Ending Hidden Hunger for 100 Million People
MEETING FOR THE WEEK OF Dec. 4, 2023
This Meeting at a Glance:
Program: Ending Hidden Hunger for 100 Million People
Speaker: Felix Brooks-church
Is this your first time to visit us? If so, welcome to our weekly online meeting! To complete our meeting, please continue reading from here to the bottom of this page. Each Monday our week’s meeting is posted early in the morning, U.S. Pacific Time. These meetings are designed so that you can read and watch what we post anytime during the week. The entire meeting takes about 60 minutes to complete, with the video conference recording of the program being the bulk of the time. Note that you can easily read this meeting with your favorite device, so feel free to take our meeting on the go with you. Please also make sure to complete the attendance form at the bottom and leave a comment. Enjoy!
To properly attend this meeting, please:
Read and watch the content below in its entirety.
Complete the attendance survey.
Everyone is also encouraged to leave a comment in the Disqus section at the bottom of the page.
Message from our President
Greetings Members and Friends of Rotary e-Club of Silicon Valley. As President of our Club, I want to welcome you all today.
WEEKLY FUNNY WITH SHAGS
We believe laughter is an important part of life, and we should all make time to laugh a little. This segment of our meeting is meant to tickle you just enough. These funnies are curated by member Steven "Shags" Shagrin!
Future Ambition
Little Johnny’s teacher asked the students what they want to be in the future.
Laurie says she wants to be a doctor.
Karen says she wanted to be a police officer and Susie says she wanted to be a rich and famous actress and model.
When the teacher asked Johnny what he wanted to do, he said, “I want to marry Susie.”
INSPIRATION
Every week we share a short video highlighting innovation, education, entrepreneurship, or whatever we think might inspire you to see the world in new ways.
Those of you who haven't heard of Grand Teton National Park in the US state of Wyoming may in the next few minutes move it onto your bucket list of places to visit. One thing about this stunning time-lapse video, though, is that no, your speakers are probably fine. The music in the piece builds really, really slowly.
LEARN SOMETHING NEW
What’s White, Shaggy And Could Help Reduce Carbon Dioxide By 80%?
No, it's not ME! Again, Inside Science shares something truly fascinating.
Club News
Members
Is your latest information posted on our ClubRunner Members site at: https://portal.clubrunner.ca/8370/Page/ShowHomePage. After logging in, please be sure to access the MyClubRunner tab, and select My Profile. Please update your personal information here, which automatically updates our club directory.
Your Service Hours reporting will now take you directly to your ClubRunner Login and Entry for Volunteer Hours. From this point forward, your Service Hours will report to Rotary from ClubRunner.
TRF and EREY - It’s time to consider your gift to Rotary for the annual TRF Fund. There are several ways to give: outright payment (Check or Credit Card), monthly payments billed to your credit card, allocation to several funds, etc. Our TRF Chair, Phil Dean will be in touch with us soon regarding your pledge and methods for collecting. Our Club is striving to be designated as “Every Year, Every Rotarian”. Your gift matters, either a small amount or a large amount (that is up to you - we will never tell you how much to give). A portion of our Annual Fund giving will come back to us for our DDF usage.
TRF THOUGHT OF THE WEEK: 4 December 2023
Every Rotarian Every Year - Every minute of every day someone’s life is being improved by our Rotary Foundation. Wells are being dug in India, blind children are using Braille typewriters in Brazil, toilets are part of improved sanitation in Sri Lanka, and dental treatment is available to the needy in Nicaragua. In a world where the divide between the haves and have-nots is growing, we as Rotarians must do our part and “do good in the world.”
Here is another example of how The Rotary Foundation and your contribution can help in the world.
Here is why EREY is important to our Club: Did you know that Rotary conveys a special honor to each Club that achieves 100% member participation contributing to TRF? The award is called Every Rotarian, Every Year (EREY). This year, we ask that you consider a pledge to the TRF Annual Fund in November of at least $25 which will qualify your participation and count towards our Club achieving this honor. Also, please note that the District will have two drawings to encourage donations to the Annual Fund. For the first drawing, each Club will get chances in the drawing based on their total giving. The more each Club donates the better the chance of winning. The prize is significant as it is $5000 in DDF, worth $9000 when used in a Global Grant. In order to support smaller Clubs and promote EREY, there is a second drawing where each EREY Club has an equal chance at a prize of $2500 in DDF, worth $4500 when used in a Global Grant. As you may remember, District 5170 had a record setting year in 2021-22, with over $1 million to the Annual Fund, followed by almost $1 million in 2022-23.
Your generosity is always voluntary and very much appreciated. This year why not help our Club achieve the EREY honor, and perhaps, as a result, we will have a shot at some extra DDF funds to continue funding our great service and work as Rotarians.
Remember, to achieve EREY, each Club member needs to make a contribution of at least $25.00 to the Annual Fund. We are happy to accept your check or credit card for the Annual Fund.
