At the May 18 Tunkhannock Area High School Senior Awards night, club Scholarship committee chair, Don Davis, presented $1,000 scholarships to 2 graduating seniors. Nathan Schaeffer was the academic winner and will attend Bucknell Univ. with a major in biology and biomedical science. Ben Cannella won the vocational scholarship and will attend the Pennsylvania College of Technology with a major in heavy equipment operation.
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Thank you to everyone who donated food/supply items for the Food Collection Drive at the Tunkhannock Public Library Pavilion Sat. May 20, 2023. Donations went to HANDS, the 7-Loaves Soup Kitchen and the Wyoming County Food Bank in Tunkhannock. The staff at the facilities greatly appreciated these donations. A big thank you to the TPL and Rotarian Dellana Diovisalvo, Library Executive Director, for hosting our event in their pavilion.
L to R: Elaine Walker, Pres. Mike Markovitz, Ron Furman, Laura Charles and Samantha Maruzzelli
Thank you also to Shelly Karavis President Elect of the Plymouth Rotary Club. She joined our club's activity with the Rotary Day of Service District wide event. Shelly delivered a trunk full of food to contribute to our collection.
Shelly Karavis, President Elect of the Plymouth Rotary Club with Pres. Mike Markovitz
Save this date! More details to follow during summer 2023.
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Service Above Self
We meet In Person
Thursdays at 12:15 PM
Shadowbrook Inn and Resort & Zoom
201 Resort Lane
Tunkhannock, PA 18657
United States of America
Tunkhannock, PA 18657
United States of America
On the first and third Thursdays of every month, the Tunkhannock Rotary has a flash club meeting at 5:30 PM at Shadowbrook. This is a 15-30 minute meeting for those members or prospective members who cannot make our regular 12:15 PM meeting.
At the May 18 Rotary Luncheon at Shadowbrook, District 7410 Rotary Foundation Chair, MaryEllen Bentler, presented Don Davis and Pres Mike Markovitz with their multiple Paul Harris designations for their monetary donations to the Rotary Foundation. Don earned his Paul Harris +1 and Mike his Paul Harris +7.
Don Davis (top) and Pres. Mike Markovitz receiving their PHF from District Foundation Chair MaryEllen Bentler
On Thursday May 11, members of the Tunkhannock Rotary visited CANPACK in Olyphant, PA for a Plant Tour by Tunkhannock Rotarian - Jeff Tague.
Rotarians touring CANPACK
The 37th Annual Rotary Relays Invitational Track and Field event was held at Memorial Stadium on Sat May 6 with 6 junior track and field programs competing. The event was coordinated by Relays Chairperson Don Davis with help from Rotary volunteers and track and field officials. Dick Daniels called the events for the day.
The Hazelton Cougars were the big winners for the day taking home both the girls and boys titles. Tunkhannock girls took home the gold medal in the long jump relays.
Some of the Rotary volunteers working the Relays on May 6
Tunkhannock Rotarians were at work serving our community with roadside cleanup on Apr 22, Earth Day 2023.
At the Feb 23 Rotary Luncheon at Shadowbrook, President Mike Markovitz (left) presented a donation for $500 to the Triton Hose Company that was accepted by Alan Grow Jr., 1st Assistant Chief. This donation was funded by the proceeds from the 2022 Rotary Harvest & Wine Festival.
Alan thanked the club for the donation. He then spoke briefly on the current increasing costs of all the fire apparatus (i.e. new fire truck ~ $1 million, full new bunker gear ~ $7,000 per fire fighter, etc.) and how this money would be put to good use towards properly outfitting/protecting the fire fighters.
At the Feb 23 Rotary Luncheon at Shadowbrook, President Mike Markovitz (left) presented a donation for $500 for Equines for Freedom that was accepted by Bruce Spencer, President of Equines for Freedom. This donation was funded by the proceeds from the 2022 Rotary Harvest & Wine Festival.
