Please join me in congratulating fellow Rotarian Kevin McGuire, Director of Technology for Michigan City Area Schools who has been selected as this year’s recipient of the Paul J. Alinsky Excellence Award. This award is presented annually by the Rotary Club of Michigan City in honor of Paul Alinsky, a past Rotarian who passed away in 1997. It honors Alinsky’s commitment to innovation and leadership by recognizing those in the Michigan City community who demonstrate these traits through “Service Above Self.”
The award will be presented to Kevin during our noon meeting on Thursday March 21. This is a VERY PUBLIC event, and it is time for us to show-off to the community. We will have a full house and we need to be good hosts. Each of our assigned meeting service duties must be fulfilled: Greeter, Registration Table, Invocation, Meeting Coordinator. The number of attendees is unpredictable. We will be having several additional service duties for the day. You may be asked to be a food server to ensure that everyone gets a portioned lunch. Finally, I will be asking members to serve as a host at each of the tables.
The party doesn’t end at noon. We will continue to honor Kevin that evening at our monthly Thirsty Third Thursday!
McGuire was nominated by Betsy Kohn on behalf of Michigan City Area Schools. In her nomination, Kohn wrote, “In his role as Director of Technology for Michigan City Area Schools, Kevin has been quietly impacting Michigan City students and the community as a whole for decades … (He) goes above and beyond to create better lives for children in our community through technology. His current major focus is connectivity. He worked diligently, despite supply chain issues, to secure hotspots for students without internet access during the COVID pandemic and has been a driving force for broadband access in our city and county.”
McGuire spearheaded the installation of antennas on MCAS buildings, providing wireless broadband connectivity to school-issued devices at students’ homes in surrounding neighborhoods. Among other innovative projects, McGuire implemented a comprehensive fiber network that connects all Michigan City Area Schools and support buildings (only the second such network in the state at the time); has secured funding from local, state, and federal programs to ensure MCAS was fully 1:1 (providing Chromebooks and tablets to all students PreK-12) with a $10 million technology plan that also includes classroom equipment as well as technology training for educators so they can provide the most effective instruction. McGuire is actively involved with the La Porte County Broadband Taskforce, is a member of the Rotary Club of Michigan City, and volunteers with the Michigan City Mainstreet Association and youth baseball leagues.
Thank you to the committee headed up by Marty Corley, Jessica Obrien and Mike Kilbourne.
Rotarian saved hundreds of children at risk of being killed by the Nazis in the lead up to World War II
“If something is not impossible, there must be a way to do it,” Rotarian Sir Nicholas Winton once said. Known to his friends as “Nicky,” the British stockbroker rescued hundreds of predominantly Jewish children from the Holocaust in the months leading up to World War II. Winton, who died in 2015 at the age of 106, is now the subject of a new film, “One Life,” starring Sir Anthony Hopkins and Helena Bonham Carter. It was released in January 2024 in the United Kingdom.
The film tells the true story of how Winton rescued 669 children from the Nazi advance and found homes for them in the United Kingdom. During a visit to Prague, Czechoslovakia, in December 1938, Winton saw numerous families who had fled the spread of Nazism in Germany and Austria. The refugees were living in desperate conditions, with little or no shelter or food, as the German invasion of Czechoslovakia loomed. Winton immediately realized it was a race against time: How many children could he rescue before the borders closed?
Producers Emile Sherman and Iain Canning first contemplated telling Winton’s story when they co-founded See-Saw Films more than 15 years ago.
“We were very lucky to have had the opportunity to meet Nicholas Winton before he passed away,” Canning says. “He was the most modest, generous human being. [He] felt the film should not glorify him, but celebrate how the most ordinary of people can make a huge impact.”
With the blessing of Winton’s daughter, Barbara Winton, See-Saw approached screenwriter Lucinda Coxon to adapt Barbara’s 2014 book “If It’s Not Impossible.” Collaborating with Barbara, the screenwriting team gained access to Nicholas’ archives and letters. Barbara was a familiar face at Rotary district conferences. She passed away in 2022, during the making of the film.
Barbara’s book was an essential resource for the cast. Explaining how she got a sense of Nicholas Winton’s mother, Babi, Bonham Carter said, “Barbara was named after Babi. I was very lucky to speak to Barbara, to have her perspective as a granddaughter.”
The restoration of freshwater ecosystems is a vital part of combating three of the most serious threats to our planet: climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. Rotary has launched a new collaboration with the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) to further empower Rotary and Rotaract members to restore, protect, and monitor their local waterways. Community Action for Fresh Water builds on the success of a pilot project, Adopt a River for Sustainable Development, which began in 2020 with the UNEP and District 9212 collaborating on projects to protect rivers in Kenya and Ethiopia.
To take part in the new program, Rotary and Rotaract clubs, either individually or in groups, can make a commitment to a local river, lake, estuary, natural reservoir, or wetland area. Working with other community groups and residents, your club can identify any major threats to the body of water and develop a plan to protect, restore, and sustain it. Some project costs can be funded by district grants or global grants from The Rotary Foundation.
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Join us on March 14th for Mike Hackett's Annual Stock Market Update.
Rotarian saved hundreds of children at risk of being killed by the Nazis in the lead up to World War II
The restoration of freshwater ecosystems is a vital part of combating three of the most serious threats to our planet: climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. Rotary has launched a new collaboration with the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) to further empower Rotary and Rotaract members to restore, protect, and monitor their local waterways. .png)
