Club Meeting Recap--April 4, 2016
Drew Buscareno, Assistant Vice President for
University Relations and Notre Dame,
Spoke to the Club
Club President, Terri Rickel, rang the bell calling to order the April 4th meeting of the Elkhart Rotary Club.
Matt Lentsch opened and led in the pledge and four way test.
Guests included Kim Komdeur and Judy Jankowski. Visiting rotarians were Doug Grant from the Wawasee club, Rich Gardner from Chesterton/Porter and Mark Lindemood from Goshen.
Announcements:
From Eric Garton; There will be a "Taste of the Gardens" committee meeting next Monday at 11:00.
From Kathy Grusy; update on the Rotary friendship exchange. There will be 11 people here from Turkey May 5th through the 7th. On Thursday the 5th there will be a lunch at Cracker Barrel in Elkhart at 11:30. Anyone is welcome. There will also be a Friday night district dinner.
May 6th there will be a dinner at the Wellfield gardens for the the friendship exchange Rotarians from Turkey.
There will be a board meeting on Friday, April 8th at 7:00 at Perkins in Elkhart. Anyone is welcome to attend.
April 21st is the next Third Thursday Club Gathering, "505 @ 5:05" at Artisan.
Doug Risser gave the foundation minute highlighting Rotary's partnership with the Peace Corps. One of the projects coming up is working with the “Give a book Foundation” in Costa Rica. There is an opportunity for anyone interested in traveling to Costa Rica to be a part of handing out books to elementary students. Contact Doug Risser.
Upcoming programs:
April 11th: - The club will be honoring those who serve our community, Police, fire and emergency responders.
April 18th – Kevin Deary from the Boys and Girls club.
April 25th – Dr. Jonathan Neufeld from Oaklawn.
Seargent for the Day was Merritt Dilts who extracted fines quizzing the club on Rotary history.
Matt Lentsch introduced the speaker for the day, Drew Buscareno, Assistant Vice President for University Realtions at Notre Dame.
Mr. Buscareno, talked about the advisory council program led by Father John Jenkins and building on groundwork that was laid by Father Hesberg and Father Malloy.
The economic impact of the the new construction taking place on campus the last 5 years has been very positive for the community with an average of $95 million being spent per year during that time. He also noted that any new construction is 100% committed through benefaction with 75% cash receipts before construction begins.
Additionally, during the last 5 years, Notre Dame has invested $157.7 million in research, which is a 92% increase over the previous 5 years.
There are 2.15 million visitors to the campus each year with $18 million being spent in St. Joe county on football weekends.
Other successes have been the East Commons with the hope of attracting the very best students, a partnership with GE in the area of aerospace engineering, and a hydro power project putting in a geothermal system to reduce reliance on carbon based fuel.
Over 8,000 students, faculty and staff have logged over 500,000 hours of volunteer work in the community.
The executive MBA program at Notre Dame is recognized as one of the best in the country.