President Ron Caruso presented Paul Harris Fellows to four members on March 1

All of us within Rotary strive to live by the motto. “Service above self. Each of us applies our unique skills and experience to helping others, with this as a guiding principle. The efforts and successes of our Club in this regard I am convinced will stand the test of time. We can be very proud of such major contributions to our community as Rotary Rink, the FLW Boathouse, “Old Glory” on the waterfront, and our mentoring program at Lorraine Academy among many, many volunteer efforts.

The opportunity, the challenge, yes, sometimes even the risk of stepping outside the normal bounds of helping others, to do what is right when it occurs should be recognized. Recently several members of our Club were asked to do just this. They responded as true Rotarians. When they learned that the home of a community activist who was trying to rid her neighborhood of drug activity was firebombed, they acted. With Paul Marzello leading the way, George Adema, Paul Lamparelli and Tim Lang came forward with the necessary resources to help restore this woman’s home. Working with a volunteer group of Santa’s (which proves that old adage that yes, there is a Santa Claus), they were successful in restoring her home so that she was able to move back into it before the Holidays.

Ladies and Gentlemen of Rotary, Honored Guests, it is a great honor for me with the assistance of Past District Governor, Joe DePaolo to award the Paul Harris Fellowship Medal to these four outstanding individuals., who have reached out and applied our Motto of Service Above Self in a very extraordinary fashion.

At our meeting on Thursday, February 9, there will be a special presentation honoring our Mentoring program by Past District Governor Karen Oakes. To learn more, please read Marian Hetherly's report of the Jan 26 meeting at Lorraine Elementary that was on two TV station websites:
http://downtown.wgrz.com/news/business/62777-buffalo-rotary-celebrates-20-years-mentoring-lorraine-elementary and
http://www.wkbw.com/younews/138225974.html

See a video to learn more about Rotary

Watch a short video about Rotary. Learn about "Service Above Self" among the the 1.2 Rotary members, in 34,000 Rotary clubs, around the world.

Rotary.org: About Us - Home www.rotary.org
About Us

Feb 2-Buffalo Building Reuse Project

Buffalo Rotary Club meeting of February 2, 12:15 at Templeton Landing.Laura St. Pierre Smith serves as Vice President of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, the region’s business advocacy
organization and chamber of commerce. She will make an interesting presentaion about the Buffalo Building Reuse Project (BBRP), a yearlong study of the downtown real estate market conducted by the Partnership at the request of Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown. Recognizing the oversupply of commercial real estate in downtown Buffalo, Smith and a team of several
dozen volunteers researched current development patterns, national trends, and the best practices of peer cities before outlining recommendations and key steps to advance downtown Buffalo.
BBRP’s core recommendations include:
• Designating the Buffalo Urban Development Corporation as the lead entity for downtown development
Utilizing a dedicated funding stream and enhanced tools to encourage downtown investment
• Implementing a housing in-fill strategy to transition class “B” and “C” commercial properties into residential use.
Laura Smith will be joined by two key BBRP volunteers: David Stebbins of the Buffalo Urban Development Corporation and Brendan Mehaffey of the City of Buffalo to brief us on the public/private commitment to downtown’s future and critical
future. to learn more, go to: http://www.thepartnership.org/Expertise/BuffaloBuildingReuseProject/BuffaloBuildingReuseProjectRecommendations

Buffalo News article about Read To Succeed

The Buffalo News published an article entitled "Giving books to young readers" in the Jan 23 on page B3. Read it Online at:http://www.buffalonews.com/city/communities/east-side/article715277.ece

An important quote states: "Armed with a $60, 000 donation from the Rotary Club, the Buffalo Agency was able to bring the Dolly Parton Imagination Library to families with children 5 and younger." A copy of the full article is available from jmcclive@buffalorotary.org.

