Welcoming Bob Morris as our 2020-21 Club President

This years "changing of the guard" was very different form those held in past years as the ceremony was done remotely due to the current COVID-19 pandmeic and our concerns about trying to ensure the safety and health of our members and thier families.

After our opening prayer, pledge and Four Way Test ceremony, outgoing president Jeff Revak covered several items of old business. 

He them swore in Bob Morris, a life-long Rotarian, one of the Club's founders and its first president, serving from 2006 – 2008.

Bob they gave oath to the the incoming memebrs of the Club's Board.  The names of our Board, together with our Committee Chairs and Membership, can be viewed on the "Officers, Board, ActivityChairs and Membership" page of our web site.

Bob and many Club members present during today's Zoom meeting gave Jeff kudos and thanks for his work over the past two years of his presidnecy … and then wished Bob good luck for the year ahead!

 

 

 

 

Ava Richards – Our March Student-of-the-Month

Due to the school closures and state-mandated even local travel restrictions until now we had been unable to present our March and AprilMaple Point Middle School Student-of-the-Month awards. 

The good news is that yesterday afternoon, the CLlub was able to present our March recipient, Ava Richards, with her Certificate of Recognition.  Previoulsy, her $100 scholarship check had been previously mailed to her.

Augie Adrid, Student Chair, presenting a Certificate of Recognition to Ava

In talking with Ava, in addition to earning superior grades throughout her middle school years, she has been active in dance, plays the viola in the school orchestra, is a member of the choir.  Ava also has volunteered at he concession stand and in other capacities at Neshaminy High School football games and has worked with the high school’s Interact (a Rotary affiliate) club.

When she begins her high school career, Ava plans to focus on math and science courses and has long-range visions of one day posibly becoming a nuclear engineer or a forensic security expert.

 

Stephanie Teoli Kuhls (Middletown Township Manager) – Spoke to the Club

Stephanie Teoli Kuhls, our community's township Manager joined our weekly virtual meeting this morning, together with 14 members of our Club. 

Stephanie is celebrating her 8th anniversary in that position after previous municipal stints in Lancaster Countyr, and both Hatfield and Upper Makefield in Bucks, spanning some 25 years.

She talked about the Township with roughly 46,000 residents and a police force of 69 officers.  Middletown also has other emergency services including its Fire Department, Rescue Squad and Emergency Services personnel.

Much of the time Stephanie updated the Club on how it has handled the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The Township management first heard about COVID-19 in January and immediately took steps to prepare for a potential pandemic.  During February it ordered supplies of Personal Protection Equipment.  Plans were made to prepare for the continuation of essential Township services as well as the continuation of other services affecting the community residents.

On March 13th, pursuant to the Governor's orders, Middletown went into a shutdown, shelter-in-place mode.  By week two, a member of the police department tested positive for the virus.  Stephanie than praised Police Joseph Bartorilla for the efficient and professional way it and other challenges the police department has faced during the past three have been handled.

Despite receiving "mixed messages" from federal state and county governments, Middletown set its own course and began testing by the 8th and 9th days.  Non-essential administrative Township personnel were placed on leave.  Further, due to the immediate steps taken after learning of teh virus in January, some laptops had been acquired which enabled the Township to begin remote working well in advance of many other communities. 

Soon thereafter, virtual public meetings became possible as well as some virtual exercise classes such as yoga, stretching and platies.

In a proactive effort to maintain as many community services as possible and keep the residents informed, the Township enhanced its on-line website presence.

 

adding a new "MTGO" button

through which residents could communicate with the appropriate Township department and personnel,

describing down to a specific property, if necessary,

and include photos where appropriate.

The site was also customizable for the benefit and accessibility of residents.

As the Commonwealth began its reopening, the Township Supervisors provided other links designed to provide Residents

information about what was changing

and Businesses

with proper guidelines.

In addition, and to proactively assist particularly smaller companies, it has provided banners, signs and other materials which those companies many not have otherwise been able to afford.

