President Kayla Mudge opened the meeting, Blaise Vitale led the Pledge of Allegiance, and Dick Myren gave an invocation.
Guests were introduced, including a friend of the Bunyards, Melodie Jackson’s niece, a PDG from Alaska, and Dale Gray via Zoom.
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For today’s raffle, the winner of the small pot was Blaise Vitale, who drew his own ticket! He did not draw the Ace of clubs, so the big pot carries over.
Next, Kayla Mudge read an email that Pam shared, thanking Mesa West Rotary for their help with the Salvation Army Bell Ringing.
John Bunyard collected Happy Bucks:
- Ted Williams was unhappy to announce that he got an invoice from AT&T mobile that turned out to be a fraud issue!
- Harry Grossman was unhappy that the University of Miami lost the college football championships
- Dick Myren donated on behalf of himself and Rod, and was happy that his son and grandson came to visit
- Blaise Vitale was happy to have won today’s raffle!
- Colleen was happy that her birthday was coming up
- Don Boucher was happy to support law enforcement
- Connie Bunyard was happy to have gone to RYLA this past weekend
- Eric Silverberg was happy that Andy Bradford joined via Zoom while hosting the blood drive
- Polly Cady was happy to have attended Scottsdale Sunrise clubs, and announced that the gold envelopes on each table are for donating towards the RYE students’ train trips
- Allan Cady was happy to donate on behalf of John and his daughter
- Jim Schmidt was happy to have attended RYLA and other stuff
- John Pennypacker was happy that an old friend was coming to visit
- Ed Koeneman was happy for many reasons!
- Warren Williamson was happy to tell his weekly joke
President Kayla announced that the Gilbert Rotary invited us to their Valentine’s trivia event, the Glamour Gala at Aster Senior Center will be Wed, Feb 11th, and CLA & RLI 1 are coming up!
Ray Smith acknowledged that Bob Jenson created the Guaymas Project program over 30 years ago. Today’s speaker was Erica Williams, who updated the club about the Guaymas Project. This project has helped approximately 5,592 patients, provided 5700 hearing aids or earmolds, and helped train over 200 Arizona Doctor of Audiology students. It has also helped to train local Mexican doctors. During the November 2025 trip, they saw 212 patients and were able to take 100 high-quality hearing aids to Mexico.
This year, Erica Williams and Lizzy Barron led the project, as Bob Jenson is now fully retired. They also moved the clinic days to Friday/Saturday and are starting to use electronic patient records. This year, there was also some difficulty getting through customs, and they were required to pay a tariff on the equipment and hearing aids.
Global grant update – Several commitments were made to the grant at the US-Mexico Friendship Conference. The grant has been funded, and the remaining documents are being submitted.