Bruce, who is a Vietnam veteran, then provided a brief update on Equines for Freedom activities. They treat veterans and first responders with PTSD in a 24–26-week program. The families of the affected individual are also impacted by the PTSD.
He handed out cards with signs to watch for in people who are currently undiagnosed with PTSD and urged everyone, especially family members, to get help for any individuals displaying these signs.
Equines for Freedom treated 24 people last year at their leased facilities at Marley’s Mission. They now have their own 7 horses for use in the program that are on loan from a no-kill farm.
On Feb 21, a Tunkhannock Rotary New and Experienced Member Orientation and Networking event was held at the Tri-County Insurance Community Room by the Membership Committee. The committee is chaired by Mary Tempest and Ron Furman.
Attendees learned about various facets of Rotary and had the opportunity to ask questions of some of the more senior members.
At the Feb 16 Luncheon at Shadowbrook, Tunkhannock Rotarian Jodi Crimmel provided an update on a program in Haiti to which the Club had donated $10,000 towards the purchase of a John Deere Tractor for the Mango Community Family Farm.
Jodi was at the Farm when the tractor arrived, and they held a ribbon cutting ceremony with the local Cap Haitien Rotary representatives, Ellen Schreder from the Brooklyn Center Rotary and Jodi representing Tunkhannock Rotary. The 3 clubs worked together to make this purchase for use on this Community Farm and for use, for a small fee, by other local farmers.
Jodi Crimmel speaking at the Rotary Luncheon and at the celebration for the arrival of the tractor at Mango Farm. Jodi is 3rd from the right in the tractor photo.
At the Feb 16 Tunkhannock Rotary Luncheon at Shadowbrook Resort, Jessica Turner (center) was inducted into Rotary by Membership Chair Mary Tempest (right). Jessica, who works in accounting, was sponsored by Gina Suydam (left).
The guest speaker at the Feb 9 Rotary Luncheon at Lazybrook was Nick Sulzer, the new Manager of the Vosburg Neck State Park, Wyoming County's first state park. It was announced by Gov Tom Wolf in Sept, 2022, but the final paperwork was not signed until December and hiring started in Jan 2023. They will be hiring an Environmental Education Specialist to develop programming for the Park. 
Nick Sulzer
The park is 667 acres and will eventually have access to the river for kayakers and boaters. It will be a passive recreation park, with walking/biking and hiking trails, picnicking and water-based recreation on the North Branch of the Susquehanna River. They are talking with Camp Lackawanna to see what is overlapping and how it will be handled.
Although not starting from scratch since the land was known as the Howland Preserve, owned by the North Branch Land Trust and the trails etc were maintained by the Friends of Howland, they will have to build and acquire the equipment and infrastructure for a State Park.
There is a lot of history to the area. The railroad originally ran there and the railbed is a shared biking and walking trail. You can also still see part of the canal bed from the Lehigh Valley Railroad. Apples were a great part of what was grown in this area due to moisture from the river.
Nick Sulzer
At the Feb 2 Rotary Luncheon at Shadowbrook, President Mike Markovitz formally presented a check for $500 for the Misericordia University Ruth Matthews Bourger Women with Children Program that was gratefully accepted by Program Director Katherine Pohlidal and Program Coordinator Sandy Johnson.
This donation was made possible from the proceeds of the 2022 Rotary Harvest & Wine Festival.
The Women with Children Program's mission is to empower single mothers with up to 3 children, while giving them free housing, financial assistance, and access to child care while pursuing a four-year degree at Misericordia University. Although the program will accept single mothers from across the nation, preference is given to women from the NEPA tri-county area.
Katherine reported that the program opened a fourth house last Fall to expand the program for 4 more families.
Katherine thanked the club for its annual donations. One of the concerns for these mothers is providing presents for their children at Christmas, but thanks to donations from individuals and organizations like Rotary, the children in the program had a merry Christmas morning.
President Mike Markovitz presenting Katherine Pohlidal (left) and Sandy Johnson with a $500 donation for the Women with Children Program.
