The meeting was called to order by Barb. The greeter was David Birkenstein, and Moha filled in for Rich on the Zoom equipment. There were 12 members present and 4 on Zoom in addition to our speaker. Bill Leske introduced his guest John Stachura who has a cleaning business, Fish Window Cleaning, located in Northfield with his office phone being 847-446-2500.
THOUGHT: Moha did the Thought of the Day which was certainly applicable to Barb and other Club members who do substantial volunteer work—it was that volunteers receive little if any pay, not because they are “worthless” but because they are “priceless”.
There have been several March birthdays including Moha, Rodger Morris, Monica Dombrowski, Bill Leske, Todd Stephens and Rich Lalley. Marie Kuipers has been a Club member for 9 years.
HAPPY BUCKS: were given by Moha for being able to celebrate another birthday; by Barb for not having Covid during the last week while suffering cold and flu symptoms; and by Robert who is looking forward to attending the Chicago Cubs opener at friendly (but potentially cold) Wrigley Field! Matt Butler did a nice job on Dig-n-Grin.
SPEAKER: Barb introduced our speaker Brian Leverenz who has been with the New Trier Township Food Pantry (herein FP) for over 25 years. He received an immediate round of applause for handing out to his audience a very detailed outline of his presentation and facts about the community services provided by New Trier Township (herein NTT), to whom, and sources of financial support to pay for such services. (His outline is attached hereto and these minutes will refer to parts of that outline in making additional comments herein.)
Regarding paragraph II of the outline -- the number of “working poor” is substantial even in NTT; seniors on fixed incomes make up a growing share of those using the FP and inflation in prices of food and energy have hit these people hard, especially with the price of wheat-based food increasing substantially due to the lower production of wheat in Russia and Ukraine, the slowdown of shipping due to the supply chain problems, and the amount of money our government has poured into the economy over the last several years; more employers have cut back on health insurance benefits for those employees being laid off from their jobs; the number of people suffering disability and disease seems to be increasing and lasting longer with about 75% of FP users falling in this category; NT cannot mandate that users with drug and alcohol problems be treated as a condition of receiving FP goods; families suffering divorce situations are hard hit due to less income and child support payments and often the family is living above its means; and the domestic violence problem tends to occur with higher income couples.
Regarding paragraphs III and IV of the outline—the FP annual budget runs about $100,000 and that money is used mostly to buy meat, produce, dairy and some paper goods. About 85% of non-perishable items are donated and the FP could not operate without the substantial donations from individuals and such groups as churches, schools, and other not for profits. It does not receive much, if any, funding from the State of Illinois or the Greater Chicago Food Depository. FP gets a bulk of its donations between September to April, but its biggest expenditures are in the summer.
Brian answered many questions from the audience and it was the consensus that we need to have him return to further inform us about the FP activities and needs, as well as what the NTT is doing in the “restorative justice”, “Peer Jury” and “Angel Fund” areas.
Barb led us in the Rotary 4 Way Test and the meeting was adjourned around 1:30pm.
Link to Brian's outline: https://portal.clubrunner.ca/2417/Documents/en-us/d9c613c0-bcdf-47c0-bbb5-b76917eddcba/1/
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