Stories
Club Meeting Information

Our next meeting will be Friday (10/25) at Newcastle Place 12600 N Port Washington Rd, Mequon, WI 53092.

Pennies for Polio - Club members this is Polio Plus month and every penny counts toward eradication of this disease. Please bring your spare change to the meeting. Our goal for the club is $2500 you the year!

Our program for this meeting will feature Mark Schmitz - Director of CCES Concordia’s Aquaponics System. (Scroll down for bio)

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:

  • Kenneth Stelpflug (10/25)
  • Lynn Streeter (11/1)
  • Jennifer Sutherland (11/8)
  • Lee Szymborski (11/15)

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

Visit our website at mtsunriserotary.org.

Thought of the Week

The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me. ~ Ayn Rand

Member Spotlight - Kenny Stelpflug

Where did you grow up? Clarkston Michigan

What did you want to be when you grew up? I wanted to be a Marine Biologist until I graduated from Highschool. I went to the  University of Wisconsin Milwuakee to become a Nurse. During nursing school I transferred majors to Healthcare Administration and minored in Business. I was on the Exec board for a business fraternity Delta Sigma Pi where I lead the marketing team and was responsible for policies and procedures for 3 years. I also was a collegiate D1 Athlete and swam distance for UWM.

What do I do now? Today I am the manager for two assisted living buildings (one in Wauwatosa and one in Mequon).  I manage the care and operations for all departments in the buildings. 

What most people do not know about me? I am the owner of a commercial real-estate company back in Michigan. The company currently operates 4 offices/supply shops and a mechanic shop. Real-estate development is something I stumbled upon and have been learning and growing ever since. We have plans to expand the current company over the next several years, maybe bringing business to Wisconsin.

In Yonkers, New York, a new basketball court four years in the making provides valuable life lessons to the community’s kids — and its adults

By Bryan Smith - The Rotarian November 2019

You hear the miracle before you see it. Shouts, laughter, the “thump!” “ping!” of bouncing basketballs colliding with a chain-link fence. The pounding of running feet, the shrill peal of whistles, the cries of encouragement.

“Nice job.”

“Pass and go.”

“You got this!”

Thump! Ping! Thump! Ping!

Only then do you glimpse the court, the long rectangle of brilliant blue and orange — the colors of the NBA’s New York Knicks — at Morningside Avenue and High Street in Yonkers, New York. Its surface glimmers like sheet cake in the bright sun.

And finally, the kids: short, tall, skinny, plump. They wear glasses and pigtails, silver-mesh headbands and multicolored T-shirts. They joke and smile as they run up and down the immaculate court, its regulation length bracketed at each end with an NBA-quality breakaway backboard. It’s as if they had been playing here their entire childhood.

Yet four years ago, the possibility that this picture-book basketball court might one day exist in a corner of Yonkers must have seemed as remote as the spires of downtown Manhattan, visible through the early summer haze some 15 miles south. Even a few months ago, the basketball court here at John Barton Memorial Park was a buckled concrete mess of cracks and pebbles and broken glass, splotched with clumps of sprouting grass and littered with discarded drug paraphernalia. During downpours, the rain would pool into a small lake, which left a coating of dirt and debris as it dried.

A Rotary LOL Moment

Frank and Ernest by Thaves

Creating a family-friendly vibe with your Rotary club

By Anabella Bonfa, Rotary Club of Irvine, California, USA, with Anthony Bonfa

My husband and I and our teenage son Anthony all volunteer at 30 or more projects every year. We consider ourselves a Rotary family. All three of us are hands-on because we come from a smart club that engaged our son in Rotary projects at a young age.

We all enjoy Rotary because it gives us a joint activity where we can spend time together with mutual friends, contribute our individual talents, and create a better world. My club went out of their way to include Anthony from day one. This is how he explains it:

“My first experience with Irvine Rotary was when I was 9. My mom had just joined the club and she started taking me to every volunteer project with her. I didn’t know what to do to help at first. Don Kennedy was the president of the club that first year and he changed everything for me by putting me to work.

“I remember being at a local food drive where we were collecting food donations outside a grocery store. Don reached into his pocket, pulled out $40 and told me to go shop in the store for “food samples” to put on our display table. That same day, Don told me I was old enough to count all the money and checks, about $400 worth and I became his official accountant. I had a great time shopping and counting money as you can see in the photo (right).

Read more...
Want to learn more about the causes we support? Check out these videos:
Online Version
Upcoming Speakers
Nov 01, 2019
All of Us Research Program
All of Us Research Program

I am a physician and researcher at the Medical College of Wisconsin. I am very interested in widely disseminating information about the National Institutes of Health All of Us Research Program. It is part of the Precision Medicine Initiative. This initiative seeks to carry out research that will help make healthcare more personalized by tailoring healthcare more precisely to each person’s unique biology, environment and behavior. The All of Us Research Program wants to enroll a million or more persons around the country as partners in this effort. 

Nov 08, 2019
From Nuns to Pastors, I Have Worked With Both, The 42 Year Journey with Concordia In Between
Nov 15, 2019
Project ADAM
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