At the Feb 2 Rotary Luncheon at Shadowbrook, Pres. Mike Markovitz presented a check for $500 for Victims Resource Center (VRC) that was gratefully accepted by Janet MacKay.
This donation was made possible from the proceeds of the 2022 Rotary Harvest & Wine Festival.
Janet is the former Executive Director of VRC, who has come out of retirement to work as a counselor at the Tunkhannock office until full qualified staffing is established.
She reminded the club that VRC helps victims of all types of crime from abuse and violent crimes to theft including identity theft and fraud scams.
Recently, there have been several cases of phone scams targeting the elderly in the area. Janet related that VRC can help get some or all of the money stolen or defrauded from individuals on a fixed income, such as social security or pension victims, replaced from the Victims Compensation Assistance Program. Most of these scam calls are originating from outside of the US. Her best advice is if you receive a threatening phone call asking for money or gift cards, tell them you must talk with a relative or friend before you do anything, which usually ends the scam call.
President Mike Markovitz presenting Janet MacKay with a $500 donation for the VRC.
At the Jan 23 Tunkhannock Rotary Luncheon at Shadowbrook, President-Elect Elaine Walker presented a check for $3,000 to Executive Director Erica Rogler for the Dietrich Theater.
Erica thanked the Rotary for this donation, which was made possible from the proceeds from the 2022 Rotary Harvest & Wine Festival.
Erica then briefly described that the annual donations from Rotary have helped support the 4 Film Festivals, which were attended by 5,403 people in 2022. Rotary funds were also used to help support the Golden Days of Radio and the Music for Littles Programs.
Erica Rogler (right) accepted a check from President-Elect Elaine Walker on behalf of the Dietrich Theater
At the Jan 23 Tunkhannock Rotary Luncheon at Shadowbrook, President-Elect Elaine Walker presented a check for $2,000 to Raleigh Bloch, President of the Seven Loaves Soup Kitchen Board of Directors.
Raleigh thanked the Rotary for this donation, which was made possible from the proceeds of the 2022 Rotary Harvest & Wine Festival.
He then provided a brief update on the challenges the organization has faced since the COVID-19 pandemic. He indicated that pre-pandemic, they were serving meals to approximately 42 people per night to now over 100 per night, with an all-time high of 155 on one night. They have now partnered with local churches, who are delivering food to people who cannot make it to the facility.
They have installed a whole-facility back-up generator to protect the food in their freezers/refrigerators and to allow guests to be served in a heated or air-conditioned facility during any power failures.
Right now, they are dealing with leaks in their metal roof and hope to replace the roof this summer.
Raleigh Bloch (right) accepted a check from President-Elect Elaine Walker on behalf of the Seven Loaves Soup Kitchen.
At the Jan 26 Rotary Meeting, Membership Co-Chair Ron Furman inducted Wyoming County District Attorney Joseph Peters into Rotary. Joe was sponsored by Frank Oliver.
Joe was a cop who became a lawyer, chief of PA bureau of narcotics investigation, mafia prosecutor in Philly, 4 years in White House as deputy drug czar (2 yrs with Clinton and 2 yr with Bush). He was elected Wyoming County District Attorney in 2022. He has learned that best results are from grass root community responses.
Please join us in welcoming Joe as our newest Rotarian.
L to R: Frank Oliver, DA Joseph Peters and Ron Furman
Officers of the Tunkhannock Area High School Interact Club were guests at the Jan 19 Rotary Luncheon at Shadowbrook. The Interact Club has been doing an outstanding job raising money for various charitable endeavors as well as, assisting the Rotary Club with some of its community benefiting activities. Their faculty advisor is Tommasina Fiorillo and club mentors are Rotarians Laura Charles and Dave Wilson.
Some members of the Tunkhannock Area High School Chorus serenaded the members at the Jan 19 Rotary Luncheon at Shadowbrook.
At the Jan 12 Rotary Luncheon at Shadowbrook, Tunkhannock Rotary President Mike Markovitz presented checks for $5,000 and $4,000 respectively to HANDS of Wyoming County and the Tunkhannock Public Library. The proceeds from the Rotary Harvest and Wine Festival made these donations possible.
