The ubiquitous Mike Peterson reported the final tally on the annual scholarship raffle: a check for $52,000 to Rotary, representing the net proceeds.

Congratulations to the big drawing winner, John DeRussy, who collected the $15,000 first prize and promptly kicked back $5,000 to the fund, bringing the net to $57,000. Not to be outdone, second place winner Ray Iverson donated back the entire $1,000 he won in the drawing. The net now $58,000.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No word yet from Dick Bennett, who won the $500 third prize.

Thanks go to the big ticket sellers, Nancy Stanton in first, Anne LeClair (she's gone, boo hoo), and Sue Winks.

 

Services commemorating the life of John Kelly will be held Saturday, June 15 at 2 p.m. in the Serra High School gymnasium, 451 W 20th Ave, San Mateo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hillsdale Effect students raised $1,300 at last week's car wash; thanks to all Rotarians who tooled their tarnished rides down for a cleanup in service of Rotary service.

 

Ross had a memory, thanks to the incomparable Fred Rogers: be nice because you leave something of yourself with everyone you meet.

 

Mike Peterson introduced Ken Constantino  of Compass Real Estate, the brother of Tom, who was familiar to Rotarians connected with Redwood City and the community college district. Welcome Ken, and we hope to see more of you.

 

 

 

Ashley Boren director of strategy, growth and operations for Sustainable Conservation, which is deeply involved in the issue of water and water conservation in California.

For the past 25 years this group has worked on the state's toughest conservation challenge: Water, how to use it, how to conserve it and how to plan for its future.

Its guiding principle is economic logic and economic justice and builds partnerships that foster those goals.

Water rights are a hard-to-manage commodity that historically have pit users against one another. She cited one example of how different approaches can unknot these issues, Allen Strauss Family Farms.

Strauss farms captures methane produced by cows to generate electricity and has systems in place to reclaim and reuse water.

This, she said, should be the new water reality in the state and to some degree is; however, it's not the fashion in Washington, D.C.

She described the water plumbing of the state, which relies on rainfall, snowpack and water storage and recharge.

Much of what water could be captured is going down the drain to the Pacific Ocean.

In 2014 California passed the first major overhaul of water rights in the Sustainable Groundwater Act.

Sustainable Conservation advocates more groundwater recharge, less pumping and better farming practices that can do both, irrigate and recharge.

A video stream of her presentation is available HERE.