano Concert by Francesco Attesti for Rotary Gift of Life, Fla., but the Arts & Crafts Fair is our club’s largest fundraiser. Its proceeds are placed in the Sanibel-Captiva Rotary Trust Fund and are used throughout the year to support donations, contributions, and the giving of scholarships. Tony Gropp, chair of our club’s Rotary Trust, reported that the majority of Sanibel-Captiva Rotary year July 2012 to July 2013 giving has been concentrated locally.
Our international giving is overseen by Chet Sadler who along with San-Cap Rotary immediate PP John Grey has taken the opportunity to visit many of the countries receiving or needing funding to see where our money is being used and in what other ways Sanibel-Captiva Rotary may help. Sadler and Grey have gone to Haiti and Guatemala-touring water project sites and the homes of Guatemalans’ that received cooking stoves purchased with our partner for this project Miracles in Action. Sadler, also, explored and carried through on our micro-financing loan investment in Guatemala with project partner: As Green as it Gets.
Discussion is now underway regarding new giving opportunities. Recently the club put into play a new request for funds procedure. When a club member or even a snowbird is approached regarding possible funding, before being considered the proper paper work must be filled out. Then the sponsoring member must present the giving opportunity before the Sanibel-Captiva Rotary Club Board of Directors and the Sanibel-Captiva Rotary Trust Board with all information regarding the project. If request for funding is above $25,000, it must go in front of the entire membership. At this point the club has one local project in this category under consideration, not yet ready to be named.
As some Islanders may have noticed, Rotary fundraising efforts are still going on. You may have noticed our Rotary Banners and display tables at Bailey’s General Store or posters somewhere else around town announcing and selling tickets for our Summer in the Colorado Mountains amazing raffle proceeds to be split between CROW on Sanibel and Polio Plus, a Rotary International project funds, which will be matched by the Gates Foundation to rid the world of polio and the World Health Organization who just this week announced the goal of ridding the globe of polio by 2018.
Don’t delay, buy your tickets now, the raffle will be drawn April 19, you don’t have to be here to win. We’re definitely at Bailey’s every weekend or call Bill Raye at 395-2147 or e-mail him at wrahe@earlink.net, he’ll get you those tickets. The Summer in the Colorado Mountains includes six nights in a luxury condo, car rental, golf, rodeo, boat rental, tubing, bike rental, horseback riding, plus dinners, picnic lunch, pool passes, kids’ activities and more. This is a fun raffle package.
The Sanibel-Captiva Rotary meets at 7 a.m., every Friday morning at the Dunes Golf & Tennis Club, Sanibel. Guests are always welcomed.
Rotary Happenings
It’s been a couple of years since Sanibel-Captiva Chamber of Commerce President Ric Base stopped by one of our Rotary meetings.
I guess it’s because he was busy taking care of business; pun intended. As president of the chamber for the last eight years, Base has gained the confidence of the business community on island and off, along with the respect of city officials and that collaborative spirit is providing a healthy and rich business environment here on the Islands.
With a staff of nine part-time employees and give or take 35 weekly volunteers, the chamber is fielding, during season, over 1,000 inquiries a day from all over the world about the islands. Inquiries are coming from Germany, England, France, Canada, South America, and of course from all over the United States. Walk-in traffic at the Chamber office is around 175 families a day. Business is extremely good this season; factor in a colder winter season up north and a quick get-a-way to Sanibel or Captiva for vacationers and visiting relatives is sounding pretty good.
Airport figures for the month of February reported that passenger traffic was the highest in Southwest Florida International’s last 30 years. Driving those numbers are, of course, weather but add to this a great marketing campaign by the Lee County Visitor & Convention Bureau. Driving people to Sanibel and Captiva, in particular, are great promotional output by the chamber and the islands receiving national ranking from USA Today as one of the “Top 10 Best Florida Beach Towns, Frommer’s Travel Guide ranked Sanibel Island the #1 top tourist destination and the chamber’s visitor’s center was named the #1 attraction by Trip Advisor.
It is and will continue to be a great year and great season for business on Sanibel and Captiva, but there is the realization that today’s vacationers have travel expectations beyond past generations. Our island hotel and condominium infrastructures need to be updated to keep up with the times. Larger sized hotel rooms are the norm at newer accommodations at vacation destinations. Families are now traveling together with parents, kids, grandparents, and nannies, and they need space. Internet and cellar telephone service is a must have; everyone in the family craves for a connection to the outside world.
In response to that need, the chamber has setup a new Government Development Affairs Committee, headed up by Sanibel-Captiva Chamber Board Member Robert Monk, also a Rotarian. This committee has opened a dialogue with Sanibel government officials and the Committee of the Islands (COTI) to discuss and address how to rehabilitate and rebuild hotel and condominium properties within the framework of Sanibel building codes and restrictions. In the past, families would vacation again and again in the same spot, not now. Tourists and travelers are more sophisticated than in the past. They can shop the world for their next vacation on the Internet. They want their needs fulfilled, if not here, then some other place.
Looking at it from another angle, in the past, 90 percent of all purchases of properties on the islands started out as vacationers. Improvements to hotels and condominiums will provide a springboard for real-estate transactions.
The recent opening and changeover of businesses on the islands is notable. Sanibel saw the opening of Bennett’s Fresh Roast Caf and the Blue Coyote Restaurant, along with the reopening of the Sundial Resort. And islanders can now look forward to new ownership at the former properties of Blackstone on Sanibel, including the Dunes Golf and Tennis Club. Captiva welcomed Doc Ford’s Restaurant and McCarthy’s Marina has expanded on boat tourism routes leaving from Captiva.
With plans for development of the new cultural center on Sanibel heading in a positive direction, the non-profit cultural entities BIG ARTS, Strauss Theater, Sanibel Community House, and the Sanibel Public Library have an exciting future to look forward to and the islands will only be enriched with updated facilities to enjoy a plethora of activities good for residents and tourists.
The Sanibel-Captiva Rotary meets at 7 a.m. every Friday morning at the Dunes Golf and Tennis Club. Guests are always welcomed.