When paying with a Credit Card, fees approach $1 per transaction, Cash is preferred.
Club Business
The Club presented a check for $3407 to Welcome House for a commercial grade washer and dryer. Allison Martinez, the Executive Director, accepted the check and explained that the washer and dryer will be used in the men’s quarters, which currently houses 14 people.
Russell Bertrand installed Donna Vignoli as a new member. Donna’s sponsor is Valerie Szlatenyi. Welcome, Donna!
Announcements
The joint dinner meeting with Chariho Rotary is next Tuesday, April 16 at the Chariho Country Club. Please contact Tom to sign up if you plan to attend.
Next Thursday’s meeting is cancelled.
Please donate to the Rotary Foundation to support international projects and grants to local clubs. The club goal is to reach an average of $100 per member. Checks should be made payable to Rotary Foundation and sent to Tom.
Chariho Rotary Club is holding a black-and white Pop-up Gala at a surprise location on May 11 from 7:00 to 11:00 PM. You will learn of the location shortly before the event. For more information and to register, go to dvrcsc.eventbrite.com.
Mark your calendar: Bob Cruz’s installation dinner is June 13 at Spain of Narragansett and the Club Christmas party is on December 19, also at Spain.
Thank you for your service above self!
Sunshine
Sunshine : Karl Mindunsky is celebrating his 7th anniversary in the club; Phil Tracy has a birthday coming up (Although he denied it, Elizabeth had it in writing…)
Happy Bucks
Beth Leconte announced that Rotaract President Dakota Grenier is the winner of URI’s Rainville/Carothers Servant Leadership Award for 2019. She joins the last two winners of the award, who also were Rotaract members: Shannon McIsaac in 2018 and Sam Klemarzcyk in 2017. The club was also a finalist for Team Excellence. Congratulations to Dakota, the Rotaractors, and their adviser, Scott Andrews.
Dennis McLeavey is happy that “his” Maple Leaves are playing the Bruins.
Dick Pike had to leave early and told a joke.
Bob Horrocks recently visited Florida and Havana, Cuba.
Lorraine Horton was recently snorkeling off Belize.
Elizabeth Candas celebrated the honor flight for women veterans.
PROGRAM
Speaker and Program: Roberta Powell: Bridging the Health Information Gap (introduced by Beth Leconte)
Roberta Powell is a doctoral candidate in nursing at the University of Rhode Island. Her undergraduate training was in math and economics, and her previous graduate degree was a Master’s in Public Administration from Harvard. She was working as a management consultant for nonprofit organizations in 2005 when she was diagnosed with cancer. Through her experiences, she learned that most people do not understand the “alternative universe” that medicine represents. She went back to school, received her bachelor’s in nursing, and worked as a nurse for several years before entering the URI graduate program.
Roberta explained the “health information gap.” 90% of people are health illiterate, meaning that they do not understand the instructions given to them by physicians and pharmacists and are not aware of how the drugs they are taking work together. This situation leads to 3.3 million outpatient overdoses annually, causes many harmful drug interactions, and is the third leading cause of death in the United States.
The goal of Roberta’s company, Q2Q Health, is to improve health literacy and numeracy. One aspect is to help people understand how the drugs they are taking interact with each other and with the foods they eat. She has developed a smartphone application that (among other uses) allows people to scan whatever they are taking, eating, and drinking to foresee any problems that might arise from the interactions. The app converts complex data to simple scales, charts, and alerts that inform the user in understandable terms.
The next step for Roberta is to develop partnerships with other organizations to spread the project’s impact. To learn more, you can access the site at www.Q2QHealth.com.