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Club Announcements:
The Rotary Club of North Jackson is meeting via Zoom due to the continuing high rate of COVID-19 cases in Mississip-pi. Zoom meetings will continue until a resumption of in-person meetings is authorized by the club's officers and directors.
Zoom meeting invites with the link and password will be sent to all club members on Mondays. The Zoom meetings will continue to start at noon on Tuesdays with club member fellowship with the meeting starting at 12:15 p.m. If you have any issues connecting to the Zoom meeting, please email Past President Greg Campbell at gregcampbell2@comcast.net.
We reserve the first 15 minutes for fellowship and give our speakers nearly 30 minutes for their presentations.
Mark your calendars for two upcoming events:
Parham Bridges' Park Work Day on March 27th
Rotary Club of North Jackson 50th Anniversary Gala at the Country Club of Jackson on July 20
More details are to come on both events. They are listed as events in our club calendar
Birthdays and Anniversaries.
Birthdays
Katie Browning March 13
Wedding Anniversaries:
David & Jolynn Nicholas March 12
Sara & Brandon White March 14
Membership Anniversaries
Jenny Price 5 years, March 15
Prayer. Having found our way to this familiar place, O God, and to the familiar format of the fellowship we cherish, we are grateful that amid change and uncertainty in life, there is also a comforting sameness about much in human experience. For that we give thanks.
Strengthen us for service by food now provided. Enrich our togetherness by reminders of our mutual identity and responsibility as servants in the world. In the name of the greatest servant of all. Amen.
Mississippi Free Press (MFP) Founding Editor Donna Ladd spoke to the Rotary Club of North Jackson at the club’s March 2 meeting. Ladd is an award-winning journalist from Philadelphia, Miss. After leaving the state the day after she graduated from Mississippi State, vowing to never live here again, she returned 18 years later with a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia. She co-founded the impactful Jackson Free Press in 2002 in order to bring an in-depth news source to the state that would not shy away from historic effects of structural, institutional, and systemic racism—how the past connects to the present—in a way no other media outlet had done in Mississippi.
Ladd has won many awards for columns, political columns, editorials, feature writing, and investigative work, and has shared in a number of public-service journalism awards for her work in Mississippi, from helping put an old Klansman, James Ford Seale, in prison for the kidnapping and murder of two black teenagers in 1964, to deep systemic work on the causes and solutions of crime and violence now in the capital city and the embedded racism in the criminal justice system since the time of slavery.
In 2001, Ladd received a Packard Future of Children fellowship to study the discriminatory application of school discipline on children of color and the cradle-to-jail pipeline. More recently, she was a three-year W.K. Kellogg Foundation leadership fellow, deep-diving into systemic inequity and pathways to “truth, racial healing, and transformation” in her home state. The fellowship led to her efforts to change the narrative about race through the Mississippi Youth Media Project, in which she started to train young people to challenge the media narrative about them and their communities. She has trained many award-winning journalists over the years.
Ladd spoke to the Rotary club about the mission and fundamental principles of Mississippi Free Press. She emphasized that the principles of the MFP are consistent with Rotary’s 4-Way Test: “Is it the truth, Is it fair to all concerned, will it build goodwill and better friendships, and is it beneficial to all concerned?”
Ladd also discussed the fact that MFP is a digital nonprofit that is relying on donations for its success. While MFP is not a 501c(3) nonprofit, tax-deductible donations can be made for MFP to the Community Foundation for Mississippi at 119 S. President St., Jackson, MS 39201.
We thank Ladd for her presentation to our club, for returning home, and for her journalism work. She is shown in the following photo:
The Rotary Club of North Jackson recognized four Paul Harris Fellows at the club’s February 23 meeting. Those recognized were Marisa Davidson, Immediate Past President Greg Campbell, President-Elect Suman Das, and Bill Osborne. Paul Harris fellows are people who have donated or have had donated in their name $1,000 to the Rotary Foundation. People who have donated or have had donated in their name multiple thousands of dollars are named multiple Paul Harris Fellows. People who have donated $10,000 or more are called Major Donors. Members who agree to donate $1,000 annually are members of the Paul Harris Society.
The following are photos of the members who were recognized:
Marisa Davidson Suman Das
Greg Campbell Bill Osborne
The recognition ceremony was organized by Club Foundation Director Neelam Goel; and Club Administrative Secretary/Treasurer Don Roberts.
We thank Marisa, Suman, Greg, and Bill for their support of the Rotary Foundation and we thank Neelam and Don for their work developing the recognition program.
To see the Paul Harris ceremony and the complete meeting, please click on the following link:
Owen Mullen and Esper Delgado of Hope Hollow Ministries spoke to the Rotary Club of North Jackson at the club’s February 16 meeting. Hope Hollow Ministries is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization developed for the purpose of ministering to children and adults with special needs and their families. It provides inclusive and integrated programs that are designed to provide year-round opportunities to experience fun, fellowship, and growth.
Hope Hollow Ministries began in 2008 by three families of children with special needs. The founders realized the need for a program where children like their own could gather with peers and experience the joy and fellowship of camp. As the children of the founding families grew older, the programs developed further to include people with special needs from 5- years old through adulthood.
Hope Hollow is located on Catlett Road West of Canton, MS. The camp accommodates 80 campers annually and focuses on giving those campers a fun experience in a day camp environment. Four different programs are offered: summer camps, weekend retreats, after-school programs, and vacation/holiday camps.
We thank Mullen and Delgado for bringing us the information on Hope Hollow. The Hope Hollow presentation and the complete meeting can be viewed at the following link:
Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba spoke to the Rotary Club of North Jackson at the Club's February 9 meeting. The subject of his speech was an update on the status of the City of Jackson. He started by stating that when he took office nearly 4 years ago, the City was in crisis. It had a $6 million annual fund deficit, employees were on furlough, its school district was about to be taken over by the state, and its water system was unable to bill its customers in spite of a $90 million project to upgrade the metering and billing systems.
Today, the City has a $12 million surplus, it is paying 100% of the health insurance for its employees, its bond rating has improved, no employees are on furlough, and the school district rating has improved. In addition, the City received the largest settlement in its history for the failed water measuring and billing system from the prime contractor and the bus system has been upgraded. The City has also hired a program manager to overhaul the water billing system. For the first time in 18 years, property valuations in the city have increased.
The City is not without problems though. Crime is a major issue. It is being addressed by both traditional and new tech approaches to improve policing. A camera network is dispersed throughout the city and the police Department is being equipped with license plate readers to help identify and locate stolen vehicles. The Mayor is meeting with Millenials in a Mayor and Millennials Roundtable. People are moving into downtown in newly constructed or renewed housing units
We thank Mayor Lumumba for his speech and for his service to the City of Jackson. The complete meeting, including Mayor Lumumba's presentation, may be viewed at the following link: https://vimeo.com/510822462.
Also, here is a photo of the Mayor during his speech:
