When: We meet Friday mornings from 7:00 AM to 8:00 AM.
Where: Our next meeting is Friday (7/8) will be at the Mequon Public Market, 6300 W Mequon Rd, Mequon, WI 53092.
Program: Our program this Friday will feature Andrew Struck, Director of the Planning and Parks Department for Ozaukee County.
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 (7/8)
Rene Settle-Robinson (7/15)
Cindy Shaffer (7/22)
Fr. Mike Shay (7/29)
Note: If you are unable to act as "It's your Rotary moment" assignee when scheduled please arrange for your replacement.
Getting up for a 7:00 AM Rotary meeting is no problem for me since I was out in the barn helping Dad milk the cows at 5:00 AM all through high school! Being one of three daughters, and no one wanted the farm, it was quickly sold when my Dad passed. Coming from a family of teachers, it was natural that I follow suit. Actually taught in a country school with 35 students in all 8 grades and that was a challenge! Followed that with several years of teaching grades 4-6 in Neenah and Mequon while earning my Master's in Library Science. After several years at the Manitowoc Public Library I was hired as the Director of the Weyenberg Library here in Mequon-Thiensville and retired in 1998 after 20 wonderful years.
I enjoy traveling and have enjoyed numerous adventures both through Rotary and 4-H programs. I have attended Rotary World Conferences including Portugal and So. Korea. I also led a Rotary Group Study Exchange to So. Korea. The 4-H program has taken me to many exotic places as well and have led young 4-H groups to Japan twice. Again, their many world conferences have been enjoyed by me and Steve over the years.
Reading is still my first love and I belong to 3 book discussion groups so that takes care of my "spare time" along with some gardening. A recent book I read had the following quote by Audrey Hepburn "To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow" and that seems to fit my current lifestyle.
While I am "winding down" my activities with Rotary after 27 years, I hope to continue to support MT Sunrise Rotary local efforts as best I can. I enjoy the weekly meetings and the contacts with our members.
Top: Welcoming our newest member Ben Zang. (From left: Brian Monroe, Ben Zang, Cori Guerin - Club President and Matt Wolak - Ben's Sponsor)
Bottom left: And the weekly wine drawing winner for the second week in a row is Elisabeth Burschel a former Rotary exchange student from Bielefeld, Germany. (Pictured with Connie Pukaite)
Bottom right: Dave Schlageter leads a planning session for our upcoming AROUND THE WORLD WITH ROTARY fundraiser.
When Lindy Knowles thinks back to his childhood in the Bahamas, a particular tree is the backdrop of the best memories: the mangrove. Spindly, with twisted roots, mangroves thrive in tidal areas around the islands, including a creek near his grandmother’s house. Knowles learned to fish among the forests, which are home to conch, lobsters, and a variety of fish; he learned to swim in the calm waters around the trees, with those roots buffering him from ocean waves.
For a kid like Knowles, mangroves meant adventure. But for coastal communities like those in the Bahamas, mangroves mean stability and protection. They’re a safe harbor for hundreds of creatures. And they help protect communities from threats associated with climate change, including worsening storms, rising sea levels, and erosion.
They’re important for those living far from a coastline, too: Mangrove forests are an important tool in combating climate change. The mangrove ecosystem has a superior ability compared with other forests when it comes to storing carbon, and that can help slow the warming of the planet.
But mangroves are disappearing. When Knowles, now 37, looks around the islands, he can see beach houses, condos, hotels, and parking lots where mangroves used to be. “We do like marinas,” he says. The island of New Providence, for example, has lost an estimated 57 percent of its mangroves since the 1940s, mainly to development. Mangroves have also been devastated by hurricanes. In 2019, Hurricane Dorian damaged an estimated 73 percent of the mangroves on Grand Bahama and 40 percent on the Abaco Islands. And the Bahamas is in no way unique: Studies indicate that between 1980 and 2000, at least 35 percent of the world’s mangroves were destroyed.
By Raquel D’Garay-Juncal, president of the Rotary Club of Worldwide Impact (District 1550) and a member of The Rotary Foundation Cadre of Technical Advisers
In June, I had the chance to revisit with Brett Morey of Surfers Unite Rotarian Fellowship and review all of the exciting activities the fellowship has been up to.
