The Bright Future Awards

The Bright Future Award recognizes students from the Appleton schools who have risen above challenging circumstances in their lives to move towards a future filled with hope and promise. Each school selects students for this award.  Award winners have also demonstrated most or all of the following:
 

• Markedly improved school attendance with few absences.
• Increased his/her grade point average of one or more points.
• Exhibited a positive attitude about school, teachers and fellow students.
• Showed responsibility by completing work on time and being dependable.
• Exhibited positive, productive relationships with acceptable conflict resolution activities.
• Successfully involved in a part-time job, co-curricular activities or volunteer community work.
• Has realistic future plans and goals.

The Youth Service and Education Awards Committee presented several area high school students with a Bright Future Award. 

 

Appleton Central – Andy Protheroe

Jordan Michaels

Wylee Meinhardt

Bethany Wallenfang
 

Appleton East  – Brandon Schnese/Kathy Marks

Linda Thao

Tyrell Lee

Vanessa Mendoza
 

Appleton North – Matt Hechel

Alec Behringer

Larrika Elliott

Joe Montcrieff
 

Appleton West – Tracy Guyette

Martin Burch

Maria Godinez

 

Bright Future Award recipients who are seniors and will be attending college, university or technical school in fall of 2014 will also be eligible for a scholarship of up of $500. 

Thanks to the Youth Services and Education Awards Committee for arranging the Youth Recognition Award programs: Ralph DeMarco (Co-Chair), Karen Dorn (Co-Chair), Sonia Barham, Bill Breider, Bret Buxton, Kathy Dreyer, Chris Mings, Martin Rudd, Jeff Werner and Greg Woller.  A special thank you to Fox Valley Technical College and staff members for their donation of printing services and materials. 

 

FAMILY OF ROTARY HAPPY HOUR AT JIM'S PLACE - THURSDAY, APRIL 24

The next Rotary Happy Hour, sponsored by the Family of Rotary Committee, is: Thursday, April 24^th, 2014

Jim’s Place

223 E College Ave, Appleton

5-7 p.m.

Cash Bar    Pizza provided

                               
Bring a spouse, significant other, friend, potential Rotarian – and join us.  See old friends, meet new ones and generally relax and enjoy the camaraderie and conversation.  It’s a great chance to get to know each other better and you also get a make up!      

Nonprofit Roundtable Part 2

The Arc Fox Cities, Inc. – Empowering Youth and Adults with Differing Abilities by using Advocacy, Respect & Concern.  We provide social, recreational, respite and educational services to individuals with developmental disabilities and their families from ages 3 to lifetime.

The Bay-Lakes Council, BSA is the leading youth organization in our service area fostering character development and values-based leadership.  Collaborating with local organizations and working through trained adult mentors, Scouting is fun with a purpose; teaching responsibility, self-reliance, the importance of service to others and develops the leaders of tomorrow.

This mission of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Fox Valley is to inspire and enable all young people, especially those who need us most, to reach their full potential as productive, responsible, and caring citizens.

Community Care's mission is to develop and demonstrate innovative, flexible, community-based approaches to care for at-risk adults, in order to optimize their quality of life and optimize the allocation of community resources.

COTS provides temporary transitional shelter for homeless men, women, young adults and single mother families in Outagamie, Winnebago and Calumet counties. Our goal is to respectfully provide homeless individuals a safe and affordable place to live, food, household needs and training on basic living skills enabling them to transition to self-sufficiency and independent living.

 
The Fox Cities Performing Arts Center is a not for profit cultural/educational organization serving the Greater Fox Cities and Northeast Wisconsin.  Signature programs include a distinguished cultural performance series, a daytime education performance series, community outreach/engagement collaborations and a touring Broadway show series.

Greater Fox Cities Area Habitat for Humanity works each year with over 4,000 volunteers and supporters to help 30 to 50 families build homes, repair homes and obtain homes from lenders through credit counseling.  Our vision is a world "Where everyone has a decent place to live." 

