The Rotary Club of Denver Stapleton

Gregg Tomlinson, Stapleton Rotary Club President

On Friday, December 16, the Stapleton Rotary Club volunteered at the Food Bank of the Rockies for an afternoon. Members who attended were Tom Wolfe, Evan Brooks, Ed Cole, Jason Postregna and Gregg Tomlinson. The Food Bank of the Rockies receives surplus food from a
variety of sources that is sorted and organized and distributed to needy families throughout the state of Colorado.

The work is fun and social and on top of that we all got some exercise and weight lifting during the afternoon as well as spending some quality time with friends old and new.

More information about volunteer opportunities at the Food Bank can be found here:

http://www.foodbankrockies.org/site/PageServer?pagename=Volunteer

Up With People, the international educational and cultural program, is looking for families to host cast members during their four-week stay in Denver, January 6 – February 6, 2012.

Host families are asked to provide a bed, breakfast, dinner, and limited local transportation (bus or light rail passes will be provided to cast members if needed). Cast members are out in the community during most business hours Monday through Saturday – Sunday is considered “Host Family Day.” This is an opportunity for families to connect with other countries and cultures while sharing your community.

Host families receive two complimentary tickets to the February 3rd show in Denver. More information is available on the Up With People website.

If you are interested in hosting, please contact Shawna Reed at 303-408-4143 or email her at sreed@upwithpeople.org

Our world traveler and hiking expert Ed Cole yesterday showed us a slide presentation of his recent trip to Bhutan.

Bhutan is a small mountainous country on the southern slopes of the eastern Himalayas, bordered on three sides by India and by China to the north. Bhutan is a primarily Buddhist country, called “Druk” by its residents.There is just one airport in the country – in order to land at the airport, the pilot has to fly a curving flight path thru valleys in order to reach the airport.

Ed and Kay were with a group of nine tourists, visiting Bhutan during a three-day festival where the residents wore colorful costumes and performed many ritual type dances. The highest point in Bhutan is Gangkhar Puensum at 24,840 ft, which is also the highest unclimbed mountain in the world. The highest point Ed and Kay hiked was 13,000 feet.

One striking featuer as Ed and Kay traveled the country were the prayer flags. It is believed by many Bhutanese Buddhists that the ideal number of prayer flags for deceased people is 108, preferably made from freshly cut trees.

The farms are very small plots. Oxen or very small tillers work best on the small plots. Farm houses in Bhutan are built with three levels. The bottom level housed the animals. The second level is where the family lived. The third level was for storing the crops. There was usually a small temple inside each house.

The scheduled Denver Stapleton Rotary meeting for Tuesday November 15, 2011 is canceled – see you at the Evening Social at Gregg’s house on Friday!

The Denver Stapleton Rotary Club welcomed Kathy Underhill as its guest speaker on November 8.  Kathy is the Executive Director of Hunger Free Colorado, the state’s leading anti-hunger organization dedicated to ensuring that all Coloradans have sustainable access to nutritious, affordable food.

She told us that children ages 0-5 years are the most likely to suffer to from hunger and that 23% of Colorado residents have a food hardship.  The incidence rate is  increasing; the severity is increasing.  Hunger is a solvable problem.  The School Lunch Program offers free and low cost lunches and many offer breakfast programs, but the programs are not well utilized.

In  Colorado we have an Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) system as a successor to the old “food stamps.” This program provides a card that can only be used to purchase food (not household goods or incidentals), and it actually serves as an economic stimulus program since the purchases help support markets, food service workers, farms, etc. Colorado is ahead of only Guam in participation. HFC is trying to raise awareness of the problem, and they are getting more sites approved to distribute food.  With help from HFC, the number of sites in Colorado has increased by 90% in two years.

HFC also has a Hunger Free Hotline at 720-382-2920 or toll free at 855-855-4626.  People can call to see what programs are available to them, with information customized to their individual needs, and receive help in applying for food assistance programs. Information is available in both English and Spanish.

For more inormation about Hunger Free Colorado, please visit their website at www.HungerFreeColorado.org