We will be taking a road trip for our meeting on July 23rd.  Shendet Ismajlaj has invited us to hold our meeting at his Greenfire Restaurant in appreciation for what Rotary is doing for his homeland of Kosovo.  The meeting will start at 11:50 AM to give us time for our lunch and meeting.

     Our Rotary Exchange Student, Isa de Melo Reis, will talk about her last two trips, one to the East Coast and one to Hawaii.  She accompanied her host Mom, Samantha Hochmann, who is the Executive Director of Tinker Museum, who was travelling to Hawaii for a repatriation ceremony for some items that Robert Tinker received 150 years ago when he lived in Hawaii.

     Isa will be ending her youth exchange and returning to Brazil at the end of July.  She would like to finish high school in Brazil and return to Rockford and attend college here.

     This will be a special meeting not only because of the location but also because of the presentation by Isa.  We need to give Shendet a count of how many will be at lunch so please contact Jim Coffey, jimc6659@aol.com if you are attending and if you are bringing a guest.

     

 

     Beth Thacker gave a presentation on the various District Global Grants that are available to clubs in District 6420.  Global Grants from the Rotary Foundation support long-term sustainable initiatives aligned with Rotary's Area of Focus, such as water and sanitation, disease prevention, education, and peace building.

     Following that presentation, Stacy Lidvall and Shendet Ismajlaj, talked about an upscale global project in Kosovo called Minds for Peace.  The project is an opportunity to expand on a 2024-2025 project in Kosovo working with trauma-identified middle school students in the cities of Pristina and Gjilan, Kosovo.

     Shendet is originally from Kosovo and is grateful to Rotary for what Rotary is doing in Kosovo that he invited us to hold our next meeting at his Greenfire Restaurant and will serve us lunch.  It seemed like an invitation that we could not turn down so see another article for details.

 

L-R - Stacy Lidvall, Elise Cadigan, Shendet Ismajlaj, President Paul

 

     Starting July 9, 2026, Rockford Rotary will be having weekly meetings each Thursday at noon.  We will be meeting in the main