District 5170
Read the latest news from District 5170 - https://rotarydistrict5170.org
SERVICE REPORT
Tell us about the service you’ve done recently for the Club or in your community. Also, post here if you attended another Rotary Club meeting this week
Click here to post your Service Hours directly to ClubRunner
SERVICE PROJECT OPPORTUNITIES
For upcoming club projects in District 5170, check out the District 5170 website. Also, if you have some time available for projects, be sure to let your local area Rotary Club know that you are available to volunteer for their upcoming projects.
HAPPY DOLLARS: Do Good by Sharing Something Good
Each week we ask our members to share stories with the club and toss in a few dollars to support our efforts. The primary goal of this section is to provide a fun way of getting to know each fellow members and guests, while giving back to a good cause.
Happy dollars is an opportunity to share something positive that has happened in your life whether it is personal or business. Think of it as your opportunity to brag a little, but also put a little bit into a karma jar. The money donated through happy dollars is put to charitable use.
PROGRAM: Ending Hidden Hunger for 100 Million People
SPEAKER: Felix Brooks-church
Every week we bring to you a new program on innovation, entrepreneurship, and education, and how those contribute to service to others.
The Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley seeks to explore perspectives on service from across the world. The views of the speakers in our programs are their own, and unless stated otherwise, are not necessarily reflective of the views of our eClub or Rotary International.
If you have an idea for a cool speaker, please feel free to reach out to them directly or submit THIS FORM so our Program Committee can contact them!
Two billion people globally suffer from malnutrition, aka hidden hunger, hitting Africa the hardest. Many lack access to healthy food, relying on starchy flour for every meal. This poor diet, lacking vital nutrients, tragically leads to 8,000 preventable child deaths daily. While developed nations enjoy fortified foods like cereal, milk, and salt, two billion people worldwide lack this basic human right. In parts of East Africa, as many as 95% of the population depend on small rural flour mills for their food source to survive.
Sanku enables local flour mills throughout East Africa to produce fortified flour, currently reaching approximately six million people with healthier meals every day. Adding life-saving nutrients to food means children can fight disease, grow up healthy and educated, and live productive lives. By preventing health problems before they occur, Sanku's solution may have a more sustained impact at scale on the lives of people living in rural sub-Saharan Africa than any current health intervention today.
Our speaker, Felix Brooks-church, strongly believes that access to nutritious food should be a right, and not a privilege, and has dedicated his life to developing a technology and business model capable of providing the basic human right to better nutrition to the millions of children and adults excluded by status-quo efforts. Felix co-founded the social enterprise called Sanku in 2013 with the mission to end malnutrition by guaranteeing that every meal, for every mother and child, contains life-saving nutrients, forever.
For the last seventeen years, Felix has lived in the Global South, refining micronutrient delivery systems and developed economic models for sustaining food fortification at scale for small mills throughout East Africa. He led all aspects of product development and engineering for the award-winning Sanku Dosifier technology and designed the innovative business model that will ultimately sustain Sanku's operations at scale with minimal external investment. Felix has grown the organization from a two-man start-up to over 100 East African employees, passionately dedicated to ensuring close to six million people now have access to nutritious food every day. Sanku's big bet vision is to end malnutrition for 100 million people by 2030.
Members and guests, please welcome Felix Brooks-church!
To learn more, go to:
Important Announcement - “Weekly Rotarian” Full Meeting Podcasts
Announcing: Our main program speakers are now available as audio podcasts in addition to YouTube videos! Each week they are available on Spotify, Google, and Apple podcasts.
Or you can simply click below for this week’s speaker:
And our original podcast, featuring Some of the best of our previous speakers is still available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts
UPCOMING PROGRAM RECORDING SCHEDULE
All of our guest speakers and programs are recorded live online over Zoom video conference. We welcome members and guests to join us in one of these upcoming recordings. Recordings are approximately 30 minutes long and are subject to change without notice.
Our online video conference room link for these recordings is always http://zoom.siliconvalleyrotary.com/. You are welcome to join us! Please note the timezone listed for all recordings is US Pacific Time (San Francisco, California, USA).
If you can’t join the live recording, please send your questions for an upcoming speaker to programs@siliconvalleyrotary.com.
THE ATTENDANCE SURVEY
Thanks for reading and watching this week’s meeting. You have two last things to do before you’re done.
We have a very short attendance survey below for you to fill out to record your attendance.
Visiting Rotarians, this is how you can get an email receipt to pass along to your club’s secretary as proof that you’ve attended our meeting if you need it for makeups.
Non-Rotarian Guests, we would love to see who is dropping by our meetings! This part is optional for you. If you think you may want to join our eClub at some point in the future, we would strongly recommend you fill out the attendance form as it will improve your chances of success for your membership application.
For all members and guests — we strongly recommend and ask that you leave a comment in our comments area below. Tell us how you enjoyed the program. Ask this week’s speaker any questions you might have. Or just stop by and say hello and tell us where you’re from!
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