So Now We are Lobbyists :  Every nonprofit needs to tell its story. Rita Thofern described the work done by Friends of Willow River and Kinnickinnic State Parks to work with state legislators and others. She told us how their small but mighty nonprofit has journeyed to what appears to be success in funding a new nature center facility at Willow River State Park. After dogged work for several years and experiencing some success and much disappointment, the outlook is bright. Rita provided her slides as a pdf for benefit of those who didn't make the meeting (the last few were a "reveal" of a generous and anonymous donation.  The slides are available by clicking on Download Files at the bottom of this Tidings.

 

About the Speaker:  Retired educator Rita Thofern is currently the president of the Friends. Most of her career was with the St. Paul Public schools where she taught and served as building administrator at all levels. Her final assignment was as principal of Battle Creek Environmental Magnet School. Rita was also a lecturer in the graduate school at the University of Minnesota where she had earned a doctorate in Educational  policy and Administration. While most of her academic work was in Minnesota, she did earn a master’s degree in education on this side of the St. Croix at UWRF.

The Presentation:   What is Hospice and When Is It Time?  If  and when a summary becomes available, your Tidings editor will add it.

Direct Primary Care: Improving Access and Affordability for Medical Care -- Dr. Miller's presentation focused on how the US health care system became broken, why it has become unaffordable for many, and how the complexities of health care have created barrieers between physician and patient, and how direct primary care can address problems for patients.  He showed how many DPC clinics are operating in the US, and he provided an overview of what a clinic such as his recently-established Cascade Primary Care can do to benefit both physicians and patients.  Click the link to Greg's slides at the bottom of the Tidings to review his presentation, and click READ MORE  to read about Dr. Miller.

--MEETING CANCELLATION POLICY:  the board decided to implement a policy to cancel meetings when the River Falls School District cancels school due to bad weather and poor road conditions.  This resulted from the recent meeting where a speaker came from Roseville MN to speak to a small group of Rotarians because many stayed home.  We can watch the news and RFSD website when weather conditions warrant, and we have made sure that we have ways to contact speakers and inform them and the Ezekiel food preparation team.

 

--RIVER FALLS ROTARY IS ON INSTAGRAM:  Karla has established an account for our club on Instagram.  The link is here; feel free to share it with (younger, we hope) friends and familiy who are on Instagram.

New Westside Principal Rachel Mader introduced herself to our club at the last Tuesday morning meeting of 2025.  The club has a long standing, successful and much-valued reading assistance program at Westside, with the Principal and Reading Specialist playing important roles. Because your newsletter editor was not at the meeting, the usual summary is not possible; however, Rachel provided her very informative slides, which are available by clicking the link at the bottom of this Tidings.  Rachel covered her family, hobbies, her professional journey, educational background, details about her role and duties as principal, and she concluded with a slide about the principles guiding the RFSD as part of the River Falls community.