I first met Brett at the Rotary International Conference in Atlanta back in 2017 when he was strolling through the House of Friendship with a surfboard under his arm. Brett, a native San Diegan and Past President of the Rotary Club of La Jolla Golden Triangle, recalls that the moment we met “I knew we’d become friends and that we needed her on board.”
A native of Mexico with family in neighboring Tijuana, I was living in Costa Rica at the time. I connected Brett with my former Rotary e-Club to speak about the new Rotary Fellowship, not only to make Rotary cool but to create opportunities for the family of Rotary to support other nonprofits around the globe while engaging the surf community.
I volunteered for several events and have seen this Fellowship grow from 190 people to over 1,000 members in 35 countries. A list of all the events Surfers Unite is running in Southern California, Hawaii, Florida, Australia, etc., is listed on their website as well as a Gear Store that includes some awesome Dri-Fit shirts, sweatshirts, hats, stickers, and more.
My boyfriend and I live in the Netherlands and just chartered a new non-traditional Rotary e-club, the Rotary Club of World Impact, that focuses on social outcomes and seeks partnerships with fellowships, action groups, and other Rotary clubs to provide our members with more significant opportunities to make an impact in our communities.
Brett and his fiancé have enormous plans for RICON23 in Melbourne, including a StandUp Paddle Board event for End Polio Now. Surfers Unite just put Rotary in front of 17,000 people at the 2022 Switchfoot BroAM, which included a full day of surf contests, surf jousting, and over 5 hours of live music, raising over $200,000 for at-risk youth organizations.
"Harnessing the Power of our Transformational Will”
Our story is one of many who journey to a new land in the hope that our life will be better than the one we would have led if we stayed in our homelands. It is the story of the immigrant and the "American Dream" Only thing was that our American Dream was severely interrupted on August 5, 2012 when a white-supremacist Neo-Nazi skinhead entered our most sacred spiritual center and killed 7 worshippers that day, one of them being my father and Temple President, Satwant Singh Kaleka.
While this attack at our most vulnerable devastated our small minority community, it also galvanized us and connected us to a broader spiritual community and taught us the importance of not letting this “Dream’ die. This transformation however did not happen over-night. We engaged in a process of communal healing in an effort to teach the world that we are more than what happens to us.
In collective grief, we realized that healing is both individual and communal. I also learned that in order to heal, we must be lovingly challenged to get to a better space. The man who challenged my personal trauma was the most unlikely ally, Arno Michaelis, the man who started the skinhead Neo-Nazi organization that the shooter pledged allegiance to. The greatest lesson that I learned from Arno is that “hurt people, hurt people,” because pain that is not processed is either transferred or consumed. This understanding allowed for a forgiveness to settle in my heart which in turn allowed me to be free and regain power over my life.
Today, I am a husband, a father of 4 beautiful children, a community leader, trauma therapist, author, and Director of the Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee. It is clear that our journey to a post traumatic America, whether individual or communal, requires a process of co-creating healing through the "transformational will" that lives in us all.
Biography(please shorten as you see fit)
Pardeep Kaleka is the executive director of the Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee, a de-radicalization expert, and a trauma-focused clinical therapist. As a first-generation immigrant from India, Mr. Kaleka has spent more than 20 years in the public arenas of law enforcement, education, and social services. He has worked on issues of violence prevention and coalition-building across ethnic, racial and religious cultures, and has helped trauma survivors and perpetrators with recovery. As a consultant he has developed policies and practices to help mental health workers, social service practitioners, law enforcement agents, and educators build healthier, safer, more inclusive communities. He is the author of, “The Gifts of Our Wounds” and award-winning community columnist on community health.
In 2012, following the hate killings at the Oak Creek Sikh Temple, he founded Serve2Unite, an organization nationally recognized for bridging school and community groups. Today, he helps families steer their loved ones away from domestic and foreign violent extremism as a clinician with Parents4Peace and works towards building faith and cultural inclusivity. He has spoken on the rise of hate in America and the need for community prevention strategies to mitigate threats.
Actually taught in a country school with 35 students in all 8 grades and that was a challenge! Followed that with several years of teaching grades 4-6 in Neenah and Mequon while earning my Master's in Library Science. After several years at the Manitowoc Public Library I was hired as the Director of the Weyenberg Library here in Mequon-Thiensville and retired in 1998 after 20 wonderful years. 
