Prayer. Having found our way to this familiar place, O God, and to the familiar format of the fellowship we cherish, we are grateful that amid change and uncertainty in life, there is also a comforting sameness about much in human experience. For that we give thanks.
Strengthen us for service by food now provided. Enrich our togetherness by reminders of our mutual identity and responsibility as servants in the world. In the name of the greatest servant of all. Amen.
Club Announcements
Birthdays and Anniversaries
Birthdays
Katie Browning March 13
Anniversaries
Sara & Brandon White March 14
Chris & Adrienne Brantley March 17
Jeff & Karen Bonner March 19
Membership Anniversaries
Alison Kelly 1 year, March 14
Jenny Price 2 years, March 15
Trip Barnes 15 years, March 18
This week’s Rotary Foundation Thought is about being a Rotary Foundation Sustaining Member.
What can you get for US$100 dollars these days? A pair of shoes, a nice dinner for two or a stove for a needy family in rural Guatemala, A contribution of $100 to the Annual
Programs Fund will make you a Sustaining Member of The Rotary Foundation but it also provides life-changing opportunities for those in need.
When you choose to support our Rotary Foundation you are making a difference in two ways: you are changing lives and you are literally saving lives. What an amazing thing to
be able to say!
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Billy Brumfield House. The Rotary Club of North Jackson is serving supper once a month at The Billy Brumfield House, a Stewpot Community Services ministry. Our club serves on the 1st Tuesday of each month. Interested members need to meet @ Baker Donelson located at the corner of Eastover Drive and the I-55 North Frontage Road @ 5:15 PM and then travel together to Billy Brumfield. Also, if you are interested in sponsoring a month, the est. cost is $180 for the food. Mike Dawkins is project chair and can be reached @ 601-351-2428 or dawkins@bakerdonelson.com.
Between the Lions. Please remember to sign up for Between the Lions. During the school year, we read weekly to pre-Kindergarteners at William Walton Elementary School on Bailey Ave. It is a wonderful experience! The children are truly information sponges and very willing learners. Contact Jenny Price (662) 213-1294 for more information. We have resumed reading and are really enjoying it.
Member Care Committeereminder: for anyone who needs assistance getting to a meeting, please call Luther Munford at (601) 985-4418.
Thinking of Proposing a New Member?
First, discuss with Classification Committee (Paul Miller or Julian Carroll). They will provide a member- ship application, check classification availability and discuss occupational qualifications.
Rotary Membership Occupational Qualifications Applicant should be one of the following:
A corporate officer
A Professional (Attorney, CPA, Physician. Engineer, Architect, etc) A Proprietor
An Agent of a reputable company
A Manager or Supervisor of a department or section of a business
Rotarians, don't forget to like the club's Facebook page to stay up to date on the latest happenings. Search us out at Rotary Club of North Jackson or click the link:
“Service above self; they profit most who serve best.”
P. O. Box 9528, Jackson, MS 39286-9528 www.northjacksonrotary.org
Posted on March 6, 2018
Rotary’s amazing capacity to bring people together
Posted on
Exchange students from District 6990 get together.
By Gabriel de Jesus Abade, a former Rotary Youth Exchange Student
When I was 16, like most teenagers, I was focused on my own life. I hadn’t really thought about joining a service club or dedicating myself to helping others. But that changed when a high school friend began talking to me about Rotary, and its local and global actions. I was captivated and wanted to learn more. So I took my first steps in Rotary as a member of the Interact Club of Lauro de Freitas. Through the club, I was able to contribute in small ways to changing my community for the better.
Gabriel de Jesus Abade, right, reconnects with his exchange counselor, Richard Bates, during the 2015 Rotary International Convention in São Paulo.
It was also there that I first came into contact with the Rotary Youth Exchange program through exchange students who lived in my district. It aroused something inside of me, and I felt an urge to also go away and experience something new. I took part in a youth exchange to Freeport, Bahamas, in District 6990 and it changed my life in so many ways I can’t explain. It is still shaping many of my current decisions. A lot of what I do today is related to the change I went through nine years ago. The exchange opened my eyes to a world bigger than my own neighborhood, city, state, and country. And there was no turning back.
I returned to Brazil with a sense of duty. Rotary impacted my life and I felt I needed to “pay it back” somehow. My mom felt the same way. She even became a Rotarian. I became a member of the Rotex in my district, a group of youth exchange alumni who assist new inbound and outbound students during their exchange, from 2010-15. We hosted five exchange students and received countless others for shorter stays. During carnival, which is a huge event in my hometown of Salvador, exchange students staying in other cities in Brazil would come to our home to experience carnival with Rotary supervisors.
A perfect picture of Rotex, special people, special moments, and lots of laughter.
