Announcements/Business:
 
  • Fitzsimmons Middle School needs tools for their STEM projects. Their requests are on the Rotary Conifer website and can be dropped at Moore Lumber or given to Suzanne Barkley.
  • CHS Interact will be presenting information about World Polio Day to the Conifer Chamber at the October Chamber meeting.  They will collect donations and paint finger nails of the donors, as happens for the children who receive the polio vaccine drops.
  • Joyce Snapp will attend the Imagination Library meeting.  She will bring a report back to the Club.
  • @Rotaryconifer is our new Twitter account.  
  • Next week’s meeting will be a Club Assembly.  We will discuss whether or not to support an exchange student.  
  • World Polio Day is October 24.  Share the news with the community. 
 
 
Program:  The Salvation Army in Conifer
Shelley Turkington,  Lois Helker
 
Shelley became involved when she worked for a local bank, where she became an annual “bell-ringer”.  She provided some history for us.  The Salvation Army is an evangelical part of the universal Christian Church, founded in 1865 by William and Catherine Booth in London, England.  The Salvation Army is supporting people in 131 countries, and it came to the United States in 1880.  There are four regions in the USA, Conifer belongs to the Western Region.
 
The Conifer Salvation Army serves people from Turkey Creek to Kenosha Pass.  They provide financial help with utility bills, rent assistance, water and sanitation, heating repair, mortgage assistance, food (with King Soopers gift cards), and vehicle expenses.  They also support children attending their summer camp in Estes Park.  During disasters, the Salvation Army is there to help.  
 
Their biggest fund-raiser is the Christmas Red Kettle campaign.  It starts the Friday after Thanksgiving and runs through Christmas Eve. Last year they received $28,000 from the Christmas kettles, and they received an additional $15,000 grant from IREA for electric bills.  Donations are down from their all time high of $41,000 several years ago.  They also encourage planned-giving---Shelley suggests that the gift be designated for the Conifer Extension in order so that the donated funds come directly to our local chapter.  Ninety per-cent of all funds raised through the Kettle, stay in our area.
 
All Salvation Army Christmas ringers are volunteers.  They are reaching out to organizations to fill out the volunteer requirements.  Having a person ringing with the Kettle is the best way to obtain donations.  This year the Kettles will be at King Soopers and the Loaf and Jug, Moore Lumber, and perhaps at the Dollar General in Bailey.
 
The local Salvation Army also works with Mountain Resource Center and Widow’s Oil Pantry to fill Christmas food baskets.  145 food baskets were filled at Christmas last year.  In addition, twenty children and twenty seniors received Christmas gifts.  The Salvation Army does 6 senior luncheons each year, serving 70 seniors each lunch.  It is held the 1st Tuesday of every other month at Aspen Ridge Church in Marshdale. 
 
To sign up as a volunteer Kettle/Bell Ringer:  send an email to coniferbellringingsignup@gmail.com; or go directly to their SignUp Genius webpage at https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30E0E4BADA82CA6F58-conifer3.  There is a direct link in the Rotary Conifer homepage weblinks tab as well.
 
 
Guests: Bambi Moss