Today's Events:

President Linda Kaplan presiding
 

ROTARY THEME 2006-07

We welcome our Sweetheart Visitors:

Sunita (Linda)

* * * A N N O U N C E M E N T S  * * *

THIS IS IT ! ! !

THIS IS THE WEEKEND ! !

$32,000 IN PRE-PAID CORPORATE SPONSORSHIPS

means we promised one hellofa show!!!

YOUR PARTICIPATION IS MANDITORY.

THIS IS OUR #1 FUNDRAISER SUPPORTING

ALL OF OUR CHARITIES.

PARKING INFO:
Your show cards enable to you to get free parking in the Hometown Station section of the Metrorail garage, accessible from 70 Street. You must leave your show card in your windshield while parked.  The garage is patrolled, so you may leave your car there after show hours. For emergency contact with Festival Headquarters during the festival, please use

305-283-6735, Mike Mills cell phone

Call if at the last minute you are unable to take your shift on either day.

Ann Fisher will also have her cell phone with her:

786-201-1792

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Street Marking for Booths:

Thursday, February 22, 2007
@ 4:00AM!! YES, 4:00 AM !!



We meet in front of Lanes. ALL HANDS WELCOME
& YOU ARE INVITED TO :

New Club Fundraiser

Starbucks Gift Cards

fulbrighthosting@ miamiciv.org

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Coral Gables Cycling Celebration

Attendance in activities related to the Cycling to Serve Fellowship  constitutes a make-up attendance for our club's weekly meetings. 

www.cyclingtoservecanadaus.com

BICYCLING THROUGH THE GABLES

OPEN TO THE COMMUNITY
the First Sunday of the month: March 4, April 1, & May 6
11:00 am - 2:00 pm

BICYCLING THROUGH THE COUNTY

For ROTARIANS:  Meet to cycle @ 7:30am
EVERY Saturday
@ Patricia's (5911 Maynada, Coral Gables)

 Check out Patricia's website:  www.Watch-Inc.org 

Bring them to the meetings or take a postage-paid plastic envelop home - ask Mike Mills

DID YOU MISS A MEETING?

Visit www.rotary6990.org to find a club to make up an absence.

What a great opportunity this can be to visit another club and meet new and interesting members who are business owners and community leaders.  They might be interested in the services that you provide.

For online make-ups:

http://www.rotary.org/newsroom/
downloadcenter/pdfs/eclub_list.pdf

Attendance credit for a 30-minute interactive club Web site activity. This offers an alternative to making up a meeting at another club. To earn an attendance credit, Rotarians usually log on to the site, read up on a range of subjects, post comments, and submit a form to the club secretary.

For make-ups anywhere around the world when traveling internationally:

http://rotary.org/support/clubs/index.html

NOTIFY DOREEN REITNAUER, SECRETARY, OF ALL MAKE-UPS:
Doreen_reitnauer@colonialbank.com

Maxene Graham introduced
Mark Buchbinder
We Have a Dream - Overtown, Inc
5104 SW 72 Ave
Miami, FL 33155
(305) 669-1350 / (305) 663-5859 fax /www.ihad.org

FIRST-GRADERS FIND COLLEGE DREAMS NO LONGER FANTASY
Author: TRENTON DANIEL, tdaniel@herald.com
Date: January 22, 2004
Miami Herald
Section: Neighbors NE,  Page: 3N

Self-fulfilling prophecies are usually reserved for people who are born with a silver spoon firmly entrenched in their mouth.

But on Friday an augury - or "secret" - was shared with people that it might have otherwise eluded: first-graders and their parents from Overtown's Phillis Wheatley Elementary School.

"This is your day, and we will begin your day with a secret that I have. I have been told something very, very important about you," Principal Cora Coleman Portee said to the 51 students, restless and fidgety.

Some of the more-attentive children leaned forward, others scanned the room for clues. Parents - the majority of them mothers - looked confused. Door prizes aren't that important.

Portee passed the spotlight to Stephanie Trump.

"We are offering you the opportunity to come on the most exciting and interesting ride of your life,"Trump told the children, still restless and fidgety. "It will help you to grow up with self-esteem, to be proud and productive citizens. . . . We have chosen all of you, the first-grade class of the Phillis Wheatley School, to become `Dreamers,' members of the I Have a Dream class of the year 2015.

"We are making a promise to you that if you stay in school, and work really hard, and you graduate 12th grade, we are going to help you go to college."

The mothers gasped. And then a few started sobbing.

The I Have a Dream Foundation was giving each of the 51 first-graders - still restless and fidgety - a full scholarship to a state university if they successfully graduate from high school - that is, without succumbing to any illegal teenage temptations along the way.

The weeping continued: The mothers' children were virtually guaranteed college.

With more than 180 projects in 64 cities in 27 states, the New York-based nonprofit I Have a Dream Foundation has a simple, yet hands-on agenda: Nurture inner-city youth - the Dreamers, as they're called - so they can have a scholarship to college.

To this end, Phillis Wheatley Class of 2015 will receive a total of $1 million and they and their parents will be required to sign a contract in which the child vows to stay free of drugs, crime and unwanted pregnancies.

In exchange, they have access to a full-time project coordinator, afternoon tutoring and summer program that helps them prepare for the following school year.

The program limits its scholarships to state universities, but Trump said it would help secure part of the funds for a private education.

"Once you have a child who has the ability, we will do everything to get them into a special program," Trump said.

Miami has had four IHAD schools, all of their 97 "Dreamers" based in Liberty City; 67 of them have passed the FCATs. Phillis Wheatley is the fifth.

The Overtown IHAD project got started when Trump, whose family developed the opulent, 80-acre condo enclave of Williams Island off Aventura, paired with Mark Buchbinder, who works with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Buchbinder said he wanted to select Phillis Wheatley Elementary school because of its location in economically depressed Overtown. An IHAD requirement is that 75 percent of the school's students receive free lunches; at Phillis Wheatley, the number is 100 percent.

When the ceremony ended, the "Dreamers" - not really sure what this meant - ambled into a line and exited the room for a late-morning class. But the mothers were still in shock, some trying to conceal sniffles of joy.

"Right now, I feel on top of the world," said Phonda Moore, 47. "It gives me something to look forward to. It gives [my daughter Fantasia Stewart] something to look forward to. . . . I couldn't stop the tears from falling. This is life. This is the future."


Copyright (c) 2004 The Miami Herald

The Rotary Club of Allapattah celebrates these 51 lucky children. Each month they come to the school and throw a party for that month's birthday boys and girls.

Keeping the 51 intact in one school was impossible. Three years later, the 51 are spread to fifteen schools. This program has an after-school component, tutoring, gardening, art, computers and a built-in social worker that assists with health insurance, housing, and other essential life-needs.


Check out the Dreamer Webblog at: 

http://philliswheatley.wordpress.com