President Chris opened the meeting at noon and Brandon Gething led the Pledge and Prayer.
ATTENDANCE: we had 19 people attending virtually and 11 in-person.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
- Chris noted that we have several members attending for the first time in-person since last March. We are encouraging more members to join us at The Markets at Hanover to reunite with friends and further the Rotary Mission.
_ Greg reminded us to register for the tri-district conference April 30, May 1, and 2 (More details below)
STUDENTS OF THE MONTH: The students of the month were introduced and we heard from 2 students who were not able to attend last week
ROTARY MINUTE: Brandon Gething spoke of his experience with Rotary.
PROGRAM: JENNIFER RYAN - Mission of Mercy
Jennifer explained that Mission of Mercy began in 1994 with a mobile clinic and goals of Healing Through Love and Restoring Dignity Thru Love. They have professional health care people who volunteer their time in the clinic. They now have locations in Frederick, Gettysburg, Taneytown, Harrisburg and Baltimore Co. and usually have their clinics in churches. More recently they started a mobile medical unit and a mobile dental unit. Most Hanoverians who use this service visit the Taneytown and Gettysburg sites. There have been more than 400 Hanover residents who have visited these sites.
Patients are normally those who have no health insurance, no family Doctor, and usually use the hospital as their primary health care. 70% of the patients suffer from chronic illnesses such as diabetes, obesity, blood pressure and heart-related problems. Gettysburg hospital provides free lab and x-ray services for patients in the clinics in the region.
Since 1994 the Taneytown and Gettysburg locations have registered 70,000 medical visits and 8,000 dental ones.
Mission of Mercy operates with no government money. They rely on donations, churches, foundations, sponsorships, and "in-kind" services to fund their operations.
We discovered that our own WALT MAUST volunteers time with them in the dental unit.
NEXT WEEK'S PROGRAM: MICHELLE ORTASIC, GUTHRIE MEMORIAL LIBRARY