Past President Craig Krsnak called the Wagner Rotary Club to order on November 21st. Current President Jerry Weber is still harvesting at this date. The 2018 crop year will be one for the record books. Little William Woods was recognized as a guest and Rotarian Laurie Kidd proceeded to ask each Rotarian to offer up what they were thankful for. Health, safe travel, family, friends, kids being home at Thanksgiving, and the community we live in were among the many announced suggestions. Laurie finished up the prayer by asking for a blessing upon all the firefighters and the people displaced by those fires.

The blessing was followed by the Club singing a special request “Stodola Pumpa” which happens to be Rotarian Francis Doom’s favorite Rotary song.

Rotarian Brenda Jaton drew a lucky ticket and tried for the Queen of Hearts from the card deck but only drew a Queen of Clubs. Secretary Patty Frei reported that we collected $16 for the day which has brought the pot up to $144.00

The attendance teams are growing farther apart with each meeting. The Henke Team only had 1 miss for the day with a total of 16 misses. The Frei Team had six misses again bringing their total up to 26. It was the consensus that the Frei Team has a few more farmers on its team.

Football winners were Amanda Larson sold by Gerrit Juffer and Caitlyn Caldwell sold by Dave Isebrands. Caitlyn has been very lucky this season. Future programs were announced: Jerry Henke November 28th, Pat Breen December 5th, Jerry Weber December 12th, and on December 19th we will watch the Predictions made this past January 2018.

Rotarian Dave Isebrands introduced his wife Sue as the program for the day. Sue is the Chairman of the Helping Hands group in the Wagner Community. Board members are Treasurer Nadine Strivens, Lori Bouza, Scott Alderink, Lori Kucera, Laurie Kidd, Linda Foos, Carol Ersland, and Missy Slaba. The group is operating under the 501 c3 of the United Methodist Church in Wagner.

Every week a group of volunteers gathers at the Wagner Armory to stage the packing lines that are used on Thursday. There are boxes and boxes of donations from individuals, grocery stores, and Feeding South Dakota is a big contributor. Preparing for the weekly event is followed by other individuals and groups who appear every Thursday to put food items in grocery bags. Jag, Boy Scouts, and the Girl Scouts are some of the organizations who have helped in the past. The food items are small packages of fruit, meat, soups, crackers, and other small items. The sacked items are taken to the school and the staff puts them in the appropriate lockers for the students to take home for the weekend.

This past 2017-2018 year they have made 106 sacks of food every week during the 9-month school year. There are that many hungry and needy children in our community! The group raised $13,000.00 last year for purchasing food as the donations do not cover all that is needed.

A student can be sponsored for the entire 9 months with a donation of $144.00. $72.00 will feed a student for half of the school year, $36 for a quarter and $18.00 for one month.

Questions and conversation followed the presentation. Peter Smith from ROCS suggested that the Food Pantry would try to help them obtain some donations from other sources if possible. Rotarians are among some of the individuals who show up on a regular basis to stage the area and/or to help pack on Thursdays. Any individual can help. All you need do is just go to the Armory or contact Sue Isebrands or a committee member for more information.

If you wish to donate an amount you can mail it to Helping Hands c/o Rotarian Laurie Kidd at PO Box 757 and it will be directed to the Chairman or the Treasurer of the Committee.