The Monrovia Rotary Club has donated $600 to the Monrovia Firefighters Association for their outstanding and life saving goal of making sure every home in Monrovia has a smoke detector. Other donations this month included $500 to the Monrovia Public Library for their summer reading program, $500 to the Monrovia Historical Society for the Legacy Project and $100 to the United Methodist Church Tea and Fashion show to benefit their pregnancy resource center. Thank you to our donors and club members for making this possible.
Donations to the club may be made by clicking the “Make A Donation” link above.
If you would like information on joining us please contact our Membership Chair using the links in the box to the right.
The Monrovia Rotary Club was pleased to induct Deb Pringle to membership.
Deb is a Realtor® with Vastree Real Estate, specializing in families and historic homes in the Monrovia area. Originally born in Queens NY, Deb grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania where she pursued her love of animals, working with the local VCA Animal Hospital and volunteering her time to train animals for the Susquehanna Service Dogs organization, which provides service dogs and hearing dogs for disabled children and adults. Moving to California, Deb studied high end dining service, eventually working with the award-winning Tavern restaurant in Brentwood and receiving her certification as a Level One Sommelier. Today, Deb is a proud member of the Monrovia community, engaging in social groups, book clubs, and spending a portion of her free time serving as a tutor for adults working to learn English as a second language. At home, Deb takes care of her own animals – two cats and an adorable Boston Terrier. Deb is also an avid baker… a skill that is encouraged by her husband, stand up comedian Ken Pringle (much to the chagrin of his expanding waistline!).
The Monrovia Rotary Club has inducted Fire Chief Brad Dover to membership. Brad is being sponsored by Immediate Past President, Bill Shieff.
Brad Dover began volunteering for Monrovia Fire and Rescue in 1994 as a fire cadet. In 1998, he was hire full time as a firefighter. The following year, he was assigned as a firefighter/paramedic. In 2003, Brad was promoted to fire engineer, a position he still cherishes as one of his favorites. In 2006 he promoted to captain where he spent two years on an engine company. In 2008, he was reassigned as a captain on the ladder truck. He said that assignment is where he grew the most professionally and all of the pieces of incident management came together. In 2015, he promoted to division chief, where he managed day-to-day shift operations. He was also responsible for citywide emergency preparedness programs and department support services. Brad has a Bachelorette of Science degree from California State University, Long Beach. He has completed the California career track programs for Fire Officer and Chief Officer. He was fortunate enough to spend a number of years as part of a California USAR Task Force. Currently, Brad is attending the Executive Fire Officer Program at the National Fire Academy in Maryland. The graduate level program is designed for fire service leaders from around the country. Brad has been married to his wife Anne for the past 18 years, and has 13 year old twins, Blake and Ella. Away from work he loves camping, golfing and being involved in his children’s sports programs. As a die-hard Green Bay Packers fan, he insisted on naming his dog Lambeau, after one of the Packer legends.
The Club is proud that a person such as Brad, who has spent a lifetime in service to others, has chosen the Rotary Club as an avenue of service.
A stylish send-off for our stylish outgoing President Bill Shieff and First Lady Sue Shieff. Planned and executed perfectly by 2014-2015 President Bryan Earll and the lovely Sarah Earll, with help from Sia Soris, member of the club and proprietress of the Monrovian Restaurant. The banquet room was quiet elegance with white table cloths, silver chargers, and stunning hydrangea and rose centerpieces.
There were moving tributes to Bill from Bryan Earll, Stan Pitts, Sylvia Domotor, and Bill’s wife Sue. Bill then thanked the members of the Demotion Committee and his Board of Directors for the past year.
As is customary, the demotion marks the selection of the honorees of the club’s top awards, Rotarian of the Year was deserved by Tom Hould for his work with RYLA amongst other contributions, the Tiger of the Year, given to a newer Rotarian, went to Lynda Linforth for her many contributions including her help at the Race to the Falls and First Fridays, and the club’s top awardee was Dr. Sylvia Domotor, winning the George J. Carlson Award which is given in recognition of multiple years of outstanding service. Notably, “Dr. D” started and runs the annual Santa Clothes program.
Finally, the presidential pin, a vintage pin dating to the club’s inception,as well as the official gavel, was passed to incoming President Susanne Hayek.
