Rotary Community Heroes of Hope
Introducing "Rotary Community Heroes of Hope" - a podcast dedicated to showcasing the profound impact of Rotary in District 5330 and beyond. Join us as we explore the remarkable stories of rotary heroes and initiatives that are transforming communities and creating hope around the world.
Rotary Community Heroes of Hope
Supporting Communities in Crisis: The Angels of Service Initiative by Palm Desert Rotary
Discover how community service can thrive even in the most challenging times as we spotlight the "Angels of Service" program from the Palm Desert Rotary Club. Buffy Kavaniss joins us to share the inspiring origin story of this initiative, which began during COVID-19 to ensure community needs were met despite restrictions. Partnering with Albertsons, this program supports local food pantries and provides essential pet food, filling a critical gap for seniors and homeless individuals with pets. We also hear from Chet Heck of St. Margaret's, one of the program’s beneficiaries, who reveals the profound impact of Rotary’s support as they aid approximately 2,500 families each week.
Our episode continues with the Rotary Club's innovative approach to creating a sustainable pet food program, supplying around 300 pounds of pet food monthly. This initiative has expanded to include a collaboration with Desert Arc, leading to unexpected benefits like donations of pet beds and blankets. We delve into the broader mission of Rotary, emphasizing sustainability through a community garden and their commitment to providing comprehensive support, including food, clothing, and other essential resources. Join us to learn how Rotary is addressing food insecurity and enhancing mental health through pet companionship, making a lasting difference in countless lives.
Welcome to the Rotary Heroes of Hope podcast. I'm your host, judy Zolfakar, proudly serving as the current district governor for Rotary District 5330. Co-hosting with me is Jamie Zinn, our esteemed immediate past district governor. Heroes of Hope brings to light the remarkable stories of impact from Rotarians within our district. Our episodes shine a spotlight on transformative community projects taking root in our region and extend their reach to initiatives making waves on a global scale. Each story is a testament to the profound influence Rotarians exert on the lives of individuals and communities we are committed to serving. Join us in this inspiring journey. Dive deeper into the world of Rotary with us and witness firsthand the extraordinary ways in which Rotary touches lives, and witness firsthand the extraordinary ways in which Rotary touches lives and reshapes our world. Welcome to the Rotary Heroes of Hope podcast, where hope takes center stage and the heroes are the Rotarians among us, turning vision into action.
Speaker 2:Hi there, judy. How are you doing today? I'm doing fabulous. How are you doing? I am doing great. And I'm very excited about our podcast today because we are going to be talking about a program out of our Palm Desert Club and we have Buffy here with us who spearheads that program, and it's called our Angels of Service, and we also have Chet here from one of the recipient organizations who is going to talk about how Rotary impacts their organization with the Angels of Service program.
Speaker 1:That is amazing and that is the purpose of the Heroes of Hope podcast is really understanding how Rotary is impacting our world and those around us. So let's get this kicked off. Buffy, can you introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about your club and the Angels of Service program? Sure.
Speaker 3:I'm Buffy Kavaniss, I'm with Palm Desert Rotary and we are a club of excellence which, of course and we're a club of about right now, I think, 72 members Wow, we're very active. And we started Angels of Service, as during COVID, as a way to continue our service during a time when we really couldn't do very much else. And it was started by our lovely past governor, taco Ricardo Loretta, and we chose four different recipients and they have changed a little bit since we started, but St Margaret's, which is where Chet is from, this is Chet Heck from St Margaret's. And so what we do is we partnered up with Albertsons, who offer us a discount. What we do is we partnered up with Albertsons, who offer us a discount, and we shop every two weeks for one of the recipient, pantry, food pantries. And then we started the pet food project because St Margaret's and Food Now were asking for more pet food than anything else because no one else was supplying them with pet food.
Speaker 1:That's a good initiative and that ties right into Jamie, your mental health initiatives, because pets and seniors is one of the most important mental health initiatives, basically because pets help us stay happy and healthy and that's cool that you put that as part of your program to help feed them.