Junior Achievement provides in-school and after-school programs for students which focus on three key content areas: entrepreneurship, financial literacy, and work readiness. The goal is to teach concepts through experiential learning, allowing young people to put their new knowledge and skills into practice.

"Doing The Most Good.” In these four words, the mission of the Salvation Army is to feed, to clothe, to comfort, to care. To rebuild broken homes and broken lives. By walking with the addicted, we can lead them to recovery. In fighting hunger and poverty, we can feed and nurture the spirit. And, in living and sharing the Christian Gospel by meeting tangible needs, we give the world a lasting display of the love behind our beliefs.

The Sexual Assault Crisis Center-Fox Cities, Inc. provides personalized C.A.R.E. for victims of sexual assault, their families, friends, and others affected in our community. By offering Counseling, Advocacy, Resources and Education, we inspire change and instill a sense of hope and healing. Together, we can end sexual violence in the Fox Cities.

Rotary Shines is Friday Night

Rotary Shines will be held Friday night at the OuterEdge from 6:00-10:00 p.m. 

This years event will feature a cork pull featuring fine wines.

The live auction will feature and Entrance 21 Package for 12 guests for Sweet Honey on Tuesday, October 14, 2014 and dinner for 5 with "Chef to the World's Famous" Michael Congrove. 

 

Protagoras Takes on the Universe

Al White, Professor of Philosophy at U. W. Manitowoc, tried to explain our relative significance in terms of exponents.  If you had $1,000 or 10³, it would take 17 minutes to spend $1 per second. If you received 10⁶ or $1,000.000 it could last a lifetime or if you had to spend $1 per second it would take just short of 12 days.  If you had 10⁹ or $1,000,000,000, it would take just under 32 years to spend $1 per second. It is a matter of distribution of cash.  If a billionaire donated $1 million to charity, it's the same as $1 out of a 1,000.  The number of grains of sand on an average mile stretch of beach is about 10¹⁷ or a 100,000 trillion.  There are about 10,000 miles of coastal beach in the world - so about a billion trillion (10²¹) grains of sand on the beaches of earth.  It is estimated from the number of galaxies we see that there are around a trillion trillion (10²⁴⁾ stars.  That is the number of grains of sand on the beaches of a 1,000 earths. Now pick up one grain of sand (the sun) and take a microscope to look at the tiny mite on it. Breathe on the mite to produce a film of condensation.  All the life we know on earth exists as in that film on the mite, on the one grain of sand among the grains of sand of the beaches of 1,000 earths.  When you think about it, this is our relative significance.   Intelligent life exists on earth (and possibly elsewhere) and we can conceive how just insignificant we really are. 

Is there a conflict between science and religion?

