Greetings from your Scribe of the Week, Denise Haynes.  Herin you will read a summary of what you missed or didn’t on Wednesday, September 24, 2025.  Enjoy.

 

Sally Selby and Donna Schwartz teamed up to greet us with a smile and extricate our hard-earned dollars from us to help make someone’s day at the end of the meeting.  Thank you, ladies! 

 

Our permanent invocation substitute, Stephanie Baker, stepped in for a recovering-from-knee-surgery, Jeff Schwartz to set a calm mood for the meeting.  Cheryl Scott led the flag salute and Carol Smith directed our morning voices to sing, You’re a Grand Ol’ Flag.  Ken Quarnberg, also recovering from a recent shoulder surgery, had no difficulty subbing for Dennis Scott and informing us we had no visiting Rotarians, nor any visitors.

 

Even our President had a stand in today.  Queen Jackie is on her way to Niagara Falls.  Jeff Haynes said he saw her purchasing a barrel for the trip.  Ron Nelms was at the podium for the morning.  He instructed us to all tell Queen Jackie he did “a GREAT job”. 

 

Ron asked Jeff Haynes and Marti Sanders to provide an example of the RI theme, “Unite for Good”.  Jeff said our work with the Interacts and the KernYes event are examples because we are working together with the youth to improve their efforts at community service and to help them with life skills.  Marti said our work with Dreams of Hope for Children was an example because we united with them to provide backpacks and school supplies for underserved students.

 

 

 

Carol Smith stood in for Pete Leveroni to introduce our speaker, Betsy McGovern Garcia.  She is VP of Self-Help Enterprises (SHE).  Self-Help began in 1965 when three farmworker families were seeking ways to improve their housing.  These three families, a group of Quakers and several other groups came together to build three homes.  Since that humble start, SHE has overseen the construction of 6,600 single family homes.  SHE also assists with affordable rental housing.  There are 3,000 units located in 61 communities of the San Joaquin Valley with 446 of those in Kern County (specifically 104 in Oildale).  SHE works primarily with low-income families, defined as below 80% of the federal poverty level. 70% of their work is done in rural communities.  Farm and construction workers are the most active in the participation of building their own homes.

The Mutual Self Help Homes model works like this: Several families are put into a group.  Each family must assist in the construction of their own home. Each family must put in 40hrs per week-the borrower providing 10hrs. and recruits family/friends/etc. to contribute the other 30hrs.  All the homes for the group must be completed before anyone can move in. Once in the home, SHE assists the families in six focus areas: *community bonds, *personal growth and development, *financial prosperity, *housing stability (i.e.: how to live in a house) through wrap around services, *education and enrichment and *mental and physical wellbeing. Chardoney Estates in Bakersfield has several SHE homes.

A second major work area of SHE Enterprises is Community Development. They work to provide clean water, sanitary sewer service and other infrastructure projects.  They are currently working on 32 drinking water and 7 wastewater projects.

The third major work area is provision of emergency services.  During and after disasters they deliver clean water, provide well repair/replacement, and assist people with evacuations.

 

Finally, a BIG, relatively new task for SHE is the administration of The Bakersfield Community Land Trust.  The Trust was created in 2023.  The City assigned administration of the Trust to SHE in 2024.  Betsy is the Executive Director.  Homes come into the Trust via the City-City owned vacant lots, tax default and code enforcement. There are 13 single family projects in development with 200 interested buyers. 134 of these were sent for loan preapproval with 20 approved for the first lottery for the first home which was held this month.

Betsy mentioned Rotaries have assisted with the rehab of the houses and would welcome us to help any time.  She said SHE has also done backpack drives, Thanksgiving meals, meals in the summer and other community service projects and invited us to participate when possible. She sent a personal greeting from the Mayor of Tulare, Patrick Isherwood, who also happens to be the President of Tulare Sunrise Rotary.

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Birthday to Queen Jackie on the 27^th, Happy 21^st Anniversary to Scott and Denise Haynes on the 28^th, Happy 22yrs of club membership to Will Duerkson.

 

Happy Spots collected from Will Duerkson-$22 for 22yrs of membership, $20 from Dave Perkins for his trip to Texas. He also presented Ron with a really cool German-beer-stein-like shot glass, $10 from Teresa Waller who is thankful for our weekly scribes and $10 more asking for more scribe volunteers. Finally a congratulatory happy spot from Jeff Bell.  He was appointed by the firm to be a General Partner.  He will now supervise 80 Edward Jones branches. He donated $80 for his happiness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

October 9^th Erick & Bianca Bautista baby shower. RSVP with NO or YES and meal selection by Oct. 6. 

      October 11^th – SanMiguel Grove clean up.  Please RSVP to Marti Sanders ASAP

October 19^th – BBQ and social at Cheryl Scott’s. The annual event is to raise money for the Darren Scott scholarship fund. 

  October 24^th – Octoberfest at Queen Jackie’s homestead.  RSVP to her e-mail by Oct. 20

       December 12^th – Wreaths Across America, wreath unload happens at the     National Cemetery.

      Anytime – Order your new “Rotarian at Work” t-shirt. Talk to Denise

      Anytime – Join the Thousand Flags Committee.  The first meeting was Tuesday 23^rd.

 

Our speaker drew the winning ticket.  After a second reading of the number, expectant Daddy, Erick Bautista claimed the $45.  He’s already in a baby fog. 

 

See you all next Wednesday!!