Looking ahead, on June 26th Bucks County is scheduled to go into the GREEN zone, opening nearly everything (although organized basketball is still not open in Middletown).  The Township's summer camp program which usually enrolls 500 children will only be able to take some 100 this summer, with 50 having signed up thus far.

To date, Middletown has experienced 530 cases of COVID-19, due, in part, to the number of nursing homes in the Township.

Throughout the pandemic, Middletown has collaborated with the County and neighboring communities to share resources , actions and ideas.

As the Neshaminy School District and Carin University are separate entitles, Stephanie did not have any specific details as to their plans for opening and how to comply with the challenges of masking and social distancing. 

Stephanie also mentioned that the toll of the pandemic will impact the Township, although its AAA bond rating indicates that it was in good shape financially going into the shutdown.

She next touched on the actions the community took in the face of the Black Lives Matter and related demonstrations and isolate looting.  The Middletown police took preventative actions to station officers around the mall and barricade the entrances.  As a result, the Oxford Valley Mall was the only one in the area to avoid any damage or looting.  Target and the many local car dealerships, as potential targets, were also monitored.

Stephanie also shared that Middletown police department ranks in heh top 10% of the some 1,100 Pennsylvania communities.  There is a triannual peer review for th edepartment.  However, every Middletown police officer is required to take 8 hours of training in the use of force, race relations, LBGTQ relations, implicit bias, de-escalation training and crisis management.

It was an information-packed presentation and for those members who live in Middletown, a positive reassurance that the Supervisors and Township Departments are preforming in the best interests of the community and its residents.

 

 

 

First Annual Phil Huber Memorial Scholarship Award

On behalf of the Rotary Club of Shady Brook, Mark Nath was privileged to present Kelli Kowalick, a graduating senior at Neshaminy High School, with the club’s annual scholarship award, this year being renamed the Phil Huber Memorial Scholarship in honor and memory of our friend, fellow Rotarian and club member Phil Huber; whose family's generous donations helped increase the value of this year’s scholarship.

The presentation included a Certificate of Accomplishment and Recognition and a $2,500 cash scholarship award.

Mark and Kelli briefly removed their masks for the presentation

Neshaminy seniors are eligible to apply for the club’s scholarship highlighting their academic, extracurricular and community accomplishments.  Kelli’s in-and-out of school accomplishments set her apart from a very impressive number of other applicants.

Kelli finished first in her graduating class with a 4.68 weighted-GPA while taking 12 Advanced Placement courses, dual-enrollment classes with Gwynedd Mercy and an extra class instead of lunch.  She was a member of the National Honor Society, the Future Business Leaders of America, the Interact Club (Rotary-affiliated organization), Model UN, and the French National Honor Society. 

She was a four-year varsity letter winner on both the girls’ soccer and basketball teams, on which she was a co-captain.  Kelli was also named to the All-SOL first team in soccer and second All-Bucks County team in basketball. 

Kelli's community activities were focused on the Days for Girls International Organization (“DfG”) and its Langhorne Chapter where they made reusable menstrual care kits that were distributed worldwide to girls in less developed counties and locally where the need existed.  Each kit provides three years of sustainable menstrual care products, sparing environmental waste and empowering young girls to spend additional hours in school they would otherwise miss without such supplies.

During this year’s COVID-19 pandemic, Days for Girls converted their operations to making masks for essential workers and everyday people.  They made more than 22,000 masks since the quarantine began; donating 300 masks weekly to St. Christopher’s Pediatric Hospital in North Philadelphia and also to nurses and medical staff at St. Mary’s and St Francis hospitals, local medical offices and assisted living facilities, Langhorne postal workers and members of the community. 

Kelli increased her commitment to this cause during the pandemic, often working daily, ironing fabric, tracing and cutting masks, driving to deliver and picking-up supplies from their stitchers/cutters and delivering masks.  In just the past two weeks, Kelli delivered 100 masks and 120 DfG kits to the African Family Health Organization in Philadelphia.

