FOUNDATION DAY! | Rotary Club of Sacramento

Rotary Meeting, November 15, 2022

Heart’s Barracuda blasted out of the speakers, signaling it was time to sit and break bread together. PRESIDENT LINDA GEERY (Gilbert CPAs) welcomed all to our very own Foundation Day. She thanked our greeters JOHN MASSEY (Lux Aviation), BUDDY HUBBERT (Mother Lode Capital), and LEV KAGANOCIVH (Retired, Energy, LEED & Commissioning Consulting.) SARAH HODGE (ACWA) and DIANE WOODRUFF (Retired, Chancellor California Community Colleges) handled the photography duties. The wine reception was graciously hosted by STEVE (Huffman Strategy) and KELLY HUFFMAN (Safety Center Inc).

Thought for the Day

TED WHITE (Sacramento Delta Property Management) offered a number of quotes, making the connection between gratitude and generosity with the Thanksgiving Holiday approaching:

Choosing gratitude and generosity as a way of life

G.K. CHESTERTON: “When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.

ROBERT BRAATHE: Gratitude and attitude are not challenges, they are choices.

CHARLES DICKENS: Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has plenty; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.

TECUMSEH: When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself.

Reflect on the past

GERMANY KENT: It is a funny thing about life, once you begin to take note of the things you are grateful for, you begin to lose sight of the things you lack.

WILLIE NELSON: When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.

ROBERT BRAULT: Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.

Benefits of gratitude – joy and satisfaction

DOUGLAS WOOD; The heart that gives thanks is a happy one, for we cannot feel thankful and unhappy at the same time.

AMY COLLETTE: Gratitude is a powerful catalyst for happiness. it’s the spark that lights a fire of joy in your soul.

KARL BARTH: Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.

BUDDHIST PROVERB: Enough’ is a feast.

MELODY BEATTIE: Gratitude turns what we have into enough and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity…it makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.

A call for care grams went out for PAST PRESIDENT SUSAN SHERIDAN (Retired, Sheridan Law Corporation), who is recovering from knee replacement surgery.

Prospective member LATIF YUSUFI (Golden Pacific Bank) was our only guest today.

Meeting Sponsor

PAST-PRESIDENT DIANE WOODRUFF (Retired, Chancellor California Community College) donated her time as meeting sponsor to PAST-PRESIDENT WALTER DAHL (Dahl Law, Attorneys at Law) who recapped his recent trip to Spain. WALTER, his wife, and his daughter all trekked the Camino De Santiago, or the way of St. James. This is a pilgrimage across the north of Spain. It actually begins in France and runs for 790 kilometers. Their longest day was about 30km, and they averaged 22km per day. This route dates back to the 5th century and is marked along the entire course. A scallop shell logo adorns the markers, this pays homage to water being offered to St. James out of this shaped shell. Congratulations on 30 years of marriage WALTER!

Club Announcements

SARAH HODGE (ACWA) would like participation from our members for ” Passion & Reunion” day which we will hold on 1/31/23. See SARAH for details on how to display or share your accomplishments or pride. MIKE MIKLAUS (Integrity Mortgage) is hosting a fireside tomorrow. BRUCE HESTER (Colliers International) recapped the Dive Bar Tour. The 8th annual bus trip included 30 Rotarians and included all things “tacky.” JOHN (Newmark) and MAGGIE FRISCH, BRUCE and ELFRENA FOORD (Arata Brothers Trust) hosted all of the food and drink, which allowed BRUCE and company to donate $7,554 to Stanford Sierra Adoption.

Click here to view the Dive Bar Tour PowerPoint.

Rotarian Spotlight

RUTH TESAR, Rotary 5 years, Birthday 11/15

RUTH has been the CEO of the Northern California PET Imaging Center for the last 29 years. What is PET Imaging? It has nothing to do with pets, cats, and dogs. While you may be familiar with Xray, MRI other types of scans, the PET scan (which stands for Positron Emission Tomography) is the most sophisticated form of medical imaging. It’s the one doctor’s prefer when they have complex cancer or brain disorder case (like Alzheimers or epilepsy) because it allows them to really see what is going at the cellular level and then to diagnose, stage, and determine what treatment would be best to get their patients well again. RUTH has been a pioneer in her field; RUTH’s company was the first outpatient clinical imaging site in the nation. She was selected as the first woman and nonphysician to lead the Clinical PET Institute. She also received the Distinguished service award from the Society of Nuclear Medicine. She has published over 20 peer-reviewed articles validating the use of PET in cancer treatment. A subsidiary of her firm is also a drug development lab for clinical trials in PET imaging. In terms of hobbies, RUTH loves to ski and was a ski racer on the Junior National Team when she was in college. She also loves Scuba diving and bike riding and she as done several Sac Century rides. A Fun Fact about RUTH: She has climbed two 18,000-foot-high volcanoes (that is 18,000 feet not 8,000 feet. How did she happen to climb these volcanos? It seems her father was a physician and mountain climber and he had even climbed Mt. Everest. He wanted to study the effects of altitude on young people…so he invited RUTH, his daughter, and some of her friends to climb the 18,000-foot volcano with him. RUTH thought it would be a fun way to get out of school. While she was up there, she discovered she is terrified of heights and she even got stuck in a blizzard on the side of the volcano, but she finished the hike and she did it without oxygen.

