Member Spotlight Featuring Tom Martin

President Dave led our meeting in the Pledge of Allegiance. He reminded the members that April is "Maternal and Child Health Month" and "Environmental Month" in Rotary. Bob Carris gave the Invocation.

A New Member Induction was held for our two newest members, Marlene Katafias and Wayne Kinney by PDG Traci Sincock. A huge round of applause was given to our two new members. Welcome to our Rotary Club!    

Sharon Pommerville collected Happy Bucks. Many bucks were for the two recovering members, Susan Paluchniak and Victoria Haltom.

A plea was put out to our members to help with the Rotary Easter Egg hunt this Saturday at the Rotary Park baseball diamonds and Pavilion 5, at 8:30 AM. This is put on by the Livonia Noon Club.

This Thursday, Stevenson HS Interact Club will hold its first meeting at 2:30 PM. If you are attending, you need to pre-register.

Steve Alexander reminded the members that there will be a cherry blossom tree planting event on May 5 at Rotary Park. These 9 trees will be planted along the entrance road on the right side of the road. Park and Rec Dept will dig the holes, we put the trees in the holes and fill in dirt. Lunch will be provided.

RYLA 2-night training weekend. This is a camp in Fenton. They are looking for two men and two women to spend the night in a camp, May 2-5, as chaperones.

Our Member Spotlight today featured Tom Martin. Tom told us the story of how he was introduced to Rotary. A Rotary Club wanted to sponsor a local student to travel to Siberia for 6 weeks. Since Tom was interested in Russia, he applied for the Program. The students need to get all their high school graduation work done before they travel to another country. Besides Tom's experience traveling abroad, his family hosted two exchange students themselves. Youth exchange is a program of the U.S. State Department.

There is a lot of information on the Rotary website about Youth Exchange programs. Our club could start small by hosting an event for a club with an exchange student.

Greg Greene had some great Easter jokes.

No meeting next week, April 23, as we will be attending the Mayor's Ambassador Breakfast at 8 AM, at Laurel Manor.

Susan Paluchniak