B-Rad gave us an inspirational moment; Denise helped out with our flag salute; and Manuel was volunteered to lead us in the four-way song.

 

Our speaker was Amy Travis, the Executive Director of CASA. CASA works with abused and neglected foster children. A CASA volunteer is the eyes and ears of the Juvenile Court system. There are thousands of foster children waiting for CASA volunteers. Amy told us that there are three things that everyone can do for CASA that will help their organization. First and most importantly, you can become a CASA volunteer. It is an 18-months commitment. You can give money to their fund. Lastly, you can can tell everyone about CASA and how they can help.

 

Statistically, most foster children are doomed to a life of addiction and homelessness. CASA is trying to change that as much as possible. The solution is citizen volunteers. The idea is to have one volunteer per child. Right now, they have a little over 130 volunteers, but need a lot more. Without an advocate, these children are going to most likely languish in the foster care system.

 

Finally, during our question and answer session of our program, we learned that our own, Vince Zaragoza, was one of the original people who started CASA. It was so interesting to hear Vince tell us about how little their budget was when they first started and what they had to do in order to get CASA going. Way to go Vince. It's impossible to imagine how many children's lives have changed because Vince and a few other people decide to get CASA going. You were a Rotarian years ago and you didn't even know it.

The Centennial Interact Club held its first event of the year, the MADD run! They had a total of 24 volunteers, including lots of brand new faces.

Centennial Interact Club held its first meeting of the year and they were kind enough to share some photos with us. What a turn out it looked like. At their meeting, they covered what Interact is, they introduced their board members and informed everyone about exciting events coming up like the MADD run this past Saturday and JJ's Legacy Got the Dot program. They had over 100 people in attendance.

Thanks to Mr. Amy Smith(aka, Zane Smith), the Kern County Rotaract Club met at the Boys and Girls Club of Kern County. They learned all about the Boys and Girls Club and even received a tour from Zane. Rotaract Club President, Noah Salinas, and a few lucky members also received beautiful art pieces from the children themselves.

This past Wednesday afternoon's meeting took us to the newly renovated Bakersfield Ronald McDonald House where Scarlet Sabin, the House Director, gave us a tour and discussed its development, its growth, and its mission to provide for families during times of healing. Thank you, Scarlet!

 

What a fun time we had Thursday night at The Blvd. Thank you to all of the Twilight club members, families and Centennial Interact Club members who came. We enjoyed good food, games, bowling, and most of all -- fun socializing. A great time!

 

We had another outstanding and informative presentation at our meeting this past week. Mr. Joe Belli, the Manager of the Panorama Vista Preserve, told us about that non-profit’s mission, gave an overview of its educational programs, and showed us photos of the land, the plants, and some of the animals that have been seen on the Preserve.

 

The Kern River Corridor Endowment and Holding Co. (KRCE, the non-profit which owns the land) is dedicated to:
1) improving wildlife habitat along the Kern River through restoration of its riparian forest and associated grasslands.
2) providing educational and research opportunities. To that end, KRCE has hosted twice-yearly science day camps for local school children.
3) providing low-impact recreational opportunities for our community such as walking, running, bicycling, and horseback riding. Motorcycles, overnight camping, campfires, etc. are not permitted.

 

If you have not been to the Preserve yet, it would make a wonderful family outing.  The Preserve is located east of Manor Drive below the Panorama Bluffs.  You can walk down from the Bluffs or you can park in the Preserve’s parking lot at the east end of the Roberts Lane Extension about ¼ mile east of the Manor Drive/Roberts Lane interchange.

Another great meeting at The Mark Restaurant & Bar for our club. Last year's President, Amy Smith, was presented with a Rotary Citation Distinguished Club Award from the District. There to give her the Award was Past District Governor, Sandi Schwartz. Charlotte, Amy's daughter, joined us briefly before she had to go across the street to her acting gig. Li Gibbs' son, Steven and his girlfriend, Kayla, also joined us.

 

Jim Bell filled in for his wife, Donna Bell, and introduced our speaker, Russell Johnson, who has extensive experience in local politics. Many of us know him from Breakfast Rotary Club. Russell has three businesses. He does a lot of consulting. He has saved nine nonprofit organizations from insolvency. He, along with two other people, just bought Valley Ag Voice, an Ag business newspaper.

 

He talked about Associated Builders and Contractors Association, one of his clients, which is a national association that defends and advances principles of the merit shop in the construction industry. That is just one of the things they do. There are four chapters of this Association in California. They have training classes such as welding and electrical. Before 2015, in order to participate in one of those training courses, you had to work for or be sponsored by a member of the Association. After 2015, they formed a 501(c)(3) extension and now they can serve the general public.

 

At the end of our meeting, number of East Bakersfield Rotary Club led by their President, Quon Louey, crashed our meeting with a birthday cake for Past District Governor, Sandi Schwartz's husband, Richard. We all sang happy birthday to Richard and were invited by them to join their party after our meeting for some cake.