Plaza Rotary At-A-Glance October 28, 2015

Many Rotarians may not know the reason the Royals won the ALCS Friday, October 23, 2015, is because Ann Leabo purchased a ticket for her husband Chad at the Rotary meeting that morning. By doing the "right" thing and donating to the Plaza Foundation, Ann provided the good luck charm needed.

 

Chad brought dirt from the pitchers mound in the 1985 World Series win to the Friday game. He and a friend jumped the fence after game seven of the '85 series and he scooped up part of the mound. It was stored in a baggie for 30 years. He showed it to Plaza President Jane Brown when he arrived last Friday.

 

Jane and all others sitting near her that night knew it would be a victory. Thanks Ann and Chad!!! 

 

Join Rotary Plazans and Waldonians for Royals watch parties at Eggct/Minsky’s private room:

If you plan to attend, please RSVP to Denise Holt so we can reserve the appropriate room.  

 

Go Royals!

 

This week, we welcome Irene Caudillo, president and CEO of El Centro.  

 

Irene earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia and her master’s degree in public administration from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. After graduating college, she created children and youth programs for nonprofit organizations, including El Centro and Wyandotte Mental Health Association, in Wyandotte County.

 

In 1994, she took a job with the Kansas City Missouri Health Department as Minority Health Outreach Director. Her duties included educating health providers on how cultural beliefs and practices impact health behavior.

 

In 1997, she returned to Wyandotte County as Executive Director for Youth Opportunities Unlimited, Inc., an agency devoted to developing and maintaining collaborative efforts to improve the quality of life for Wyandotte County youth.

 

In 2004, she joined Catholic Charities of Northeast Kansas as the Director of Family Strengthening where she directed and managed their social services throughout their 21-county service area.

 

After serving as the Director of Clinic Operations for Swope Health Services, she “came home” to El Centro as the Chief Program Officer in anticipation of transitioning into the President & CEO position upon the retirement of the past President and CEO.

 

 

On October 15, Kansas City Plaza Rotarian Randy Steinman was notified by Rotarian International that the Global Grant for Microcredit had been approved. This concludes a 15-month-long process of responses and revisions to the grant.

 

The Global Grant of $125,000 will fund a Rotary-specific microcredit fund in the Herrera and Alcarrizos areas of the Dominican capitol, Santo Domingo. The fund will be managed by Instituto Dominicano De Desarrollo Integral (IDDI), a local non-governmental organization with a long history of providing microcredit and other social services to low-income families. 

 

 

The Rotary Club of Santo Domingo will serve as a local Rotary partner, providing general oversight as well as mentoring and education to the loan recipients.

Loan recipients tend to be single mothers who are want to start small businesses to supplement their income inhopes of raising their families out of poverty.

 

 

The attached images are examples of the types of businesses we will fund. 

 

 

The Plaza Club is one of 13 District 6040 clubs participating in the funding of this project. The next steps are to gather in the funds from the participating clubs, create Rotary-specific promotional materials and train the Herrera Club members in their roles as mentors. The first loans should be awarded by February of 2016.