Our last meeting of the Rotary year had a great speaker, State Representative
Jimmy T Smith. He filled in the club members with what happened in this year’s
legislative session in Tallahassee. It was very interesting hearing the changes
to laws that he was involved with trying to pass. Some of the changes he was
supporting passed and some didn’t. Jimmy said that a typical new law will take
up to 5 years to be passed. One of the changes dealt with improving the
employment prospects for discharged service men & women. At this time
it is difficult to translate the service skill to a equivalent civilian skill due
to a difference in how they are defined. He has been meeting with DBPR to try
to have military training & experience applied to criteria for DBPR licensed
activities. It has not been easy and some progress has been made but it will take
a lot longer to make major improvements for veterans.
Several members brought in men’s clothes for the Family Resource Center
as Ginger West had requested last week. The picture below shows the clothes
in the back of the vehicle before carrying them into the Center.

      Jimmy T Smith & Roger                       Men’s Clothes

At the meeting checks were presented to three local non-profits.
Ginger West head of the Family Resource Center was asked how else we can help
said she could use some men’s clothes. Please bring any unneeded t shirts, shorts
& jeans/levi’s to next week’s meeting on June 29th that will be taken to the Family
Resource Center.  Ginger provides help to a lot of hopeless people. If you have a
bicycle not being used, she also needs bicycles for them. Grace Hengesbach head
of Citrus County Blessings and George Schmalstad head of Filter Youth were
at the meeting, too. Grace could use some help on the 3rd Wednesday of the month
at 7:30am to pickup food from the food bank and take it to a location to be packed
for children to eat at home on the weekend. George could use some help in the
future to clear land and prepare it for the Filter Youth Program.
These would be some good service projects for the club.

                                             Grace, Ginger, George & Roger

So Jin Bae, our exchange from South Korea gave us a very nice presentation
about her family, school in Korea and her country. Linda Daly her host parent
was with her. Linda used to be a member of the club. Linda & So Jin are in the
picture below with President Roger.

6 0f  7 Lecanto High School Seniors who were awarded college scholarships were
present at the May 25th meeting. Vera Swade handed out the checks or certificates
to the graduating seniors. The 6 recipients are in the picture below with Vera,
Ken Swade and Roger Carlson from the Club Scholarship Committee. Committee
members Eric Hoyer and Mike Busler weren’t at the meeting.