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September is Basic Education and Literacy Month

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September 9, 2025 Meeting Recap

As always, it was great to see fellow Rotarians at our lunch meeting on September 9, 2025, especially Kathleen Peneguy, who has been busy with work, personal matters, launching her daughter Emma off to college, and preparing for a trip to Ireland to see the Steelers take on the Vikings at the end of this month! We also welcomed guest Chris Lyboldt, who was a previous guest speaker. 

Steve Cory took the lead for our Happy Dollars today so we could raise some funds to share our appreciation with Captain Andy Wheeler for all his help with our CPR/AED project. Steve mentioned that we are on track to train our 1,000th citizen on September 20th at our class at Wellstar North Fulton Hospital. In addition to Kathleen's news about traveling to Ireland, Garrett Vaughn mentioned that he and his wife are celebrating their 57th wedding anniversary with a Nile River cruise! 

Community Service Update

Service Project Chair Amie Blanton gave an update on our Greenway Mural Trail project. We received 36 submissions from local high school artists and selected 14 art concepts for Phase 3. The artists come from several high schools: Alpharetta High, Innovation Academy, Kings Ridge, and Northview. Please see the separate article in this edition of the newsletter for important, upcoming dates! 

Score for Polio Plus

Foundation Chair Doug Higgins gave an update on the Score for Polio Plus campaign. As of September 9th, our members have pledged $1,652.00 for Polio Plus. President Erik Bykat was "leading" the points (or dollars!) with $128.00. Please see the article in this week's newsletter for the Week 3 (for college) results! 

Member Mic

This week's "guest" speakers were two of our very own members: Garrett Vaughn and Dan Jenkins. 

Garrett Vaughn

Garrett is originally from the suburbs of NYC and attended Harper College (which has now become SUNY Binghamton). He served as a Policy Analysis Economist and lived in the Washington DC area. He boiled down his career in this way "I wrote stuff the lobbyists could carry around with them." At one point in his career, he was named the MVP of his department. Unfortunately, that department was eliminated shortly thereafter! In 2010, Garrett retired and he and his wife moved to the Roswell area to be closer to their daughter and three grandchildren. Garrett originally joined Rotary for the social aspects, but quickly realized that he also appreciates our "service above self" attitude! 

Dan Jenkins 

Dan began his moment of Member Mic by explaining how important family is to him. Originally from northern New Jersey, he is one of 8 children himself (and is number 7 out of 8) and has a close relationship to his one brother and six sisters. Dan attended Ramapo College and studied Marketing and Finance. He started his professional career in the medical devices area as a temporary hire with Ciba Corn and his career took him up the ranks in Sales and Marketing at a few different companies including Bayer Diagnostics, Siemens, and Cepheid. Dan retired in May 2025 and has been to Europe three times since then! It sure seems like he likes retired life!

Dan has been married to Karen for 15 years. They each had two children when they married so they merged their families together in the way of The Brady Bunch. Together, they have three daughters and one son, one daughter-in-law, one son-in-law and another daughter about to become engaged (shhhh!! She doesn't know this, but I feel fairly confident that she will not stumble upon our newsletter on the internet!) Earlier this year, Dan and Karen became dog parents to white labrador, Aspen. 

Dan's answers to Why Rotary?

Thanks to both Garrett and Dan for sharing a little about yourselves with the club - we all benefit from having you as part of Rotary Club of North Fulton! 

Women in Rotary

The next quarterly Women in Rotary event will be sponsored by Rotary Club of Johns Creek-North Fulton on September 30th from 5:30 to 7:30 pm at:

American Legion, 201 Wills Road, Alpharetta

Appetizers will be provided, wine will be $5.00 per glass.

Please bring a $5.00 gift card for Publix or Kroger to support Meals by Grace.

Please RSVP by September 22nd to Joy at jcmanbeck@msn.com

Gentlemen - please let your significant others know about this! 

Upcoming Project: Greenway Murals - Phase 3

All Hands on Deck!!! We need everyone's help with one of our signature community service projects - the Greenway Mural Trail!  Our base camp this year will be Rock Mill Park, located off of Kimball Bridge Road between North Point Pkwy and Waters Road.

We will be working with 14 high school artists to transform ugly cement behomeths into colorful masterpieces for our community to enjoy.

Thursday, October 2nd: we will have a "working social" to organize the artists' supplies, location to be confirmed, but possibly at Rock Mill Park.

Saturday, October 4th/Sunday, October 5th: scheduled paint days with volunteer needs from 8:45 am to 5:15 pm Please sign up here:

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/70A0B4CA9A922A7FA7-57978406-turrets/98146827#/

This past weekend, our artists attended a Design Workshop, led by our muralist, Annalysa Kimball, to prepare to paint such large, cylindrical surfaces in a natural environment. We have some returning artists, including one who will be painting her third mural on the Greenway!

Service Above Self!

Submitted by Lisa Gelber

In case you didn't know, our own Mike Mudd is in his second year of a three year term as the District 6900 Rotary Foundation Grants Chair. In this role, Mike is available to assist the 67 clubs in our district with the somewhat cumbersome global grant process and he is also actively involved in the review of community and competitive grants. In addition to these regular duties, Mike is helping to implement processes and procedures to ensure this committee runs smoothly into the future. 

At my request as an Area Governor, Mike agreed to speak to Rotary Club of Sandy Springs about ways they can boost their Foundation giving. As you would expect, Mike did a great job and I have no doubt that he inspired Rotarians to increase their giving to the Foundation. 

In addition, we shared the video about our Heart for Africa Global Grant project with Sandy Springs since they were one of our co-sponsors. The video was an impactful reminder of the power of giving to the Rotary Foundation. 

Companion Club Update

Reminder that our companion club meets on the third Thursday of each month at Thrive, 44 Milton Avenue, Alpharetta (located above Minnie Olivia Pizza) at 6:30 pm. Their next meeting is Thursday, September 18th. One thing to consider - the Alpharetta Rotary 5K is also on this day/time, so you may want to consider parking on the west side of Highway 9! 

If you have any questions, please reach out to Joseph Powell, (912) 662-2246.

Membership Moment