JOEL HOCKMAN, Rotary 4 years, Birthday 12/19

JOEL is the owner of Pucci’s Pharmacy along with his spouse who is a pharmacist. They bought Pucci’s Pharmacy in 2016 when they were living in Dallas, Texas. They decided to make the big move to Sacramento knowing very little about housing and the kind of city it was. JOEL says they are very happy in Sacramento and are glad they made the move here. Prior to buying the pharmacy, JOEL worked in the corporate world for more than 20 years in sales and marketing so he brings that expertise to making the pharmacy successful. Pucci’s Pharmacy has been very successful. They expanded Pucci’s from 2,000 square feet on J St. to 6,000 square feet on Folsom Blvd and 33^rd St. They not only tripled their space but tripled their revenues in the first three years. A few months ago, you may recall that Pucci Pharmacy was on the front page of the Sacramento Bee because we were in the middle of a monkeypox crisis and they were offering the monkeypox vaccine without knowing if they would ever get paid for it because health insurance companies had not yet authorized it. JOEL says they did it because it was the right thing to do to stop the spread of monkeypox. To bring you up to date on this issue, because of what JOEL and his partner did to give the monkeypox vaccine early to stop the spread, they have indeed stopped the spread of Monkeypox in our community. They have brought the cases down to almost zero and prevented a crisis here. That’s the kind of commitment that Pucci’s Pharmacy has to meet their customers’ health needs. Because their service is so good, when the crisis was at its peak, people around the state were flying in to get the vaccine at Pucci’s because they could not get it in their community. By the way, Pucci’s is still not being reimbursed for what they are doing, but JOEL says they are making some progress so hopefully they will get paid one of these days. A Fun Fact about JOEL: he has visited 45 of the 50 states and plans to visit all of them before too long.

Our Gems of Giving

RUTH TESAR (CEO, Northern California PET Imaging Center) sold a subsidiary of PET Imaging to an Australian company. NICKI WARDLAW (College Track) celebrated her recognition for being named to the up and coming Business Journal 40 under 40 list. JOEL HOCKMAN (Pucci’s Pharmacy) turns 52, Happy Birthday JOEL! FRED TEICHERT (Teichert Foundation) gave in honor of Pucci’s Pharmacy.

Foundation Day Program

ROY ALEXANDER (Retired, Sacramento Children’s Home), Vice President of our Foundation, stepped in for Foundation President Steve Johanson (Johanson & Associates), who was called away on business. ROY led off our Foundation Report. He introduced the trustees – APRIL JAVIST (Sacramento Literacy Foundation), JAMIE FURLONG (Legacy Investment Real Estate), GARY BAZLEN (Ampac USA Inc. /Orange Daily), SARAH HODGE (ACWA), LEV KAGANOVICH (Retired, Energy, LEED & Commissioning Consulting), VIRGINA WADE (Retired, Safe Credit Union), TED WHITE (Sacramento Delta Property Management), ED WRIGHT (Martensen Wright PC), and LARRY GILZEAN (Spare Time Sports Club).

APRIL reviewed the annual report, highlighting the Financials and Investments. Much of the valuation changes are due to market fluctuations. GARY BAZLEN reminded us that 11/29/22 is the national Day of Giving and asked members to remember our Foundation when they get out their checkbooks. GARY went on explain the difference between our club’s Foundation (EDDIE MULLIGAN SOCIETY) and Rotary International (PAUL HARRIS SOCIETY). Locally our dollars go to programs like our community grants and Rotary Youth Exchange. We focused on giving the bulk of this dispersed money to saving mothers and children, literacy, and growing local economies. Internationally the projects are much bigger in scale.

JAMIE FURLONG, along with ROY, reported on many of the clean water projects in Honduras, Guatemala, Pakistan, Kenya, Nicaragua, and Uganda. Our money doubles if it goes through Rotary International, so think about your end-of-year donations for tax purposes! JAMIE also recapped our Golf 4 Kids beneficiaries, who include; Ralph Richardson Center, Luther Burbank High School, YMCA, and CSUS Transition.

Click here to view the Ralph Richardson Center thank you video.

Click here to view the Sac State Transitions thank you video.

Click here to view the Rotary Annual Report Presentation.

SARAH HODGE (ACWA) reported that we gave $20,000 to 14 organizations below: