On January 24, we were very happy to welcome Neil Van Dine, Past Chair of the WASH Rotary Action Group Board of Directors, who is at the forefront of transformative initiatives, dedicated to providing potable water and sanitation to Haiti through Rotary, HANWASH, and WASHRAG. Since 1989, Neil has made Haiti his home, working tirelessly on the forefront of shaping the future of managed water and sanitation in developing nations.
Neil's address to the club demonstrated how he is working towards the goal of sustainable access to clean water, sanitation, and hygiene for every household. He collaborates closely with fellow Rotarians to establish and implement a comprehensive set of international tools, empowering data-driven decision-making and effective work tracking for Rotary WASH initiatives worldwide.
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For the HANWASH meeting, we were also happy to have visitors to the club, namely, Past District Governor Mike McCarthy from the Pottstown Rotary Club and current District Governor, Diane Donaher from the Bethlehem Rotary Club. In addition other area Rotary Club members joined via zoom.
To learn more about the HANWASH initiative, please visit: www.hanwash.org/
On January 10, 2024, the Kutztown Club president, Kurt Rohrbach, addressed the club to present an overview of the first 6 months of his presidency. The past 6 months have brought many interesting speakers for our Wednesday night meetings, lots of fun and beneficial community service projects, a helpful club survey to help improve our club management, and a very useful update to our club bylaws.
With so many great things happening, now is a great time to come check us out!
On Wednesday, January 31, we were happy to host Dan Fogarty, Chief Operating Officer of the Berks County Workforce Development Board. Dan gave us a briefing on the workforce for Berks County, both looking back on a review of labor force composition up to 2023 and looking ahead to the workforce of the next couple of decades. Some of the take-home messages are that the bulk of Berks county employment comes from manufacturing and healthcare; while the population is growing, PA's working age cohort is decreasing (therefore the increase is coming from retirees); any increase in the workforce will come from outside of rural PA. To learn more, please visit WBDhome.
Kutztown Rotary members joined together for the January Kutztown Kitchen at Trinity Lutheran Church in Kutztown.
We dedicated our time to cooking and serving 75 meals, providing regular, quality sustenance to the local community. This crucial effort strengthens the community and serves as a vital source of nutritious food. These community meals are offered on the fourth Sunday of every month from 4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. at Trinity. Send us a message on our website to learn more about how you can join people of action!
Members of the Kutztown Rotary Club celebrated a Student of the Month ceremony on January 3rd, 2024. One student from the Kutztown Area High School and one student from the Brandywine Heights Area High School are selected by school administrators each month throughout the school year for this award based collectively on academic achievement, school participation, and community contributions.
Honored for January were Colin Hamm from Kutztown and Samantha Defrain from Brandywine Heights. The students addressed the club members at the Student of the Month Ceremony where they demonstrated qualities of exemplary students. The ceremony occurs during the Kutztown Rotary meeting on the first Wednesday of the month at the Kutztown Tavern, where the weekly meetings for the club generally take place.
Samantha Defrain is the daughter of Jennifer and Jason Defrain of Macungie, PA. Throughout high School Samantha has stayed involved in Jazz Band and the Marching Band. Over the years she has been an active participant in Girl Scouts and the past year became a volunteer leader. One of Samantha's special interest is juggling and has been an officer for the high school Juggling Club since 2021. She stays busy working at the Bear Creek Mountain Resort, performing a variety of different responsibilities from working in the Mountain Eatery to serving guests at the Snowsports Desk. Upon graduation Samantha plans on attending Kutztown University for a 4+1 masters program for computer science.
Colin Hamm is the son of Dale and Dawn Hamm of Kutztown, PA. Over the years in high school Colin has stayed active as a leader and mentor; he has been a BCTC Student Ambassador 2022-2024, KAHS Senior Class Mentor 2023-2024, National Technical Honor Society 2022-2024 and this year the Senior Class President. Since 2021 he has been busy with high school golf and baseball. Colin has been busy working at the Moselem Springs Golf Coarse and working doing home improvements with a small company in Kutztown. He also is a Junior volunteer firefighter at the Topton Fire Company. When he has free time he enjoys golfing and working on wood projects. After graduation Colin plans to go to the Pennsylvania College of Technology. Then one day become a project manager.
Member spotlight this month is Ralph Capristo. Below is a bio provided by Ralph.
I was born and raised in Bear Creek, Pennsylvania which is in Luzerne County. I went to school at Bear Creek Elementary, Plains Junior High School and Coughlin High School. As a boy, I was fortunate to grow up in a very close family and a family business surrounded by not only my parents and brother but also my grandparents and an uncle.
After graduating high school, I attended Penn State University and earned a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance. After graduating in 2006 I began my career in banking, managing retail bank branches at M&T Bank. In 2010, I graduated from Misericordia University with an MBA. Within a few months of earning my MBA, I moved to Las Vegas and pursued a career in Commercial Banking at US Bank and Corporate Banking at Umpqua Bank. The experience of moving across the country and working in wholesale banking was incredible. In addition to being a banker, I became a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER ™ in 2016.
In 2019, my wife and I decided to move back to Pennsylvania as I had an opportunity to become self-employed and partner full time with my brother, Anthony and childhood best friend, David in our financial planning firm. Our firm was founded in 2005 by David but was rebranded in 2017 as Forthright Wealth Planning. I joined full time in April of 2019. Our firm specializes in providing comprehensive financial planning services to families and businesses. We manage a national client base of more than 1,000 families.
In my free time I enjoy being with my family, working out, playing golf, watching the New York Yankees and traveling. In addition to being a member of the Kutztown Rotary, I was also a member of the Henderson Rotary when I lived in Nevada. I’ve also spent some time volunteering with Junior Achievement, Big Brothers Big Sisters and the Penn State Vegas Alumni Association. Currently, I also sit on the Misericordia University Business Department Advisory Council and was recently elected to the Board of Directors of the Northeast Berks Chamber of Commerce.
Throughout my life I’ve been fortunate to make many friends and meet my wife, Allison. Allison and I have two young children Ralphie (3) and Caroline (1). They are without a doubt the best thing that has ever happened to me. We moved to Kutztown in 2022.
Along with serving the community, members of the Kutztown Rotary Club like to be social. We do social hour meetings throughout the year, we have movie club meetings at area venues (which are turning into Friday night social meetings, LOL), and enjoy activities with other clubs.
This month, we visited the Kutztown Beneficial Association for the music benefit and took home 3 of the raffle basket prizes (see picture below) and played pool at New Jerusalem (see picture below) and at Kurt's house.
Samantha Defrain is the daughter of Jennifer and Jason Defrain of Macungie, PA. Throughout high School Samantha has stayed involved in Jazz Band and the Marching Band. Over the years she has been an active participant in Girl Scouts and the past year became a volunteer leader. One of Samantha's special interest is juggling and has been an officer for the high school Juggling Club since 2021. She stays busy working at the Bear Creek Mountain Resort, performing a variety of different responsibilities from
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