The Amherst Club met Sept. 14 at the Hickory Ridge Country Club. Vice President Hub Smith presided. Guests: Joan Laird, Amanda Roberts, Thomas Myers. Ellen Kosmer was thanked for the pot luck at her home. Ruth Miller sent a separate email on this and activities. Rachel Mustin sent separate email on the red, white and blue celebration next week, so won't repeat details. It's Primary Day, vote The Allocations and Program Committees met after lunch. Tina Berins said hosts are needed for international students. (not a residential program) The Trivia Bee is Oct. 28. Call Harrison if you want to be on the club's team. We need 4. Dan Melley of Rotary provided a nice tribute for Gerry Grady, one of the club's founder's who died recently. Gerry started the community breakfast and volunteered for many causes and events that made Amherst a better place. Dan shared anecdotes and called him the spirit of Amherst and that is a very good description. Speaker Steve Kallaugher, a native of Leeds, was a screen writer, wrote educational material for the army, had a marketing firm in New York, was creative marketing director for the Wall Street Journal and has acted locally. He joined the Peace Corps in 2004 in Swaziland, a land-locked country in South Africa working on HIV/AIDS projects. He established a feeding station for 80 orphans and with the help of the Red Cross had five homes built for the orphans. He provided some jaw-dropping statistics. Life expectancy dropped from 60 to 32, over 42 percent of adults have HIV/AIDS, unemployment is 45 percent, 70 percent live on $1 a day, it costs $800 a year for school tuition, 7 percent of children are HIV positive. There is a pattern of multiple concurrent sexual partners. A whole middle generation has been lost to AIDs leaving 125,000 orphans some of whom are raised by grandparents. From his experience Steve came back to the US and founded the Young Heroes Foundation. It provides monthly stipends for food and clothing for 1,000 orphans through direct sponsorships. All the money goes directly to the families and there are six staff three of whom visit family to ensure this. There is a scholarship fund. The foundation runs two camps in partner with Newman's Hall in the Wall Gang Foundation. HIV tests are offered. He returns to Swaziland periodically. Since it is a small country everyone knows each other. He does speak the language. Education uses the British system and is supposed to be free for the primary grades, 1-3, but the government is lax. It's an absolute monarchy, one of two in the world. A Swazicycle fund raiser netted $100,000. It will be repeated along with a group that will build playgrounds. For details and sponsorships visit: http://youngheores.org.sz Ellen won the wine, June won the raffle. WFCR is holding its pledge drive Oct. 16-27. Club members volunteered last time. Dates available Oct.18, 20, 21 from 4-6:30 p.m. If interested call Phyllis Lehrer 253-5179 with best dates and we could put a group together, need 3-5. Thanks. Phyllis Lehrer scribe |
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