L to R: HANDS Executive Director Kathy Frank and Financial Officer Alisha Myers and Library Executive Director Dellana Diovisalvo accepted the checks from Pres. Mike on behalf of their organizations.
The speaker for the Jan 5 Rotary Luncheon was Club President Mike Markovitz, who spoke about the challenges and needs of the Tunkhannock Community Ambulance Association (TCAA) since the closure of Tyler Hospital. He related that ambulance runs that might take 1 hr when Tyler was opened, can now take 3-5 hr with travel to Wilkes-Barre or Scranton hospitals with crammed Emergency Rooms. This has impacted their daily operations, especially with a lack of volunteers to help man the ambulance service.
The TCAA has had to turn to paid staff to cover many shifts, which has a negative impact on their financials, especially due to the additional need to invest in equipment to help a little to offset the impact of fewer staff. The TCAA is currently recruiting both paid and volunteer staff, but even paid staff are difficult to find these days.
At the Jan 5 Rotary Luncheon at Shadowbrook, Membership Chair Mary Tempest inducted Sarah Streby into Rotary. Sarah's sponsor was Frank Oliver. Please join us in welcoming Sarah as our newest Tunkhannock Rotarian.
L to R: Frank Oliver, Mary Tempest & Sarah Streby
The Tunkhannock Rotary uses some of the proceeds from the Harvest & Wine Festival to provide its annual donation for gifts for Children in the Ruth Matthews Bourger Women with Children Program at Misericordia University and this year was no different.
This program provides single mothers, who are economically disadvantaged, "the opportunity to complete a college degree, creating brighter futures for themselves and for their children".
To help these families have a great Christmas with their children, various community organizations and donors provide funds to buy Christmas presents for the children.
At the Dec 8 Tunkhannock Rotary Luncheon, President Mike Markovitz Sr. presented checks for $3,000 each to representatives from Interfaith Friends and Wyoming County Children and Youth. Mike was also chair of the Black Friday Candy Cane Day collections with on day coordination of the event provided by his Rotarian son Mike Markovitz, Jr. The $6,000 was used to buy Christmas gifts for children in need in Wyoming County.
On behalf of Interfaith Friends, Mary Foley thanked the club for this donation and her colleague Carissa Harvey noted that they have 165 registered families with 525 children signed up with Interfaith this year.
John Alunni also thanked the club for all the work that went into setting up this fundraiser. He was very grateful for the donation, particularly due to the current financial climate and increasing costs. As a result of this money, children in their purview “will experience the magic of Christmas”.
This event has been an annual Rotary fundraiser for over 32 years. In exchange for monetary donations, shoppers were offered individually wrapped candy canes as a thank you. The candy canes were generously donated by Northeast Data, Inc.
Over 40 Rotarians, Interactors, family and friends braved the weather on Black Friday to collect donations from generous shoppers at 4 shopping plazas in Tunkhannock. Coffee, donuts and hot cocoa to fuel the collection teams were provided by Dunkin Donuts.
L to R: Pres. Mike Markovitz with Mary Foley and Carissa Harvey from Interfaith Friends.
L to R: Pres. Mike Markovitz presenting check to John Alunni for Wyoming County Children & Youth.
L to R: Pres. Mike Markovitz presenting check to John Alunni for Wyoming County Children & Youth.
As part of the Club’s Program to support senior citizens in Wyoming County, a few Rotarians go to the Wyoming County Active Adult Center to play bingo with the attendees. Jodi Crimmel, Robin Rome, Patti Ehrenzeller, Samantha Maruzzelli and Mary Tempest go on the second Tuesday of the month after lunch. Usually there are 20-25 participants, and they play about 20 games with small prizes.
Congratulations to the new Officers and Directors elected on Dec. 1 for the 2023-2024 Rotary year.