My sense of needing to give back also prompted me to become a Rotaract member. The club, Salvator-Aratu, is a very active one, and we were able to impact our community in a rather impressive way. Our projects included distributing food to the homeless, supplying hospitals with mattresses, organizing medical clinics, and funding tutoring for public school students. There I made some wonderful memories and friends, with whom I still keep in contact. I guess that’s precisely how I feel about Rotary: it’s a big international family. Among Rotarians, I feel at ease, at home.
In 2015, I decided to attend Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena in Germany to study the European legal system. I participated in the local Rotaract club and met some fascinating people. During my first meeting, I met a lovely girl named Julia, and we’ve been dating for over 2 years now. That’s precisely what amazes me about Rotary: this capacity of bringing people together despite their historical or geographic backgrounds, overcoming cultural barriers and creating this special art of global thinking/belonging.
I’m currently in Brazil and preparing to defend my bachelor’s thesis. I’m not quite sure what is yet to come once I’ve graduated. But one thing I’m sure of: whether in Brazil, Germany, or elsewhere Rotary will always be a part of my life.
North Jackson Rotarians joined with the Rotary Club of Jackson to pack nutritious food packages for the Rise Against Hunger nonprofitat the Sparkman Auditorium of the Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum on Saturday, March 3, 2018. In a three hour shift, the Rotarians packed 30,000 meals.
Rise Against Hunger, formerly Stop Hunger Now, is an international hunger relief non-profit organization that coordinates the packaging and distribution of food and other life-changing aid to people in developing nations. Founded in 1998, Rise Against Hunger mobilizes more than 350,000 volunteers each year to package meals for people in need around the globe. Since 2005, Rise Against Hunger has distributed more than 315,000,000 meals to recipients in 74 countries with a mission to end hunger in our lifetime.
Rise Against Hunger is an international hunger relief agency that seeks to end global hunger by engaging local volunteers. The organization was formed in 1998 by Ray Buchanan, a United Methodist Minister, and began its meal packaging program in 2005. The organizational mission is stated as "Rise Against Hunger is driven by the vision of a world without hunger. Its mission is to end hunger in our lifetime by providing food and life-changing aid to the world’s most vulnerable and creating a global commitment to mobilize the necessary resources."
Part of RiseAgainst Hunger’s mission is to create a global commitment to mobilize the necessary resources to end hunger. Rise Against Hunger works with volunteer groups from communities of faith, corporations, schools and civic clubs to package meals while developing a greater awareness of hunger-related issues. Additionally, Rise Against Hunger engages its supporters to participate in advocacy activities to work toward changing laws, policies, systems and attitudes to end hunger by 2030.R
The assembly process combines rice, soy, dehydrated vegetables and a micronutrient flavoring mix formulated by Kraft Heinz Company Foundation that includes 23 essential vitamins and minerals. Each meal costs 29 cents. The food has a shelf-life of two years. Rise Against Hunger provides over 70% of its meals to support transformational development programs such as school lunch programs, vocational training programs, early childhood development programs, orphanages, and medical clinics. Working with these programs helps enhance lives by giving beneficiaries the opportunity to break the cycle of poverty through education, skills development, and healthcare while also receiving much-needed nutrition.
Relatively new members of the Rotary Club of North Jackson, Erin Rutherford (left) and Jenny Price (right),
made their vocational talks to the club at its March 6, 2018, meeting.
Ms. Rutherford, a native of Vicksburg, is an estate planning attorney with Glover Russell in Jackson, MS. She is a graduate of the University of Mississippi and of the University's School of Law. Ms. Price, originally from Tupelo, is a real estate agent in Jackson. She is a graduate of Mississippi College and worked in education in North Mississippi and at Mississippi College before beginning her real estate career. She also coordinates the club’s Between the Lions program that reads weekly to inner-city Pre-K students. Both Erin and Jenny we raised in Rotary families, so their membership in the club is a natural progression from their fathers. We thank both of these women for their presentations, for their membership in our club, and for what they do for the community.
James (Jamie) Eubanks, Director, Alcoholic Beverage Control Division, MS Dept. of Revenue spoke to the Rotary Club of North Jackson at the club’s February 27, 2018, Meeting. He described the ABC’s operation and said that Mississippi is one of 17 states with ABC divisions. The ABC supplies all of the wine and liquor stores in MS from its Gluckstadt warehouse.
Mr. Eubanks said that he believes the MS operation is the best in the country. The Division has a total of 92 employees and uses two contract delivery companies for deliveries to retailers. ABC puts a 27% markup on products that it distributes.
We thank Mr. Eubanks for his presentation to our club and for his service to the State of Mississippi. He (center) is shown in the accompanying photo with Matt Monsour (left) who introduced him and Club President Witt Ruffin (right).
