Our next regular meeting will be Friday (12/30) at Newcastle Place - 12600 N. Port Washington Road, Mequon, WI  53092.

On Thursday 10 November we joined leaders, shared ideas and took action on what we want our club to look like in 2021.

We had a great cross section of members based on age, gender, profession and Rotary experience. These are all of the ideas that came forth from our Visioning Session participants. These were recorded on wall charts and then we voted on our favorites. in each category. Afterwards these wall charts were complied by Connie and then I shared the top 3 or 4 from each category at last week’s meeting.

Using this information we will work on our club’s mission and vision statement at this Friday’s meeting. This will be followed by a strategic planning meeting in early 2017.

The greeter will provide either the thought, a Rotary minute, share a family moment or a cultural tradition ... anything they would like to start off the day positive.

Upcoming "It's your Rotary moment" assignees:

• Alice Sedgwick (12/30)
• Rene Settle-Robinson (1/6)

Note: If you are unable to to act as "It's your Rotary moment" assignee when scheduled please arrange for your replacement.

Visit our website at mtsunriserotary.org.

Dear Members of the Mequon Thiensville Sunrise Rotary,

Thank you so much for your recent very generous donation of $3,000 to support the work of the Guatemala Medical Resources Partnership in Guatemala. Your continuing support of this mission is so vital and so very much appreciated, as are the team members that you are supporting! We are very excited to be planning our 13th trip for January of 2017 and are glad to have you as a partner in this humanitarian effort.

Our trip in January of 2016 was GMRP’s 12th mission to bring medical, dental and vision care to the people of Oliveros, Guatemala. Although each of our volunteer doctors, dentists, interpreters and helpers pays over $1,000 of their own money for transportation, room and board, it is up to donors like you--Rotary Clubs, churches and other organizations, and caring people--to fund the cost of the clinic itself and to pay for continuing surgical care for patients after we leave.

We are so grateful for your choosing to donate to our ongoing GMRP mission and Continuing Care Project. I hope you will take pride in knowing that your gi  is helping to maintain and improve the health of the rural poor in Guatemala and change lives for the better.

Please visit our website www.gmrp.org to see a short video and learn many more interesting facts about our mission and its work. Remember we are always looking for more medical providers and interpreters to  fill out our team and appreciate your spreading the word among your members and acquaintances.

Once again, many thanks for your loving hearts and generous help,

Barbara O’Connell, Financial Secretary, GMRP

There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth anew each day: we have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life. - Eric Hoffer

Homestead student recognized in prestigious competition

Homestead High School senior Katherine Cao and her team were awarded $20,000 in the national finals of the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology on Dec. 6 in Washington, D.C.

Cao’s team won its regional in mid-November at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. Six teams advanced from regionals to the finals, where awards ranged from $10,000 to $100,000.

Cao’s team includes two other students hailing from California and New York. Their collaborative project is entitled “Characterizing Novel, Spun-Cast PLA/Polystyrene Substrates of Differential Nanoscale Surface Topographies and Optimizing Cell-Plating Density to Promote Dental Pulp Stem Cell Proliferation and Differentiation in vitro.”

“Katie has been an outstanding student and leader at Homestead throughout her three-and-a-half years here, and it gives us a great deal of pride to see her do so well at a national level,” said Brett Bowers, principal of Homestead. “Katie deserves a lot of credit for all the hard work and dedication she has displayed throughout this competition.”

The team’s project examined new ways of controlling stem cells using biomaterials, even developing a new method that alters the surface topography on which dental pulp stems cells may be cultured. This allows cells to grow into bone and regenerate teeth.

Cao says her parents, who are both immigrants, inspired her to pursue research in this area because they have suffered from dental problems due to inadequate care and limited treatment options they experienced as children. She met her teammates through the Garcia Summer Program at Stony Brook University in New York.

As a student at Homestead, Cao’s favorite subject is chemistry, and she has served as varsity captain of the debate team and president of the school’s service club. She aims to embark on a career as an entrepreneur in the life sciences.