Officers:
President – 2023-2024 – Elaine Walker
President (Elect) – 2024-2025 – Ann Way
Vice President – Mary Tempest
Treasurer – Laura Charles
Secretary – Jill Tague (with Sandy Lane – Co-Secretary/Director)
Directors – 2023 – 2024
Mike Markovitz Sr – Immediate Past President
Terri Detrick
Francine Kanyok
Samantha Maruzzelli
John Proctor
Scott Walburn
David Wilson
Ryan Visneski
After the Dec 1 Rotary Luncheon, Rotarians gathered outside the Dietrich Theater to erect and decorate a memorial tree in honor of long-time Rotarian Norm Werkheiser (March 20, 1926 - Jan. 11, 2022). Norm was very active in Rotary for almost 46 years and in addition to applying his carpentry skills to make the Rotary "Take one, leave one" book libraries throughout Tunkhannock and a beautiful Rotary clock for the club meeting area, Norm and his family supported Rotary events such as the July 3rd fireworks and the Harvest & Wine Festival.
At the July 3r Fireworks, they made and sold snow cones with proceeds donated to the club.
Norm and his family also provided key support for our annual Harvest & Wine Festival where Norm was in charge of ordering and delivering the Festival wine glasses, providing signage for the Festival grounds, storing the supplies between Festivals, and cleaning up and recycling bottles and boxes after the event.
New and seasoned Rotarians met for a Rotary orientation on Tues. 11/22/22 at 6:30 PM at Tri-County Insurance /Progressive Insurance Meeting Room. The following topics were discussed: Rotary Basics, Structure of Rotary, Club Runner, Foundation, Service Projects, District and International Events, and Youth Exchange.
Thank you to everyone who donated to our collection buckets manned by Tunkhannock Rotarians, Interactors, and families and friends at several locations in town on Black Friday, Nov. 25. Money collected from this event will be given to Interfaith Friends & Wyoming County Children and Youth to provide Christmas gifts to children in need in Wyoming County.
On Jun 30, Michael Markovitz was installed by District Governor Mary Ellen Bentler as President of the Tunkhannock Rotary for 2022-2023. The Officer Installation Dinner took place at Shadowbrook. Pres. Mike provided an overview of his goals for his Presidency.This is Mike’s second time as President and as he said: “One of the coolest things I get to do this year is lead our club under the international direction of the very first woman Rotary International President – Jennifer E. Jones. Jennifer selected the Theme for this 2022-2023 year to be ‘Imagine Rotary’. From her speech and in her words, ‘She imagines a Rotary where members act to make their dreams become a reality and they make the most of their club experiences’. She urges members to ENGAGE more with each other and use these connections to build partnerships that engage the world”.
He issued a challenge to find out “what our Club Members dreams and inspirations are and help them achieve them to make this a worthwhile experience for all. I would like to continue that momentum forward, encouraging every member of our club to come up with ideas for True Service Projects that everyone in the club, including their families can participate in, getting all our hands dirty for great causes forward. I challenge my board of directors to seek out these ideas in the club and help take on at least 3 great larger service projects (in addition to all of our normal ones, of course) and move them forward to completion.”
Rotary International President Jennifer Jones (who is also our first female president) has announced the 2022-23 theme Imagine Rotary. “Imagine, a world that deserves our best, where we get up each day knowing that we can make a difference.”
The theme is a special one: the theme graphic was designed by an Australian Indigenous artist to link with the Melbourne Convention in 2023.
Some of the symbolism includes:
Circle connections to one another
Dots around it - our people
There are 7 Dots for Rotary's 7 areas of focus
Circle + dots around it - a navigation star, our guiding light
Green solid line - digging stick (used when doing hard work); for us it's People of Action, represents the tools for getting things done
The colours purple, green & white - celebrate diversity, equity and inclusion
Freedom to express ourselves differently but still with a special connection
Purple is also the colour of Rotary's Polio campaign
Green represents the Environment
White stands for peace; it also represents Empowerment and Newness and also the colours were utilised for the women's movement, highlighting the opportunity to grow our female membership.
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