In case you missed our April club meeting, here’s a recap.
TriCon will be April 27 – 29 in La Crosse. Several members of our club will be in attendance. Our club will have a booth in House of Friendship explaining how a virtual club works, and our LaClinica project. Changemakers will have our own fun social event at the end of the conference on Saturday. TriCon Tickets are still available if you want to go. 
Cheryl is on the Budapest friendship exchange, and Cathy will join the exchange for part of the time. The Croatia exchange is in September.
Rotarians from Poland will be in our district this summer.
Check out the district website rotary6250.org for more information.
Dwight updated us on our service projects. We are at $9,800 of our $11,000 goal, with a couple more donations on the way. We hope to spread the word and get a few more contributions at TriCon. Even more exciting – other Rotary clubs in LaClinica’s service area are considering other projects that they can work on together. Talk about setting things in motion. Yay service project committee!!!
Our speaker was Dean Ryerson. He recently was on a friendship exchange to Poland, and they focused on helping the Ukrainians. The topic of our meeting was Refugee Resettlement. He was inspired by the Polish people housing Ukrainians.Dean is assisting with the US Refugee Resettlement Program. The Jewish Social Services (JSS) of Madison is the South Central Wisconsin NGO that the US program works with. JSS had heard, through Rotary connections, that Dean had housed international exchange Rotarians before, and asked if he would be willing to help their cause. All of the refugees are fully vetted before they come to the US.
Two refugees from Afghanistan and one from Rwanda have been Dean’s guests, all at different times. All three of them have had varied needs and abilities. One had never seen a car wash, a fast food drive up, or bank drive through. Besides providing housing, Dean helps them get set up, look for a job, and become self-sufficient. Dean does it because Rotarians help people, one person at a time. The presentation was very moving.
Don’t forget about our Happy Hour Tuesday the 18th at 6 pm central. The winner gets $25.