Speaker 2:Well, and especially out in the Coachella Valley, because there is such a deficiency of mental health services available out there. If we can hook people up and make sure that their animals are being fed and giving them that comfort and joy, we need to keep doing that Absolutely.
Speaker 3:So anyway, so that's, we started it and and surprisingly and well, maybe not surprisingly enough, I think it's like 80% of seniors have pets and many, many homeless have pets, so so that's an important part of the program. We also service Food Now. So that's an important part of the program. We also service Food Now. We service Joslyn Center, which is our local senior center, and they have a food pantry and also do Meals on Wheels. And we service CSUSB. Csu San Bernardino, palm Desert Campus, has a pantry. Palm Desert campus has a pantry because, surprise, then the the food shortage at CSUSB is higher than the national average. So these students get, they manage to get scholarships and get into college, but they can't feed their families.
Speaker 4:They can't feed their families.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what a great program. And this is something that you do every two weeks, every month. How many?
Speaker 3:do you think Every two weeks?
Speaker 1:How many do you think we try to do?
Speaker 3:everybody every month. But we've got, because we it's split kind of with the food program and the pet food program, we pretty much cover. Everybody gets a delivery every month.
Speaker 1:That's awesome.
Speaker 3:So every two weeks for the food and every two weeks for the pet food.
Speaker 2:So how many people would you estimate that you're touching every single month through this program?
Speaker 3:Oh, wow. Well, I think Chet's group services about 600 a week.
Speaker 4:Is that about? Right Between five and 600 families, so that's about 2,500 people a week and I know Food Now does about 800.
Speaker 3:And Jocelyn Center? I'm really not sure, because they split up what we give them into mostly for their. They have Penny's Pantry mostly there and the seniors can just come through and it's like shopping. They can pick what they want and uh, but then what doesn't seem to be selling, even though there's no money involved, goes to their uh, goes into their uh Meals on Wheels program.
Speaker 2:Um, so I'm not sure. Yeah, you could easily be over 5,000 a month with four organizations. You might be even closer to 10,000 a month.
Speaker 3:When you figure it's families Right. Chet says families Exactly, there could be four people in that family.
Speaker 1:So, Chet, tell us a little bit about your organization and how important is this Rotary program to you.
Speaker 4:Well, we wouldn't have the pet food program. I don't think it wasn't for the Rotary.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a good thing.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we started this program in 2007. We had an empty building and we were paying rent for that empty building every month, which was just making me really itchy to watch that happen. So I got a group of teenagers together and we had a little rummage sale and we made 300 bucks and we took the 300 bucks and we went and bought 15 gas cards and 15 food cards. And I took a card table and I sat out in front of the building. I just sat there. I sat out in front of the building, I just sat there. I didn't put any signs up, I just waited. And a guy came by and said hey, what are you doing? And I said well, this is for trying to help people out in the community. He said, wow. He said I could use a gas cart, and so I took his name and gave him a gas cart the next week we had 50 people.
Speaker 1:Wow Well let's back up for just a second. Can you tell us what organization you're from?
Speaker 4:I am from St Margaret's Neighbors for Neighbors program Wonderful. Sorry, I just want to make sure St Margaret's Episcopal Church in Palm Desert and this is one of our main outreach programs.
Speaker 1:So it started with one and then went to 50, and then what happened?
Speaker 4:It blew up. I called the food bank and I said listen, I'm doing this program and my cards are running out in about 20 minutes. If I gave you the same 300 bucks, what could you do? And they delivered a truckload of food. Wow, that started our pantry Really. We went from when I say we went from zero to 60, we went from zero to 500. Now it's taken us this many years but we've never advertised, and that's because the need truly is just there. There's a lot of people who are going to say to me there's not really that kind of need in this area baloney.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a lot of people going hungry.
