President Ken Kaisch prefaced this Veteran’s Day meeting musing about the gratitude he feels for his father and the love he and thousands of other veterans had for their families and our country by being willing to risk their lives by entering the armed services. Ken also was moved by the fresh faced wonder of a newborn baby of a lady from his church when she shared pictures on Zoom.

Jim Ripley led us in the pledge and Joe Lins led the invocation.

Matt Howells		Dr. Faisal Qazi
Our Newest Rotarians - Welcome

Two new members were inducted into our club. Matt Howells is a veteran and is executive director of Tara’s Chance, an equine therapy charity in Fullerton that we are familiar with. Dr. Faisal Qazi is a neurologist at SJMC and in involved in a non-profit providing free of cost medical care to under and uninsured folks. Our club virtually stood and gave a standing ovation welcome to who at the time were the World’s newest Rotarians!

Monica Fernandez shared about how she got started with a diaper project, affectionately referred to as the “Diaper Dump”. Monica is accepting drop locations for members to leave disposable diapers which will be donated to mothers. Her volunteer work at Crittenden and Pathways of Hope made her aware of this need. Financial donations are also gladly accepted!

Soon a 45 minute Youth Protection program will be available on our club online. This will be mandatory for members who will work with youth, like the All-City Track meet. Watch for a link from past president Dan Ouweleen.

Glynnes Speak and Christian Esteban are collaborating to revive the Reading by Nine program that Dick Mathewson spearheaded for years. Stay tuned!

Special Recognitions- Cathy Gach ran around town procuring needed signatures for the club bank accounts. Bob Muschek presented a new members orientation the very morning of today’s meeting.

Announcements: President Ken encouraged us to invite new members. Next week’s program will be “A Special Way to give to Rotary”. Theresa Harvey is organizing a wine tasting we can enjoy from the comfort of our homes. Ask Theresa how to procure your $30. Tasting kit prior to the event!

Recognitions Christian Esteban recognized Jim Vanderburg’s birthday and he donated towards the Diaper Dump. Jim volunteered for the Army around 1954. Jim Blake also served, survived another birthday as well. Dick Mathewson is celebrating wife Jane’s birthday. He shared that every member of his family served in the armed services since the Revolutionary War! His dad served in WWI and WWII totaling 39 years including the Reserves. Jim Thompson was a Navy Diver. Dan Kiernan was in army National Guard 1953-6. Bob Muschek, John Phelps Warren Weimer, Minard Duncan, Marty Burbank and Rick Crane also served. I apologize if we missed others, but everyone’s fine was picked up by other club members in respect and appreciation.

THANKS TO ALL WHO SERVED! ALL GAVE SOME- SOME GAVE ALL.

Program

Past President Jim Williams introduced the president of Fullerton College, Dr. Greg Schultz, who served as president since April 2016. His first job was a paper carrier for the OC Register. He grew up in Orange and earned rank of Eagle Scout in his Boy Scout troop. He entered Fullerton College in 1986 and transferred to Cal State University Fullerton majoring in accountancy. He met his wife in the same program and has been married for 27 years! He was working for the County of Orange and comment that is was interesting times when OC went bankrupt.

Fullerton College was founded in 2013 and is the oldest continuing community college in the USA. Two-thirds of the 21,000 students are first generation college students.

Currently the vast majority of classes are held online. Just a few are in person, like science and tech engineering automotive, fine arts and athletics. Some students otherwise without wifi access actually can park in a certain parking lot at the college and receive the Internet from a powerful router.

Several local high schools have access to college level courses to start building college credits.

A new opportunity is the North Orange Promise Program that lets students attend Fullerton College tuition free! Also, students can ride OCTA busses for FREE!

Fullerton College athletics has done very well over the years, including in 2019 when the Men’s basketball team and the Women’s water polo teams won state championships! WAY TO GO HORNETS! Can you tell I’m a Hornet?..and I always will be! The actual saying is, “Once a Hornet..Always a Hornet!”