PP Ron Lyster led us in the pledge and PP Don Nelson provided the invocation.  

Songmeister Paul Aslan led us in song - "When You're Smiling" - Louis Armstrong

Colby was out last week and was presented in person his Rotarian of the month pin - Congrats, Colby!

Announcements:

• Jim Crane announced that on Saturday the District is hosting the annual dance, art, speech, contest at Loyola Marymount. 2 of our Uni High students are applying for a District scholarship Evan who was here for speech is one face to a name our club will be rooting for!
• PP Chris Bradford announced our Global Grants Scholar interview process update - we have an excellent candidate we are excited to forward to District.
• Guin Lyster is coordinating a Cruise fun trip from LA to Vancouver with a stop in SF & great Chinese food!
• April 8 is the next District Breakfast featuring Prophet Walker. Don Nelson will send an email if you are interested, breakfast is at the Westin by LAX and is $35
• Past President Steve Day our Foundation Chair announcement Sally Phillips made a generous contribution to the Foundation. For our newer members, she is the widow of a long time and beloved member, Howard.
• Our President Mark Rogo, has the goal of being a 100% Paul Harris Club and Andreea Constantinescu, one of our first Rotary Impact members wants to be a Paul Harris Fellow and has pledged to make that happened this year!
• Pres Mark took RSVPs to the upcoming Fellowship Night at Hillcrest 
• March 11 lunch with incoming International Pres at Woodland Hills Mark is driving if you want a ride Hey Loberg, next year's theme is "Light Up Rotary!"

Paul Aslan gave a joke bc he missed last week - someone yelled out his song was a joke! ;) OK, so now onto the program!

Colby introduced one of our Rotary Impact members, Andreea Constantinescu. She was born in Romania, came to the US when she was 8 and goes back there quite often to visit family. Andreea shared pictures of her home country and how beautiful the scenery is there, e.g., Black Sea, Carpathian Mountains, skiing, camping. The movie Cold Mountain was filmed there and there are many monasteries, castles, at one point the country had a King. One interesting fact is the country is considered Latin and is culturally closer to Italy and France, as opposed to Germany and Slovenia.

Born in Ploiesti which is 35 miles north of Bucharest, her parents were both architects and shared she grew up in Communism with long lines because there was not enough food available at that time. Food was rationed so she has memories of her own garden, raising chickens, stomping grapes (like on I Love Lucy!) She and her family came over as political refuges and through lottery and luck chose CA to live.

Andreea shared bananas are one vivid wonderful first American memory and she overdid it and ate too many. Today her sister, Alma, is a lawyer, her mother, Mihaela, lives in Sedona, AZ and works with the Blue Herron Foundation - an organization that bridges orphaned young adults who still need family support after no longer being eligible for government aid. She attended Viewpoint for High School in Calabasas and Pitzer College in Claremont where she studied studied studio art and psychology. She even had a wine and cheese art opening and her thesis was written on self defense and feelings of safety thru self defense.

After college Andreea moved to Italy bc she went there as an exchange student first and loved it. She is very adventurous as she moved there without knowing anyone and taught ESL (English as a second language) but the Ferraris and Italians were fun too ;)

Then her grandmother became seriously ill and she came home to the States. She began working in real estate and finance, and worked in the Inmate Telephone industry.

Today, she works at the Heartfelt Foundation in Santa Monica as an Administrator. She loves her family, opera, traveling, and is engaged! She let us know he is from Florida, an attorney in downtown, and his family is crazy about college football.

Andreea, speaks multiple languages and wants to see the 7 Wonders of the world - currently she has 3 under her belt.

When you see her next, make sure you roll your Rs when you say her name - phonetically - On -Drrrre-Uh! ;)