We started the month at member Suzanne Sanders’ home for our club’s chili cook-off. Many delicious chilies were sampled with the winner’s being Mike Wagner for home style chili, and Kristin Johnson for traditional (CASI) chili. These two will represent the club for Lenexa’s Chili Challenge coming up in early October. Mike will also be entering chili wings while Jim Houvener will enter salsa.
Meanwhile, our club secretary Kelly Vaille was traveling around northern Europe (Trailblazers do love to travel!), and had the opportunity to visit the Copenhagen International Rotary Club. Pictured are (left to right: Ivan, Kelly Vaille, Katherine, Gareth, Karolina Novak – President, and two Rotaract members. Kelly also gifted Karolina one of our club’s Trailblazers T-Shirts!
Our last meeting of the month was a tour of JOCO Community College led by their Michael Rea, for a behind-the-scenes look at their sustainability efforts which earned them STARS Gold-rated campus, and recognized them as one of the nation’s leaders in sustainability. We learned about the college’s efforts in energy conservation, recycling, composting, and stormwater management. Several of their buildings are LEED-certified.
We had time for one more project near the end of the month, four of our members attended the Fall Festival for Veterans at the Dwight Eisenhower VA Domiciliary, in Leavenworth, KS. Members helped to set up and serve food to veterans. We had the opportunity to listen to some very talented singers and a drum solo as part of their talent show. While it did have to be held inside because of rainy weather, it was still a great and rewarding event for our members.
COMING UP:
Our famed Taco Tour bus in KCK on October 6. Competition in the Lenexa Chili Challenge on October 9-10 (look for our booth just right of the bandstand). And, an open (shared) meeting October 20 to hear a representative from Ronald McDonald House talk about their program which our club has supported in the past.
