President John's Message
For over 10 years Roswell Rotary and individuals in our club and community have made it a mission to help keep kids in school in Honduras by providing them lunch each day through the Lunches for Learning program. This week we will hear from several members who have helped lead this program along with the Executive Director, Phil Dodson. Later this month, our community has the opportunity to further support L4L with the 9th annual Hearts for Honduras evening fundraiser. Even our Past President Moment with Jacque Digieso will shed light on the club’s history with this great effort.
Mark Your Calendar The following week is Super Bowl week. What better time is there to acknowledge the leaders in our Roswell high school football programs than with the Skipper Hoke Leadership Awards? We will honor a football player from Roswell High School, Blessed Trinity Catholic High School, and Fellowship Christian High School. Our keynote speaker will be new Georgia Tech Offensive Coordinator Buster Faulkner. Buster most recently was the Quarterbacks Coach (aka Stetson Bennett’s coach) for the national champion Georgia Bulldogs for three years.
Empty Stomachs & Learning
Speaker Feb. 2: Phil Dodson Lunches for learning Executive Director
Have you ever considered what it would be like if you had to walk for an hour each morning and afternoon across a rugged mountain road just to attend school for the day? Or what if you had to send your kids to school on an empty stomach each morning because you had no food?
For the kids of rural Honduras, this is their reality every day. Honduras is among the poorest nations in the world with much of the population living below the poverty level, earning less than $2 per day. However, statistics show that a child who earns at least a sixth grade education has hope for breaking the cycle of poverty because he or she will learn basic reading, writing and math skills that open future doors. This is the foundation of the Lunches for Learning mission.
Lunches for Learning exists to break the cycle of poverty in rural Honduras by providing a healthy lunch to school children every school day at their school; thereby allowing these children to stay in school so they can complete their education and enter the workforce as literate individuals.
Lunches for Learning is entering their 19th consecutive school year serving the kids of rural southern Honduras. Roswell Rotary has supported this organization since 2012 and individual Rotarians years before that. You don’t want to miss hearing from Phil Dodson about this program, plans for the upcoming school year that begins in February, and how the kids are doing post pandemic.
The 9th Annual Heart for Honduras fundraiser will be held on February 11th at the RoofTop at Crabapple Market in Milton. It will be a fun time of food, drinks, music and fellowship for an important cause. Buy tickets at https://h4hroswell.com/
Past president Jacque Digieso
Our District Governor during Jacque Digieso’s year as President was our own Cheryl Greenway, Roswell Rotary’s first District Governor. Her District 6900 theme was “Treasures”. Embracing a pirate theme, we used treasure maps to uncover buried treasures of all kinds of service and fun. You can’t spell “Roswell Rotary Rocks” without an ARRRR !! We even found treasure in Honduras that year. Get there early this week to discover what’s in the Treasure Chest and Jacque’s scrapbook pages on the big screen.
Did someone say Hospitality Suite??
District Conference April 27-30
Where the fun begins and keeps on going into the night
Margarita machine on the deck, bar inside with talented bartender, dancing, food, meeting all of the other clubs...Roswell Rotary Hospitality Suite is legendary. Best music, best dancing, super fun!!! The Hospitality suite is the place to meet up before events,after events, to grab a bite before heading down to the pool or beach,to partake of the best margarita and other adult beverage alive!
And in the mornings, there is always breakfast and the bottomless coffee pot, ready to recharge you for another day of fun and fellowship.If you have not attended before, just know that Roswell Rotary's Hospitality Suite is THE meet up place for the conference. Everyone passes through the door at some point. It's a proud reputation and we need you to continue carrying the torch (or refilling the margarita machine-your choice).
Hope you can join us April 27-30 for District Conference 2023. Make your reservations today! Registration and Accommodations Link
Baseball & Veterans
New Member: Welcome Mike Oetinger
Schools attended- Junior College in Weed, CA and then transferred to GA College in Milledgeville.
Major- Legal Assistance
Where you live and have lived- My father was in the movie business so we moved a lot until Junior HS where I Grew up in Southern California and graduated from Dana Hills HS. Then I moved to Weed, CA to play baseball at Junior College and then came to Milledgeville in 1990 and continued my baseball career. I lived in Brookhaven and then moved to Roswell in 2008, and we have lived here since.
Spouse- Jan Oetinger and we have been married for 26 years and we dated for 5 years before that. Jan and I met at GA College, and she was a gymnast in college, and she is from Clearwater. FL.
Kids and ages- Bailey Hill Oetinger-19 and she is a 2022 graduate from Roswell High School where she lettered in Soccer and Basketball. She is currently at Lipscomb University in Nashville on a Soccer scholarship as a freshman. Jack Pearce Oetinger- 16 and he is currently a sophomore at FCS and is playing Football and Baseball this year. His passion is baseball and he looks forward to playing baseball in college. He plays for the GA jackets 16U team for the summer baseball program.
Other involvement in community- My passion is baseball and try to volunteer as much as I can and another passion is Veterans and how we can impact them to make their lives better.
Career- It’s been all over but mostly I have been a serial entrepreneur and I love to build things and teams and see those relationships grow and prosper.
Anything interesting! I am the youngest of 4 boys and my brothers live in California.
Why you joined Rotary- I joined Rotary because of the mission of service above self and I want to impact more people than just my inner circle. As I have gotten older I have come to understand there is more to helping than just talking and having great ideas. I need to get involved so I can impact people positively and be more aware of peoples needs. God calls us to be givers not takers and we need to teach the generations that follow in that as well.
