$600 was provided to the Cemetery Association ($200 from David Clark)
$400 Middlebury Fitness Membership for Diana
Staffed the Regional Planning table at Field Days and had a Window Dressers pamphlet - 5 or 6 people signed up and will be reaching out to those folks
Gary - Window Dressers
All of the funding for this is through Rotary which means this is guaranteed money and we are able to support 3x more low income individuals than other groups who have done this because of this funding. Additionally, this is the first Rotary group to do this and if this is successful - we can use this as a marketing tool for New England
Volunteers Needed - email Gary if interested in assembly or installation.
Mike – Annual Silent Auction Fundraiser will go live around October 14-15
Looking for volunteers to spilt up responsibilities (4-5 people)
Will be sending electronic list of organizations who donated last year for people to look over and think about who they want to reach out to.
Looking for 10% more from places who donated
John - Membership Committee
"Bring A Friend" Breakfast will take place at the Inn on October 19th
This will be a low-key event with interactive activities and Rotarians speaking about why they joined and stayed in Rotary.
Classification Talk – Paul Horn
Background- Paul was born in Italy and came over to the states on a boat at 3 months old. He went to Bentley University for his BS in Accounting and RPI for his Masters in Management. He had a few jobs in VT including Harbour Industries and Berkshire Hathaway which allowed for lots of traveling around the world.
Why Paul joined Rotary? Paul's parents were both involved in service in various ways. His mom was a nurse and father was a Kiwanis member and Paul helped with the different volunteer events his parents attended. Paul was interested in giving back. Additionally, when he lived in New Haven, VT - Paul was on the School Board and coached, but wanted to get involved in Middlebury when he moved to town. Rotary was intriguing to him and he contacted T. Paul came to a few breakfasts and then later joined and has been active in service projects and amazed how people just step up and help when needed!
Sargent of Arms:
Fines and Happy Dollars
Fines:
Jason - Late
Steve - Late
Happy Dollars:
Spence - Happy to have created a "Lasagna Garden" with layers of cardboard, soil, and compost for planting
Jason - Happy to have visited Acadia National Park this weekend and was able to visit his last club in the district
Tim - Happy to have visited his son in CO and went to a rock concert at Red Rocks
Gary - Happy the Jazz Concert was a success at the Swift House and will look to produce more shows
Mark - Will be traveling for his birthday!
Ben - Thank you to Dustin for the rock climbing wall at the public pool - Evie has completed it 123 times
Guest Speaker – Rachel Cummings (CSAC)
Rachel Lee Cummings is a graduate of UVM with a BA in Sociology with a gerontology concentration and a Master’s in Public Health. She has served as the Executive Director of the Counselling Service of Addison County since April 2019. Prior to CSAC, Rachel owned Armistead Senior Care, a home care agency serving Vermont, New Hampshire, and New York. She sold Armistead in 2009 to a group of local investors. In 2011 she started a private guardianship practice helping some of Vermont’s most at-risk and frail elders live fulfilling lives in the setting of their choice. Rachel joined Age Well, an area agency on agency as COO in 2015 where she worked to transform the case management model and Meals on Wheels program.
Rachel is board co-president of Vermont Care Partners, the designated agencies’ state advocacy group. During her tenure, she has worked to advance critical priorities at the state and national level, including building on an integrated, high-quality system of comprehensive services and supports for everyone who needs it and advocating for better reimbursement for mental health and developmental services. Rachel also serves on the board of director for the UVM Medical Group and 5 Town Health Alliance in Bristol.
Rachel moved from Goa India to Westford Vermont at 9 and has lived here ever since. She currently lives in South Burlington with her daughter and son and was a Rotarian in Burlington prior to having children. She plans to return when they are older.
Overview of CSAC:
First - Rachel thanked Rotary for all of their generosity with Bocce, the tent set up where many meetings are able to be held in a safe area due to Covid and for the CACO grant to support the Emergency Team (24/7 service available for those in crisis and mental health distress)
CSAC is the Local Mental Health Designated Agency and has been around for over 60 years. Services include: Family and Youth, Adult Outpatient, Substance Use Counseling, Developmental Services and Case Management.
Youth - clinical services are available in the schools and outpatient. There is also a summer forest program to help support youth in skills (students must apply to this). CSAC recently hired a Child Psychiatrist (1 of 25 in VT).
Adult - 1-1 services are available as well as residential homes which provides case management and medication management. A new program includes "My Pad" program that provides tightly wrapped support in a congregate setting.
E-Team - provides 24/7 crisis services and works closely with Porter Hospital to help assess need for hospitalization and proper discharge
Currently have a clinician on the State Trooper team to help respond to situations and assist in de-escalation
Employees: At full capacity there are 320 employees (both part time and full-time) - but there are currently only 275 staff.
CSAC does have the lowest turn-over rate in the DA system in VT, but the staffing crisis is very challenging right now and creating capacity barriers/ waitlist for services.
Currently a high emphasize on providing more education/training to staff to ensure they feel properly supported in their work
Updates:
Working on being a Trauma-Heeling Organization and supporting staff that have vicarious trauma as well as providing them will tools to support clients who have faced trauma.
Mental Health Urgent Care - funding from the state and SAMSHA to help provide mental health services outside of the ED and creating a safe space for individuals. The goal is to open this in the Fall and help individuals seek care there when in mental health crisis vs the ED and education on which is most appropriate.
Endowment - Looking to increase engagement with the community as these services are well underfunded from Medicare and want to make this more accessible. Additionally these funds would help support staff.
Bocce Tournament - a fun, slightly competitive event that is coming back after last hosting it in 2015. Thank you again to Rotary for your support with this event!
Questions/Comments:
Individuals can both self-refer or be referred by another partner for services
Each clinician has a panel of 35 clients
What is driving the mental health crisis?
Rachel indicated that Covid is still having an impact on the crisis and folks are having a normal response to the pandemic. Social isolation, working from home, the constant uncertainty, kiddos not going to school, and the overall disruption of Covid has taken a toll on folks. Much of the crisis was also prior to Covid, but Covid made it worse for many.
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