The Monrovia Rotary Club presented $14,000 in scholarships to deserving students from the Monrovia School District. These scholarships were made possible by the generosity of our community partners, our members, in particular Mr. Richard Tipping, and by the generosity of Choon Baick, M.D. and Delos Comstock, M.D. , the original donors to the club’s Comstock Fund. Special thanks to Erica Hahn(Chairperson), Richard Tipping, Jenny Pappano,Tom Hould for your hard work on the 2016 Scholarship Committee!
The 2016 Scholarship Recipients are:
Monrovia High School
Academic
Kaela Polnitz
Jacqueline Hernandez
Dalila McKelvey
Ian Flores
Brian Alvarado
Honorary
Jacob Szymkowskiin recognition of his outstanding academics
The Monrovia Rotary Club was pleased to have Zanaida Robles as its guest speaker yesterday, March 1. She was here to speak about her passion, the San Gabriel Valley Choral Company, of which she is the artistic director.
The San Gabriel Valley Choral Company (SGVCC) was founded by Dr. Thomas M. Miyake in September 1995 to provide local singers the opportunity to “stretch their minds and vocal chords.” The ensemble is comprised of singers from the San Gabriel Valley, the Inland Empire and other local communities. Their repertoire has included music from the Renaissance period to works of the late 20th century. Along with more traditional selections, music performed has included avant-garde, jazz, a Broadway musical review, and staged productions.
Zanaida is a singer, conductor, composer, and music instructor born, raised, and educated in Southern California. She is the recipient of numerous awards and distinctions including the USC Scholar’s Symposium Fellowship, the Young Musicians Foundation Gladys Turk scholarship, the USC Choral Department Scholarship, the USC Black Alumni Association scholarship, two L.A. Artist of the Future awards, the NFAA Young Arts level one award in classical voice, two Charles “Dolo” Coker Jazz Awards, the KCET Emerging Young Artist Grand Prize, the Cal State Long Beach 4-year Dean’s Scholarship for Distinction in the Arts, and the NAACP ACT-SO national gold medal for music composition. She holds a Doctor of Music Arts degree from the USC Thornton School of Music, a Master of Music degree from CSU Northridge, and a Bachelor of Music degree from CSU Long Beach.
A small but dedicated group of Rotarians partnered with the Monrovia Area Partnership (MAP) and the Volunteer Center of San Gabriel Valley to plant drought tolerant materials at a home in Monrovia. Hard at work were Bill Shieff, Steve Knight, Bryan Earll, Trevor Fessenden, Lindy Hercus and Sylvia Domotor.
Jenny Pappano acted as master of ceremonies as four anxious young men each awaited his turn in front of us, hoping to demonstrate his virtuosity on his chosen instrument in the club level of the Dan Stover Music Competition. The completion, named in honor of the Alhambra Rotarian and dedicated musician, is one of three district wide events, along with the Hensel Essay and Four Way Speech contests, held for high school students throughout District 5300 each year. The contestants were: Joseph Garcia, xylophone; Luis Villa-Lobos, violin; Ian Flores, drums; and Nathaniel Young, saxophone. Each was impressive in his own right, but it was drummer Ian Flores who won the crowd over with his stage presence as well as his playing. He accepted his $150 prize with a big smile. He will move on to compete at the Group level and if successful will compete at the District 5300 Conference, held this year in San Diego.
Rotary brings us many remarkable stories about how one person can motivate wonderful projects. Today’s breakfast speaker at the 2016 multi-district PETS (President-Elect Training Seminar) was David Bobanick, talking about Rotary First Harvest. RHF was started in 1982 by one Rotarian, Norm Hillis. He recognized that roughly 38% of grown food in the United States is wasted due to cosmetic, size, and shape issues. He had a dream of saving that food to be used in hunger relief centers. Knowing that 60% of the populations served in those centers were children and seniors further motivated him. He leveraged his passion and his Rotary and business contacts to create an organization which has diverted 193,679,072 pounds of food from unsaleable to hunger relief agencies since inception in 1982.
The organization is still going strong and has expanded to partner with Americorps Vista to involve recent college grads who spend a year working with small farmers in a produce recovery model that saves 33.4 million pounds of produce.
