JANUARY 3, ROTARY IN REVIEW: Otis Zanders & John Harrington
Filling in for President Chuck, Past President Carla Hauge rang the bell to bring the meeting to order at 12:15 p.m. for the first meeting of the year in downtown Saint Paul. David Laird led the assembled Rotarians in singing God Bless America! accompanied by Bob Jones on the piano. John Andrews provided today's Inspirational Minute entitled, Silence. Mindee Kastelic facilitated the introduction of visiting Rotarians and guests. Today's greeter was Jason DeKuester. As part of our weekly announcements, we were notified of the passing of our former club President Chuck Graham. Our thoughts are with his family. We also learned that club member Ron Phillipo is in the Hospital recovering from a fall. We wish Ron a speedy recovery and our thoughts and prayers are with him.
Our Rotary exchange student, Caylin Weiland, spoke about her wonderful time in Nagasaki Japan where she lived with 3 host families. She loved her time abroad and enjoyed meeting exchange students from all over the world. Through the experience, she felt she grew as a person and developed a new perspective on the world.
Jim Hart then introduced John Harrington and Otis Zanders from Ujamaa Place, which was our program for the day. Ujamaa means “Extended Family” in Swahili and Ujamaa place is a place where young African American men can find support for themselves in order to get on track with their lives and their families, most of them after being incarcerated. Set on University Avenue, Ujamaa seeks to provide mentoring support, 2 meals per day, assistance finding housing and employment. While only being in existence since 2010, Ujamaa has worked with over 1000 young African American men and through their program of stabilization, nurturing, and education, they have seen a staggering success rate. While the national average for recidivism is 75%, less than 1% of participants in Ujamaa have been known to reoffend. By keeping recidivism so low and thereby reincarceration very low, Ujamaa has saved the state at least $60 million in prison costs since its inception. While serving 50-55 people a day, they have secured a 90% employment rate for participants, 60% are now living independently, and employment retention rate is 80%. Through stabilizing the participants lives, an environment is created where the participant can live independent of gang influence, function independently, and create or recreate relationships with family. The Ujamaa program was very well received by the Rotary club membership and almost all stayed until the program ended at 1:23.
Former club President Carla concluded the meeting.
Respectfully submitted,
Jason Bradshaw