Well, we are right in the middle of April which means Spring is definitely in the air! I would like to wish everyone that celebrates this day a Happy Easter on Sunday! Easter is one of the most festive events among Christians worldwide. I am looking forward to spending time with my family, telling stories of past Easter Sunday celebrations with my mother and siblings, attending the morning church service wearing our Sunday best, eating great food, and watching my great-niece and great-nephews hunt for eggs! I hope you all have a great weekend and are able to enjoy the colors of all the beautiful flowers that are blooming everywhere!

Rotarians enjoyed sitting in the patio area at Romeo Cucina for this meeting which was really nice! We were honored to have Ale as our visitor from a Rotary Club in Turkey! He made sure to let me know how much he enjoyed spending his lunch hour with our Rotary Club and said we are all wonderful people! As always, we received first class service and delicious food thanks to Ada and our server, Luigi! Rotarians filled up the tables set out for us and we all enjoyed delicious food and great conversation with Ale!

Rotarians recited the Pledge of Allegiance to start our meeting off right! Then Bruce Birkeland inspired us with a story about a little girl that wanted to know what the United States looked like. After her dad handed her pieces that he cut from a magazine, he asked her to tape them together to look like what she thought the US looks like. When she finished, her dad wondered how she put the pieces back together so quickly. She told him that, "On the other side was a picture of Jesus and when I put him back together, then our country just came together."

After this inspiring story, John Veytia made us laugh with his crazy joke about a Bulgarian man named Ivan that played with trains as a little boy and wanted to be a conductor when he grew up. Poor Ivan accidentally caused a really bad accident and went to jail for life! He asked for his last meal to be 3 bananas and there was this whole ordeal and ultimately, he was just a bad conductor!

Our amazing Sergeant-At-Arms Rischi Paul Sharma went around the room collecting Happy Bucks for all that we are grateful for and as always, did an outstanding job! Ale spoke to the group about possibly relocating to Laguna Niguel or the Orange County area so we are hoping to see him again soon! And in honor of Chandra's birthday, Mark asked us to join him in singing Happy Birthday to her!

Rotarians enjoyed the Craft Talk provided by Janet Park, our Fellow Rotarian and in-house "animal savant" as she is fondly referred to by her clients! As the Owner of her successful business, Adorable Pet Sitting & Dog Training. she recently expanded her services to include Adorable Pet Portraits! Due to technical difficulties, she was unable to give her PowerPoint presentation but she still did a great job with her Craft Talk!

I am extremely proud and excited to announce that both Jim McGinley and Mark Montgomery will both be flying the blue skies on The Honor Flight on April 22nd! The Honor Flight Network serves veterans who served from World War II to the Korean War and through to Vietnam. They also serve catastrophically ill and injured veterans from all service eras. Jim and Mark will escort veterans to Washington, D.C. to visit our nation's memorials. He stated that they will also be visiting The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier where "mail call" will be announced and notes from people thanking them for their service will be handed to them.

The flight will leave from LAX on Friday, April 22nd, returning on Sunday, April 24th. He invited anyone interested to be part of the welcoming committee to sign up to be at LAX at Terminal 1 at 12:45 p.m. on Sunday, April 24th. Jim will be taking hand-written cards to provide to the veterans from Rotarians that wrote kind messages to thank those that served our country.

WE STILL NEED VOLUNTEERS! The Niguel Botanical Preserve & The City of Laguna Niguel are coordinating an Earth Day Celebration on Saturday, April 23rd from 8:30am - 11:30am. Please click on the "I'll be there!" button below. We would love to have our Rotary Club represented by having as many volunteers as possible! We will meet at the Crown Valley Park Amphitheater by 8:00 a.m. to check in. They are asking for volunteers to plant, weed and clean up so I hope to see you all there so we can work together to keep our community looking beautiful!

As our Covid restrictions are minimized and we are finally meeting in person on a regular basis, it is time to celebrate and call for a Rotary Social Event! Our fabulous Membership/Social Committee Chair Caroline Swift, along with her committee members, would like to invite Rotarians to our first social, "Spring is in the Air" event on Thursday, May 12th at 5:00 p.m. at the new OC Local Taproom, located at 30100 Town Center Drive in Laguna Niguel! This social event will take the place of our regular meeting on Friday, May 13th. Please feel free to invite friends and guests to be introduced to Rotary and to hear all about the great things our club has to offer! We are hoping this will be a great post-Covid social event to mingle, socialize and to get to know each other again so we hope to see you all there! Caroline also announced that the Membership/Social Committee is working on our next "New Year, New Board Social" event to be held at the end of July so stay tuned!

We are always looking for great speakers in our community so please be sure to email any individuals in our community that you would like to have come out and speak to our club! We have lots of great programs scheduled so don't miss out!

This is a gentle reminder that we need everyone that has not done so already to be sure to pay their membership dues! Our Club has already paid for each member's Rotary District 5320 and Rotary International dues that cover the period of January 2022 - July 2022. Let's do our best to make sure our Club does not lose valuable funds! If you have recently received an invoice from our Treasurer RoseAnne Ruccello, please be sure to respond and submit a check to the following address if you are not able to pay through Givsum:

Saturday April 14, 2022: Global Grant Training, District 5320 Office, Orange

Saturday April 23, 2022: City of Laguna Niguel Earth Day Celebration

Sunday April 24, 2022: Honor Flight Network Return to LAX

Thursday, May 12, 2022: Rotary Social at OC Local Taproom, Laguna Niguel

Saturday May 14, 2022: "We Are Fearless" District 5320 Conference, Lakeview Senior Center, Irvine

June 4-8, 2022: Rotary International Convention in Houston, Texas

June 25, 2022: District 5320 Denim & Diamonds End of the Year Celebration & Transition Dinner, Tanaka Farms, Irvine

Next week, our fabulous Dr. Sheila Steinberg, Assistant Governor for our District, will be providing information on all the great projects that District 5320 is working on and her plans for the upcoming year!

Dr. Sheila Lakshmi Steinberg is Faculty President and Full Professor of GIS, Social and Environmental Sciences at University of Massachusetts Global. She is an author and editor most recently completing a co-edited volume entitled, Resilient Communities Across Geographies that Esri Press just released in 2021 and GIS Research Methods for Esri Press (2015). In 2016, she co-edited Extreme Weather, Health and Communities: Interdisciplinary Engagement Strategies for Springer Press. Dr. Steinberg has been active in Rotary since 1998 when she joined in Silver City, New Mexico and has also been a member of the Areata Noontime Club in Humboldt County, the Orange Club in Orange, CA and is Past President 2019-20 of the Irvine Rotary Club. Dr. Steinberg has served in multiple rotary District 5320 roles including Chair of Vocational Service of the District. She is currently an Assistant Governor for the District. Her research focuses on the connections between people, places and environments considering local knowledge, networks and the power of community engagement.

28241 Crown Valley Parkway

11:45 am - Socialize

In a continued response to the deepening refugee crisis, the Rotary Foundation Trustees have decided to prioritize contributions made to the Disaster Response Fund until April 30, 2022, to support disaster response grants for districts affected by these events. These expedited disaster response grants can be used to supply water, food, medicine, shelter, and clothing. This is primarily an appeal for individual donations so please feel free to give any amount possible. Please follow the link below if you would like to make a person donation for this worthy cause.