With her Interact Club, she helped make blankets for homeless teens, baked cookies for holiday baskets, made Christmas boxes for children in Africa, wrote “Thank you” letters to military veterans serving overseas and helped pull together the Disney gear to accompany the student they sponsored for a trip to Disney last year.  When a school crossing guard was struck by a car, Kelli prompted her Interact Club to put together a well-care package for him.

Kelli volunteered at Red Cross blood drives hosted at the Neshaminy High School and donated annually to the Breathing Room Foundation by sponsoring Christmas gifts for families with a member suffering from cancer.

Over this year’s President’s Day weekend Kelli recruited her basketball teammates to work with her to help make 500 kits for delivery by the end of February.  Her teammates now also volunteer regularly and help with the Mask4Millions campaign. 

Kelli also managed to work two part-time jobs; as a youth party host at the Newtown Athletic Club where she guided activities, served food and cleaned up for parties and also started her own tutoring business where she would tutor middle school students in math two or three times a week.

She will be attending Tufts University and enrolling in the School of Engineering, where Kelli thinks she might like to aim toward a career in bioengineering to create prosthetics and make advances in robotic surgery.  Her passion to continue to give back to others has, in part, been driven by the fact she was born without an ear and underwent five operations to surgically reconstruct it and permit her to hear; and would love to be able to contribute to simplifying the procedures she went through. She also is considering trying to make the Tufts woman’s basketball team as a walk-on.

Alternatively, a career in environmental engineering focused on renewable energy sources or mechanical engineering where she could work as an imaginer designing attractions to Disney and other theme parks are on her radar.

This summer, Kelli will be interning with a biomedical engineering firm where she hopes to learn the basics of robotic and haptic technologies as well as software engineering.

Kelli was joined at the presentation by her parents, Robin and Greg Kowalick

and Phil Huber’s wife, Kathy.

During the presentation, Mark also paid tribute to club member Dr. Augie Adrid who pioneered and for many years managed the club’s annual scholarship and its Maple Point Middle School Student-of-the-Month programs..

(l to r)  Incoming club president Bob Morris, Mark Nath, Robin and Greg Kowalick, Kelli Kowalick, Kathy Huber, Kathy's granddaughters Jennifer and Lauren Cautilli, son-in-law and daughter David and Carolyn Cautilli, club secretary Lou Hatfie;d and Dr. Augie Adrid

The Club members and guests then wished this amazing and talented young woman continued success as she heads for Tufts University this fall.

Mrs. Cleo Hinton Reaching 110 Years Young

Even for our newer members who may never have met Charles Hinton, one of the Club's founders and long-time Club Secretary, they will be moved by this truly a good news story about a truly good woman!

**********************

On Sunday, June 7th, Mrs. Cleo Gore-Hinton, a resident of the Villas of Shady Brook in Langhorne passed an incredible milestone … turning 110 years old. 

The event was celebrated by a parade of over 110 vehicles adorned with congratulatory signs and balloons and lead by a contingent of three Middletown police cruisers, a motorcycle and ATV.  In all close to 300 neighbors, friends and family members turned out to show Cleo their love and wishes for good health.

(l to r) – son Robert Hinton and wife Sylvia, son Charles Hinton (who hosted the celebration), daughter Billie Hennix and Niece Valorie Wilkins

Cleo was born in Beckley, West Virginia on June 7th, 1910.  She was the middle child of a stay-at-home mother and coal miner father.  Her early childhood was spent living in several mining camps where her dad worked, some so small they had only 15 families.  After graduation from high school, Cleo attended a beauty culture school thanks to a neighbor who ran the school and wanted Cleo to learn how to “curl hair” so as to have a skill to enable her to support herself.

Church and her faith were always a paramount aspect of Cleo’s life.  She joined a local church at an early age and remains “chruchy” to this day.  As a young adult, Cleo attended a singing convention in a neighboring community.  After the services, the person who was supposed to drive her home failed to arrive.  However, she was then offered a ride by a young gentleman and felt totally comfortable accepting the offer of Adolph Goodrich Hinton … although in an interview several years ago remarked, “how different things like that are today.”

That unplanned ride home proved to be a significant turning point in their lives as Cleo and Adolph finally were married on August 28, 1937 in Pearisburg, VA.and subsequently were blessed with five children, Charles, Billie Joycee, Robert, Carol and Larry.  Sadly, Larry passed away in 1988.

After Charles, with whom Cleo lives at Shady Brook, was born in 1945, Cleo and Adolph returned to Berkley, WV to live close to the rest of her family. 

Life in Berkley was still hard, with their family’s home warmed only by a “warm morning stove” and their love for one another.  Their clothes, which Cleo made using a “pedal-powered” sewing machine, were washed by hand and a scrub board.  They made their own lye soap and their iron was heated by placing it on a hot stove.  However, the family did enjoy running water and indoor plumbing.

Cleo, Adolph and their family had good neighbors in Berkley, primarily comprised of Cleo’s brother, her parents and the beautician whose beauty school Cleo had attended years earlier.

Eventually Cleo assumed the responsibility of caring for her parents and her brother.  She gained the strength to weather through the most challenging times by her devotion to and support she received from her church.

Her husband, Adolph died in 1984.

In recent years, Cleo spent nearly all of her time at Shady Brook, although she continued to own her house in Beckley which the family has used for summer vacations.  At close to 106, she was able to join Charles for one of his Rotary Club’s monthly dinner meetings.

Throughout her life, Cleo always loved to read, particularly her Bible, newspapers and inserts which come with medications, as she wanted to understand what she was taking.  Amazingly, until shortly before her 100th birthday, she rarely missed a beat and didn’t even require glasses.   She would also tell people she ”has a good memory for an old woman” and could quote passages from multiple chapters from the Bible.

Close to 50 members of her family, which in addition to her five children includes, 23 grandchildren, 40 great-grandchildren and 10 great-great grandchildren, were able to attend the birthday celebration for this remarkable woman.

Charles, with whom Cleo lives, speaks with pride and affection about his mom and her positive and charitable nature, always wanting to give to others.

Think about it … this amazing woman was born when the U.S. had only 46 states and has lived through the administrations of 18 presidents, 2 World Wars, the sinking of the Titanic and Lusitania, the opening of the Panama Canal, the passage of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote, prohibition and its repeal, the Great Depression, the rise and demise of the Soviet Union and election of an African-American president.  Cleo has survived to see such amazing technological and medical breakthroughs as television, antibiotics, the atomic age and nuclear power, the space age and men landing on the moon, computers, cell phones, the 1918 and COVID-19 pandemics, cures for polio and other contagions, the discovery of DNA and so many other things we now take for granted.

For her part, Cleo remains thankful for her family and the incredibly long life she has been granted.

 

Thank You Letter

The Club received the below letter expressing its thanks for gift cards in support of needy veterans and seniors.

By helping people who have fallen on challenging econmic times, especailly during the current COVID-19 pandemic, our members' continuing their commitment to "Service Above Self".

Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick Joins the Club’s Virtual Meeting

We were honored to have Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick join our bi-weekly virtual meeting this morning, 

After dedicating his professional life to service and protecting others, Brian Fitzpatrick was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 2016 to represent the people of Pennsylvania’s Eighth Congressional District.  In the 116th Congress, Brian is a member of the Foreign Affairs and Transportation and Infrastructure committees.  Brian is the founding member of the Congressional Citizen Legislature Caucus, a bipartisan group of lawmakers committed to fighting for term limits and Congressional reforms, and a member of the No Labels ‘Problem Solver Caucus.

He initially shared his commitment to trying to walk the fine line of non-partisanship in an otherwise polarized Washington, DC.  When asked about advise he'd give the President Trump, he said his advice to the president, a governor a mayor or other local leader was two-fold;

  • Act like a leader by lowering the volume and temperature of the debate
  • Bridge the gap between people with seemingly contradictory or opposing views

He reiterated he abhors the mentality which advocates "fanning the flames" of political discourse and how much he admired Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr  and his approach to changing peoples minds by appealing to their better nature and peaceful protest.  Brian also believes the most people form both the "right" and the "left" generally want the same things … quality health care, great schools, safe streets, etc; … but those groups may seek achieving such ends using different approaches.