Our upcoming Buffalo Rotary Fondation's fundraiser, "Wines Of the World" on March 2 at the Statler is a major source of income that enable us to make this contributions to the community. Thank you for your support

Ellsworth Statler's Buffalo

Ellsworth Milton Statler arrived in Buffalo in 1896 from Wheeling, West Virginia, brimming with confidence and ideas. He saw a booming city with the same attitudes as he and decided to grow with the Queen City. Like most Buffalonians of the time, he was an outsider but by 1923 he was acclaimed "Buffalo's First Citizen." Before he died, he was nationally recognized as the "father of the American hotel industry." Everyone knows the Statler Hotel in Niagara Square where we are holding our 7th Annual Wines of the World fundraiser on March 2. Few know that he built two other hotels in Buffalo, a ground-breaking restaurant, and a grand estate on Soldier's Place. Between 1896 and 1925, both E. M. Statler and his adopted city achieved breathtaking expansion and prosperity.

Our speaker, Susan Eck, is a native Western New Yorker. After a career in teaching, she was an administrator at UB. It was there she became technologically literate and, since retiring, she has applied those skills to illuminating local history on the web. Now in her third career, she was guest curator of the Niagara Square Exhibit at the Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society and creates virtual exhibits for BECHS. For the last ten years, she has researched and published biweekly historical pictorials on the Western New York Heritage Press web. And she is a Pan-American scholar, with her own web on Buffalo's 1901 Exposition (panam1901.org).

Dr. Satish Tripathi's talk before Buffalo Rotary on TV

A story on WBFO-FM reports UB President Satish K. Tripathi spoke at a Buffalo Rotary Club meeting Thursday about plans for UB 2020 and moving the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences downtown. The story also reports that Tripathi plans to visit 20 cities in 20 months, meeting with UB alumni to share the vision of UB 2020 and how they can participate. A story also appeared on YNN.
http://news.wbfo.org/post/university-buffalo-president-takes-ub-2020-road

http://buffalo.ynn.com/content/570040/ub-president-on-billions-for-buffalo/

Meeting Jan 12 at Templeton Landing University at Buffalo

Dr. Satish Tripathis, President, will discuss the Vision and Mission of the University at Buffalo.

Internationally recognized as an accomplished researcher and transformative higher education leader, Dr. Satish K. Tripathi was appointed the 15th president of the University at Buffalo on April 18, 2011.
Dr. Tripathi, who served as UB’s provost and executive vice president for academic affairs from 2004-2011, was one of the principal creators of the UB 2020 strategic plan to achieve academic research excellence, and has led the university to achieve significant growth in research and scholarly activity, enhanced student quality and diversity, and an expanded international presence. Building on this strong foundation, Dr. Tripathi’s vision for UB’s future focuses on moving the university into the highest ranks of the nation’s leading research universities through expanding its reach and impact locally as well as globally.

Meeting Jan 5 at Templeton Landing Internatioanl students at Buffalo Seminary

In recent years, more and more students from around the world are studying in the United States during their secondary school years. Colleges and universities continue to host international students... in large numbers, and Buffalo has ranked in the top ten cities for the number of international students studying at the university level. Now, high school students are joining them! Buffalo Seminary began its residential program three years ago, and this fall twenty five young women moved into four homes in Buffalo to live and study here. The trend to encourage students to study abroad is something the Rotary has supported for years, but the opportunity to add residential programs at the secondary level in Buffalo offers new opportunities for our city and our students. The economic impact cannot be underestimated in this difficult economic time, but the knowledge and insight into the larger world constitute the real benefit for students. High school students today will make a difference tomorrow. The greater their understanding of what it means to live as global citizens, the more all of us stand to benefit. Jody Douglass is in her fifth year as Head of School at Buffalo Seminary. Previously she served as Head of School at George Stevens Academy in Blue Hill, Maine, where she helped start an international boarding program. She was Assistant Head of School and Dean of Faculty at Brooks School in North Andover, Massachusetts, and served as Assistant Dean of Admission at Middlebury College and at Bates College. In 2001, Ms. Douglass and her husband spent a year in Beijing, China, teaching for School Year Abroad. She has a BA in Sociology from Bates and an MA in English from Middlebury.