Steve Savides, Pastor at First Congregational United Church of Christ, discussed about how he was talking about the Creation stories in the book of Genesis in confirmation class when one of the confirmands came out with this statement, "I don't believe in God.  I believe in evolution."  How did she ever get the idea that it was a matter of either/or?  God or evolution?   Faith or science?  There are many voices that frame the matter in precisely that way, from those fundamentalist Christian friends who insist that Creationism or (its latter day cousin Intelligent Design) be taught in public school classrooms to Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist and evangelist of Atheism.  Both of these voices insist that science and faith cannot co-exist: one voice, the voice of reason or the voice of faith, must drown out the other.  There are many today who believe science and religion cannot peacefully co-exist and that believe there is an inherent conflict between the two.  It’s important to note that this conflict model of the relationship between religion and science is actually a very recent development.  The writers of Genesis did not view science and religion as being in conflict.  They wrote their poems of creation as works of art and theological reflection without concern for their scientific accuracy.  The wisdom writers of the Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Job, used thoughtful observation of and reflection upon the order of nature as a source of theological truth.  To look upon the world, to them, was to see the presence and workings of God.  Jesus in his teaching clearly carried on in that very same wisdom tradition.  The early church learned to embrace the science of the Greeks, the cosmology of Aristotle, and see them as being helpful, even indispensable tools on the Christian journey. The church saw science and religion as complimentary, not in conflict.  There are two specific historical moments, however, when a very serious conflict between science and religion arose.  Those moments, both relatively recent, have birthed the “conflict model” of the relationship between science and religion.   The first came with the scientist Galileo, who defended the Copernican discovery that the earth in fact revolves around the sun rather than the sun revolving around the earth.  Bertolt Brecht’s wrote in the play “Life of Galileo" how science and religion are inherently in conflict.  Brecht wrote from the other side of Darwin and the Scopes Monkey trial, the second major historical event that led many to see this conflict.  It really wasn’t until the 19^th Century that this so-called “conflict model” arose.  It’s a very recent idea that science and religion cannot peacefully co-exist.   In my own congregation, we have been led by the thoughtful reflections of David Cook, a distinguished and retired Lawrence professor of physics who views religion and science as complementary rather than contradictory.  It’s David’s testimony, the biblical testimony, and the testimony of our own faith history that has led us to declare ourselves a church open to science.   How about building a relationship between science and religion, reason and faith, that is founded on mutual respect and shared humility? Could we all be open to that?

WISCONSIN'S APPROACH TO OPERATIONALIZING THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

Department of Health Services Deputy Secretary Kevin Moore talked about how BadgerCare Plus is Wisconsin's Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance program.  BadgerCare Plus provides coverage for approximately 750,000 people each month.  Wisconsin also provides Medicaid and related health coverage for an additional 400,000 people per month.  The objectives of BadgerCare Plus Reform are to ensure that every resident has access to health insurance, create a Medicaid program that is sustainable, reduce reliance upon government health insurance,  maintain the healthcare safety net for those who need it most, reduce the number of uninsured nonelderly adults in our state, encourage consumers to be active participants in their healthcare and simplify the Medicaid program by providing a standard of comprehensive benefits that will lead to improved healthcare outcomes.  About 40,000 children have access and are eligible for BadgerCare but they are not signed up.  Prior to today, Medicaid eligibility was for children, pregnant women, parents/caretakers relatives and childless adults.  The three main drivers of Medicaid spending are mental health, substance abuse and dental.  BadgerCare and the program changes include providing the same benefits under BadgerCare in addition to all adults living in poverty for the first time in Wisconsin history, continue to cover pregnant women and children up to 300% FPL and provide a standard set of benefits to everyone on BadgerCare Plus.  In Wisconsin, Medicaid costs $7.2 billion per year and of that $4.4 billion is federal monies.  The federal government told states that if they don’t expand coverage to those at 133% of federal poverty level that they would not get funds for Medicaid.  It was determined that states could decide if they wanted to expand or not.  Wisconsin chose not to expand but to still provide Medicaid.  According to the Kaiser Family Foundation as of April 1, 2014, Wisconsin is the only state in the nation to have no gap in coverage and not expand Medicaid.  Everyone in Wisconsin can have access to Medicaid or get subsidies. Due to the healthcare.gov issues experienced after the initial launch, Governor Walker requested that the Wisconsin legislature approve delaying the BadgerCare Plus Reform changes until April 1, 2014.  Wisconsin’s outreach and transition strategy was to leverage Milwaukee to create an enrollment network model structure, create regional enrollment networks through the state with regional partners, provide appointment and enrollment assistance, mobilize local grassroots resources to assistant people in gaining healthcare coverage and focus on providing information.  The Wisconsin transition infrastructure includes navigators, regional enrollment networks and insurance agents to help pick the right product/plan.  For more information, go to http://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/health-care/index.htm or if you would like to see the PowerPoint presentation please contact Lisa Weiner at lweiner@new.rr.com and she will forward it to you.