President's Report
At last week’s meeting we had the great pleasure of learning about Rotaplast from Rotarian Rose Marie Joyce, PhD, who is also the current Interim President at West Los Angeles College. Rotaplast International is a non-profit, humanitarian organization founded in 1992 as a world community service project of the Rotary Club of San Francisco by Dr. Angelo Capozzi and Peter Lagarias. Recognized by Charity Navigator as a 4 star charity, Rotaplast is committed to changing lives through reconstructive surgery and has performed over 13,000 surgeries in countries around the world. Because advanced medical care like the kind provided by Rotaplast Medical Teams is often unavailable, cleft lip and palate cases often go unrepaired until adulthood. In addition, inadequate post-surgery care frequently means that local doctors are only able to perform cleft lip repairs—which can be performed under local anesthesia and require less aftercare—while the critically important cleft palate revisions remain uncorrected. Rotarian Rose Marie shared with us her Rotary moments while on missions to South America. We will be having the Annual Pancake Breakfast at Fire Station 63 Saturday, May 7, 2011. For more information see Secretary Tom Ryan.
Our inaugural Bingo Fest will be held May 21, 2011 at the Boys & Girls Club of Venice, with part of the proceeds going to help support the Boys & Girls Club Teen Programs. PE Gail and Rotarian Gwen Vuchsas are Co-Chairing the BingoFest. Mark your calendars for Thursday June 2nd, 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM, for the LAX Coastal Area Chamber’s annual ChamberFest. We will be taking a booth and targeting this event as a membership outreach opportunity. Let Tony Ciancimino know your availability to support this Club effort. He can address any questions you may have.
We look forward to having you join us this Wednesday at 7:15am for our weekly meeting at the Marina International Hotel, 4200 Admiralty Way, Marina del Rey. Our speaker is Eric Strauss, PhD, from LMU. He will be speaking on ecology. Additionally, we will be awarding the Tony Steinhardt Award to Jessica Barrera who has been the highest ranking Cadet at Pacific Area for more than two years.