On this beautiful June day, President Darwin Brewster called the meeting to order at 12:30 pm.

 

INVOCATION   Bob Hoffman delivered the invocation, a prayer focused on looking to the future for happiness and letting the past stay in the past.

 

PATRIOTIC SONG:   God Bless America

 

INTRODUCTION OF GUESTS AND VISITING ROTARIANS: Jennifer Marsh

 

Dan Aylward introduced his wife, Lisa.

 

Justin Sheehan introduced Martaz Davis (just graduated form high school). Marilyn Costigan of the Boy Scouts of America, introduced herself. She is presently with the Burton Rotary Club but is transferring membership to our club in July.

 

HEALTH OF THE CLUB: Jeff Crippen

 

According to Jeff, the health of the club is good. He reported that Vernon is now out of the hospital. Others chimed in that Judge Harrison’s service is this Thursday at 1 pm at The Peoples Church. Street parking in EL will not result in tickets from 1-4:30 pm. Ed McCree’s memorial is tomorrow at 11 am in Eaton Rapids. His visitation is today from 2-4 and 6-8.

 

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

 

1. Habitat Rock the Block will take place on July 11th, in the Baker neighborhood. This is an exterior improvements project organized by Jason Brunette. He needs more volunteers from Rotary for the event and anticipates it will be super fun like last year.

 

2. Survey results—Of those that responded, only 5 Lansing Rotarians are under the age of 35. With this data in hand, the board wants to build up its younger membership and is therefore introducing a new bylaw that will enable a subsidy for those joining on their own who are under 35. Those who take advantage of this offer will pay $100/quarter (with the rest subsidized by the club) and will need to maintain a 60% participation rate to continue receiving the subsidized rate.

 

 

Ken Beachler introduced today’s soloists. They included Adam Woolsey and Alex Quinlan from the THE FULL MONTY, now playing at the Owosso Community Players. Adam plays Jerry in the show and sang a song called Breeze off the River. Alex plays Malcolm and played a song called You Walk with Me. Both songs were wonderful.

 

This month marks the end of the 20th season of Special Music for Rotary. Ken Beachler and John Dale Smith have both played an important role in making this music possible and everyone is looking forward to the 21st season. Given his memorial service this weekend, it is of note that Ed McCree had the initial idea for including special music at meetings of the Lansing Rotary.

 

TODAY’S SPEAKER: J. Thomas Munley, Coordinator for LCC’s Fostering STARS (Students Transforming, Achieving and Realizing Success) for students in or aging out of the Foster Care System. (Introduced by Ken Beachler).

 

 

Ken Beachler introduced Mr. Munley whose impressive resume includes a BA in Advertising from MSU, a MS of Divinity degree from Mundelein and a MS in professional counseling from MSU. He presently coordinates the Fostering Stars program at LCC, works with the Michigan Coalition Against Homelessness, and also collaborates with colleagues at MSU to address hunger and housing security.

 

Mr. Munley began today’s talk with a joke: A young man is speaking with God and asks him what he thinks a million dollars is like. God responds that, to him, a million dollars is like a penny. The young man then asks God what he he thinks of 1000 years. God respond that a thousand years is like a minute. The young man then asks God if he can have a penny. God responds, “In a minute”.

 

The topic then became more serious as Mr. Munley explored where happiness comes from. Is it from time or from money? He argued that it comes from neither. Rather, it comes through health. Without good health, everything is a struggle.

 

Mr. Munley then spent the rest of his talk describing the ACE initiative, that is examining the effects of trauma on children and society. Some key points follow:

 

1. Children and adults make decisions based on their past experiences and traumas. For example, any child who is pulled from a biological parent faces trauma #1. This experience, alone or combined with other traumas, impacts that person’s decision-making skills down the road, particularly in terms of commitment and future planning. This explains why so many of Mr. Munley’s foster youth make decisions that seem ‘wrong’. Success must therefore be measured in different ways depending on his or her starting point.

 

2. Scientific evidence now points to memories being stored for us physically as well as mentally. This is why we have trigger responses to sounds, smells etc. This also accounts for why students from traumatic backgrounds act out at unexpected times.

 

3. If we can intervene early enough with these kids, we have the ability to change public health outcomes. Mr. Munley considers the ACE research one of the biggest health-based discoveries of our time.

 

4. The human nervous system is entrenched in the fight, flight or freeze response pattern to stimuli. This is what has kept us alive through the ages. Now, we have the intellectual capacity to understand why we are responding this way and can stop it. We need to understand how to change our response patterns when they are not appropriate.

 

5. Childhood experiences lead to different outcomes, as learned through the Kaiser Permanente study that spans 25 years following 17,000 participants (and continues). This is the largest of its kind, evidence-based study. In particular, household dysfunction and childhood trauma lead to serious adverse health effects. There is even evidence that neglect starts to sculpt the brain differently.

 

6. The ACE initiative studies ten factors including household dysfunction, neglect, and abuse— and has found a dose-response relationship. This means that the higher the score on a 1-10 scale, the more negative changes there are in brain development etc. These changes include early death; disease, disability and social problems; adoption of health risk behaviors; social, emotional and cognitive impairment; disrupted neurodevelopment; and adverse childhood experience. For example, a score of 6-8 means shortening life by 20 years.

 

7. The following percentages are found across the population. Each adverse experience counts as one point on the ACE scale.

 

HOUSEHOLD DYSFUNCTION: substance abuse—27%, parental sep/divorce—23%, mental illness—19%, battered mothers—13% criminal—6% (5)

 

NEGLECT: emotional—15%, physical—10% (3)

 

ABUSE: emotional—11%, physical—20%, sexual—21% (2)

 

8. Counselors, psychiatrists etc. generally show higher ACE scores than others.

 

9. ACEs are common, interrelated, and intergenerational. This means that the negative impact from childhood trauma can carry on to successive generations. Mr. Munley described a study in which the pleasant smell of fruit was blown at a mouse. After pairing this smell with a shock, the mouse became averse to the smell. Successive generations of mice were also averse, proving the intergenerational impact of this traumatic event.

 

10. The good news is that if it’s predictable, it’s preventable. This is the direction in which the research needs to go now. How can we help to prevent this trauma and turn it around?

 

11. This is an awareness campaign.

 

12. One stable, supportive adult is the first step towards resilience and overcoming childhood trauma. Let’s work together as a community to help our kids to develop the resilience they need.

 

In lieu of a speaker’s gift we will donate money to our Bio Sand Filter project to provide pure water to developing countries i the Dominican Republic.

 

NEXT WEEK:  The Foundation Annual Meeting here at the Lansing Center.

 

Pam Miklavcic's email is:  pam@thedaviesproject.org