<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto">FYI<br><br><div dir="ltr">Sent from my iPud</div><div dir="ltr"><br>Begin forwarded message:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><b>From:</b> McChesney Barbara <mailservice@dacdb.net><br><b>Date:</b> March 17, 2024 at 7:40:03 AM PDT<br><b>To:</b> biseball@aol.com<br><b>Subject:</b> <b>March Environment Committee meeting summary</b><br><b>Reply-To:</b> barbsmcc@gmail.com<br><br></div></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr">
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<span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:14pt;"><span style="line-height:115%">Hello All,</span><br>
<span style="line-height:115%">The monthly environmental team meetings offer a great opportunity to network with other like-minded Rotarians pursuing environmental projects. We always learn something new and enjoy our chats. All are welcome to join.</span><br>
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<span style="line-height:115%"><b>Next meeting: April 10 6pm</b></span><br>
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<span style="line-height:115%">Here is a recap of our last environmental meeting.</span><br>
<span style="line-height:115%"><b>District Training Assembly:</b> We talked at length about the environmental presentation at the District Training Assembly. Please look out for a separate email with the details of what is needed and respond quickly. Thank you.</span><br>
<span style="line-height:115%"><b>Arundo Donax Removal:</b> Norm and Barbara reported that 5 Rotary clubs, 3 Interact clubs, one Healdsburg City Council member, and numerous friends participated in the 2<sup>nd</sup> district wide Russian River Arundo Donax removal day on March 9<sup>th</sup>. It was a great morning, and we made lots of progress. The next removal day will be Saturday May 11<sup>th</sup> so please save the date. We will send out more details as we get closer.</span><br>
<span style="line-height:115%"><b>Plastic Free Lunch Day:</b> There is more and more research demonstrating the extreme dangers of single-use plastic to our health and our planet. At our meeting we discussed how Rotarians can make an impact, so we came up with the idea to encourage district Rotarians to join Cafeteria Culture (<a href="https://www.cafeteriaculture.org" style="color:#467886; text-decoration:underline">https://www.cafeteriaculture.org</a>) in a weeklong plastic free lunch challenge. You will receive a separate email with the details. Thank you for playing along.</span><br>
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<span style="line-height:115%"><b>New projects:</b></span><br>
<span style="line-height:115%">The Sonoma Valley Club is working in collaboration with Farm to Pantry and other organizations on a new initiative to ensure that nobody in Sonoma experiences food insecurity. They are about to launch Rotary Gleans Sonoma. Rotarians will help collect excess food getting into the hands of people currently food insecure. We will learn more once the final arrangements are made. This sounds like a very exciting project that other Rotary clubs may want to duplicate in their own towns.</span><br>
<span style="line-height:115%"><b>Event Guidelines:</b> Many of our clubs are working hard to create zero waste events and zero waste club meetings. Paul offered to help create guidelines for this. If you are interested in helping with this, please let me know. </span><br>
<span style="line-height:115%"><b>Take out Tuesdays:</b> The Sonoma Valley club initiated Take out Tuesdays during covid to support local restaurants. They continue to do this but prefer to support restaurants that do not use plastic or Styrofoam packaging for their take-out food. They let the restaurants know.</span><br>
<span style="line-height:115%"><b>Adopt a River:</b> Many of you were interested and were participating in the UN/Rotary partnership Adopt a River. Rotary has built on the success of that program and created Community Action for Fresh Water. Many of you are involved with Arundo Donax removal, clean-ups, and restoration work in your local waterways. Please learn more and register your projects here: <a href="https://www.rotary.org/en/rotary-unep-partnership" style="color:#467886; text-decoration:underline">https://www.rotary.org/en/rotary-unep-partnership</a></span><br>
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<span style="line-height:115%">As always, thank you for all you do to expand the reach of Rotary and make a difference.</span><br>
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Barbara</span></span><br>
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