He hopes that those on opposing ends of the political spectrum can step back and step in to the shoes of those with whom the disagree to understand where they are coming from … and ultimately finding some common ground to mutually build on.

He agrees that the escalating national debt is a problem which needs to be addressed, but that the economic crisis created by the COVID-19 pandemic has and may still require additional government spending.  He sees tax reform, regulatory reform and budgetary reform as the three legs of a tripod which will needed to come to grips with the burgeoning debt.  For each he feels there is a point of equilibrium which doesn't threaten jobs or the environment.  However, he offered no specifics.

Asked about the use of federal troops, pursuant to the authorizations and restrictions under the Insurrection Act of 1807 and Posse Comitias Act of 1878, as amended, Congressman Fitzpatrick focused on the use of National Guard troops and mutual assistance agreements with other agencies under the direction of the respective state governors … but seemed to shy away from wanting to see US armed forces be committed to resolving the problems created by those few perpetrating riots, looting and other destructive acts amid the protests over the killing of George Floyd.

Brian was asked about China, to which he offered that America is too dependent on certain critical medical and other items which have been outsourced to China and other countries.  He continued, "Crisis has always been a catalyst for change in America's history. Today, our nation faces the health and economic crises caused by COVID-19, which has killed tens of thousands of Americans and left millions unemployed.  As states reopen, it is up to us to build a nation more resilient, better-equipped, and more secure.  As lawmakers from opposite political parties, we know that Congress can create positive, generational change for the American people only when we look for common ground.  Emerging from this crisis, we call on the federal government to act on three priorities that will get America back on its feet. With investments in broadband access, support for the creation of domestic supply chains and requirements for Congress to meet its constitutional budgetary obligations, we believe that the United States can once again find transformation in a time of crisis."

He feels strongly that someone, likely China if investigations ultimately determine it is responsible for COVID-91 and a failure to alert the world sooner about a potential pandemic, needs to be held accountable for the devastating lost revenue the America economy has experience.  Briand believes peace relies on justice and justice is a function of finding the facts.  If the facts lead to China's door step he favors stripping China of the sovereign immunity it now enjoys.

Fitzpatrick believes we should adopt the adage of NEVER AGAIN when it comes to America being unprepared should another pandemic occur.  However, he is quick to admit that bringing necessary industries to protect our country will not be a quick fix and could take years.

He believes there needs to be compromise on the dual aspects of immigration and the rule of law. 

As for mail-in coting, he acknowledged that absentee balloting which has been in place for decades is really mail-in voting.  Brian believes it can materially increase voter participation and can be much safer, particularly in an era of COVID-19.  At the same time, he has heard those opposed to all but very limited absentee voting who claim it can be riddled with fraud, although to date there is no documented evidence to support that position.  Both sides need to work together to find ways to safely increase voter involvement and participation while eliminating insofar as humanly possible areas where vote tampering or fraud can occur.  Like immigration, right and left must work together.

He noted that in Pennsylvania recent legislation has eliminated straight ticket voting and permitted no-excuse absentee voting.

The subject ot how to get Washington to work together was posed.  Brian re-emphasized diversity needs to be used as a reason to accomplish things for American and Americans, not as a wedge for division.  He remains concerned that the deep rift between many Republicans and many Democrats is reminiscent of the Hatfield and McCoy’s feuds.

Among legislation he believes necessary to help American rebuild its economy is comprehensive business interruption insurance to transcend the payroll, rent and utility monies which have ben made available.

An optimist, he echoes those who believe American can overcome all obstacles, even those which seem so imposing at present.

Aa believer in term limits and such logical tools as Mutual Respect for Others, Understanding and Compromise are the keys to bipartisanship.  He will only sponsor legislation for which he has such bipartisan support.

More on his positions can be found at: https://fitzpatrick.house.gov/issues.