Rotary eBulletin for the week of September 2, 2014

Rotary Log for August 28, 2014

A beautiful summer day, with lots going on in our Club. Wonderful prayer as usual by Reverend Allen, and we had many guests today, including two high school students, Jake Webb and Ashley Cooper (more on them shortly).

We continue to do great things for our community. The Basic Needs Committee reported that we fed 150 children for 9 solid weeks through our support for the Salvation Army. Well done! One of our sources of revenue is our Thunder Chicken Road Race and our President thanked Justin Finn for yet another successful fund raiser and we will get a full report at a later meeting.

Welcome to new member Susan Gold, sponsored by Marie Brownell!  Susan happily lives in the “quiet” South End where she runs LegalShield. According to their website: “At LegalShield, we’ve been offering legal service plans for 40 years protecting 1.4 million families. Unexpected legal questions arise every day...   with our legal service plans you will be protected and empowered to worry less and live more.” Susan is a small business and group benefits specialist. Susan is excited to give back to the community through Rotary.

There were several Happy Dollars today, most humorous of which was Butch Ricci giving $5 because “I work for a business in downtown and I love Portsmouth LOUD”!

Today’s program was both informative and moving. Several Portsmouth High School students, empowered by United Way of the Greater Seacoast (including funding from our Rotary Club), Allies in Substance Abuse Prevention, the Granite Youth Alliance and United Way’s Emerging Leaders, participated in the Granite Youth Film Festival, a unique opportunity for young filmmakers to write, direct, shoot, and star in their own productions about drug and alcohol abuse, peer pressure, youth leadership and other issues.  Instead of responding to tragedies, these students and these organizations have decided to be proactive. Let’s stop right there: if you do nothing else today, go to the following website and click on the video called “The Gateway”: http://www.uwgs.org/films.  There you will see local students, teachers, police and lawyers perform in a video designed to get kids to think about consequences. Jake Webb is one of the writers. He explained that, as a senior at PHS, he knows all too well that kids think about what is fun to do at the moment, and not what the consequences of their actions might be. In the video, a student (performed by PHS sophomore Ashley Cooper) succumbs to peer pressure to use alcohol, then drugs and eventually her good friend dies of an overdose and she is facing a judge in court. As Jake said, a good friend of his told him last Spring that “hey, I use and I turned out fine” and that same young man is on house arrest awaiting trial right now for having hit and nearly killing two people while under the influence. When asked what single most effective thing a parent can do to steer their kids in the right direction, Ashley said: “honestly, my mom is kinda strict and knows everything I am up to. She is really ‘up my grill’. And if there is one thing you can do as a parent it is to be ‘up your kids’ grill’ and know what is going on in their lives and be there if there is a situation where your kid needs help”.  

Did you watch the video? Do it now…and show it to a kid.

This week’s eBulletin written by Jonathan M. Flagg, Esq.