Ashland Optimist Bulletin September 9, 2023
Breakfast: Sep. 16- Brenda Austin, Bonita Lenger, John Dougan
Speaker- Sophia White, 4H International exchange to Costa Rica
There will be a Board meeting at the building on Thursday, Sep. 14th. Please let Barrett Glascock know of any additions to the agenda.
We will be hosting Bingo on Friday Sep. 15. Please let Barrett or me know if you can help.
Our installation of Officers is scheduled for Sep. 30th during the breakfast meeting. Please come support your new officers. Governor Ernie Wren will be leading this as his final duty as Governor.
Incoming president, Leigh Kottwitz, would like to learn more about the Ashland Optimist Club members and is asking that you fill out the following survey. It's only ten questions: https://forms.gle/mwbLYSFJCFbDyuhq9
We will also have paper copies at the upcoming meetings, if you would prefer to handle it that way.
After a delicious, traditional breakfast this morning, provided by Barrett Glascock and Shawn Steelman, several members left early to set up our booth for the Ashland Fall Fest. I hope everyone who was interested had the chance to go out and enjoy this annual event.
Our building this morning was filled with items for the silent auction that was being held here by the Good Vibrationz Ladies Charitable Riding Group, in conjunction with their Sadie Strong all-vehicle Poker Run and food sales to raise money for Sadie Robinett, a local middle school student who is fighting leukemia for the third time, and her family. Her mother, Jessica Robinette, is an Ashland Optimist member.
Barrett also shared that the $100 donation that he talked about last week ended up being from long-time Ashland Optimist member Wes Donley's nephew, who has heard so much good about our club.
Barrett, Brandon Glascock, Brenda Austin, and Leigh Kottwitz met online with the nine members of the Optimist club our club sponsored in Katmandu, Nepal this past week. Optimist International President Robert McFadyen was also on the call. We hope to set up an evening meeting with them during the fall, so wait for more information on that.
This morning Bruce Glascock stood and thanked all of the people who helped with the rodeo on Aug. 25-26. There were over 5,580 in attendance over the two nights.
Our speakers this morning were Connie Richards, who drove in from Sturgeon MO, and Beverly Hagenhoff with the Mid-Missouri Quilts of Valor. Quilts of Valor was started twenty years ago by Catherine Roberts, whose son was deployed in Iraq. She dreamed about a veteran who was dealing with despair, but once wrapped in a quilt, his whole demeanor changed. The first quilt was awarded in Nov. 2003 to a soldier at Walter Reed Medical Center who had lost his leg while serving in Iraq. by 2014, Quilts of Valor had awarded 100,000 quilts to service members and veterans. As of this August, over 357,000 quilts have been awarded.
The Mid-Missouri group meets every month on the first Thursday at Satin Stitches in Columbia. Up to five members are involved with sewing each quilt, with one piecing the top, another selecting the backing and lining, another binding all the pieces together, with the final person using a long-arm quilting machine to finish all of the sewing. Most quilts are 60"X80" when they are finished. The website says that it can take up to six months to complete each quilt, which includes a label with information about the recipient and washing instructions, because it is hoped that these quilts will be used to provide healing for the physical and emotional wounds that recipients are dealing with. Because there were no meetings during Covid, Quilts of Valor currently has a waiting list over 300 names long, with Connie adding seventeen new names from Harrisburg recently. The good news is that they have people working on quilts all the time, including a woman in Windsor MO who finishes up to a dozen tops a month.
If you would like more information, to help, or to nominate someone for a quilt, their website is www.QOVF.org.
After the ladies finished speaking and showed the beautiful quilt they had brought, Beverly drew for the Attendance drawing. Jessie Kendall, Mike Gilmore, and Jim Green had their chance at riches, but with their absence, the pot will have a chance to regrow.
Letitia DenHartog
ashlandoptimist.org
