Tom Pastor opened the meeting with the Pledge of allegiance and MaryAnn Bawden presented the Invocation.
President Gerry Tietz announced that we are strengthening our relationship with Life Prep Academy by making the organization one of the options for Fund-A-Cause at the Gold Plate Dinner.
Ed James had to leave early but he left a packet of well-wishes for the hurricane victims in Houston from the Irondale students who helped with our recent Harvest Pack event. Ed will be forwarding the cards and letters along with the Harvest Pack food packets to the Houston area as part of the relief effort for flood ravaged areas in Texas. It was also noted that a connection has been made between Ralph Reeder Food Shelf and Harvest Pack, and that the food shelf will be able to use some of the food we packed as well.
The membership expressed their gratitude to Beverly Aplikowski for hosting our annual holiday at her home again this year. Everyone had a great time.
Beverly noted that she has our Gold Plate Dinner tickets, and members present received their tickets. If you missed today’s meeting, see Bev for your tickets.
Paul Fournier reminded us of the choir concert to support the Community Support Center which will be held on January 28th from 2-3PM at Abiding Savior Lutheran Church, 8211 Red Oak Drive, New Brighton. Be there to show your support for the valuable work that CSC does in our community.
Paul also announced the 4th anniversary of his 21st birthday. Wow!
Cindy Carlson announced that Life Prep Academy’s dormitory is nearly ready to house 16 homeless high school students. Cindy passed the cup for donations today and will do so again next week. L.P.A. students will have a variety of needs which you can check out by clicking here and scrolling down to the Dorm and School Needs List.
Jason Slama will be taking a Polar Plunge to benefit Special Olympics. See Jason to sponsor him or click here to sponsor him online. His team name is Slippy Longsocks.
Tom Pastor introduced our speakers, Sam Stoffels and Jeff Peltola, from Engineers Without Borders, Minnesota. Engineers Without Borders (EWB) is a non-profit humanitarian organization established to provide planning, engineering and construction support for community driven development programs worldwide (think Doctors Without Borders for infrastructure). Sam and Jeff are members of the Minnesota Professional Chapter of the EWB-USA, which was established in Denver, Colorado 18 years ago. The organization has grown to 17,000 members in 280 chapters across the U.S. Student chapters account for 72% of total membership, while Professional chapters have the remaining 28%. The key to EWB’s approach is that the projects are community driven and also that EWB chapters must make a 5 year commitment to each project to ensure project success and sustainability. They have assisted with projects in 42 countries so far and the most common projects are water projects. The chapter’s current project is a water supply project in Santa Rosa Senca, El Salvador. The Santa Rosa Senca has the somewhat unique problem of having too much water pressure in some of the water lines which causes frequent burst pipes and water supply outages. EWB’s proposed solution is strategic placement of two adjustable pressure reduction valves in the system to reduce pressures and prevent future burst pipes. These valves are expensive at $2,700 each, but much less expensive than the alternative which would involve building pressure reduction reservoirs along the supply lines. The implementation trip for installation of the valves is scheduled for mid April, 2018 and the group’s fundraising efforts have left them just $600 short of their $10,500 total financial need. Sam Stoffels can be contacted at Stoffels88@gmail.com. The chapter website is www.ewb-mn.org. Tom, Sam and Jeff are shown below.