Speaker 4:They may not be saying that I want to say to them come and volunteer for a Tuesday with me. No-transcript. So we have 75 volunteers a week and we are doing this on limited funds. We are doing this with the food bank in partnership and we are doing this with the Rotary in partnership and without it, some of the things that they're doing for us we really wouldn't be able to do. Let's talk about pet food. There isn't a week that goes by that I don't have people asking for pet food. It is one of those really unseen needs and and it's a constant People are making decisions on whether or not they're going to pay for medicine or pay rent or pay food or pay pet food right, and these, these pets are a lot of people's kids and they're not going to go without. So the rotary has been helping us for years, primarily with food right. And we got to talking and I think buffuffy asked me what do you really need?
Speaker 1:Imagine that a community assessment.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we really need pet food, and the bigger thing is we need to start a program that's got continuity Right, Because then what happens? Is we get pet food one week and everybody's excited, and then they start asking every single week, do is we get pet food one week and everybody's excited and then they start asking every single week do you have any pet food this week?
Speaker 1:Well, they start relying on it, which is good, but you're right, it has to be sustainable.
Speaker 4:Yes, it's got to be sustainable and, thanks to the Rotary, that is now happening with our food pantry, the delivery that they make to us, which is about 300 pounds of pet food a month.
Speaker 4:That is turning into a beautiful program. Not only do we have the food to give out, but, starting in about a month, we're going to have a group from Desert Arc that's going to be coming of their consumers, their clients, that are going to be coming every week and their whole responsibility is going to be taking care of the pet food pantry oh wow, Packaging the pet food, getting it ready for distribution, so that every week, my volunteers that I have have a couple of bins, of giant bins of dog food and cat food. And then we have other things that you know, Buffy I don't even know if you know that other things can't come in. Thanks to folks seeing you all deliver that pet food. We have other little things that are coming in. There's some pet beds that have showed up, there's some blankets that have showed up and it's taking on a life of its own for a. I'll call them a group. I'll call pets a group, a group that really enriches the lives of the folks from the community that we're connecting to.
Speaker 1:That's truly amazing.
Speaker 2:So when you, you still do the food aspect as well. Well, so, buffy, are you just now contributing only pet food, or do you also contribute regular food to St?
Speaker 3:Margaret's To St Margaret's. They get only pet food because they have an incredible program and they now have a garden that you know they've got going and and they get food from there and and they get food from food now. So they're doing, uh, they're, they're doing fabulous, I would say. Of all the pantries we service, they've really chet is the guy, but he's taking it to the 10,000-foot level.
Speaker 3:Oh, absolutely, and I'm not belittling any of our other recipients, because they all work very hard. We all have fundraisers. It's really difficult out here because everybody is raising money for whatever project is special, Especially during the summer.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:Yes, and one of the things we do is we don't stop this program in the summer, even though many people and in the past I've left and I go to oceanside for the summer and I come home every couple of weeks to make sure and I apologize for the dog, I I make sure that, um, everybody's being serviced. I don't want it to all of a sudden, summer to come and go. Whoops, you're on your own, folks.
Speaker 2:Do you do just hard food, or do you do hard food and soft food?
Speaker 3:We do cat and dog hard food Mostly because it's not non-perishable but less perishable, and if they requested canned food we could probably do it, but I think people are happy just being able to feed their animals, so cost is always a factor for us. And we can get dry food much much cheaper than we can get canned food.
Speaker 2:So for our listeners that we have out there obviously they are welcome to contribute as well. You would like to get contributions from them and I am sure, besides pet food, you probably would also like to maybe get some plastic baggies and whatever you package it in so you'll have to share with us Maybe some cat litter, yeah Share with us what other things for your pet program that you might need um besides the food that you're getting?
Speaker 4:it's go ahead, just go ahead. It's easiest for me to say whatever you can imagine needing on an ongoing basis for your pet is what we need, okay, what, whatever we get is what we can turn around and give out. And what I love about this connection with Rotary is we're not on TV, we're not making a giant splash around the community. This is something that is happening quietly and with a great deal of love and consistency. Buffy mentioned the garden and I didn't even talk about the garden. We have kind of focused on our pet food program, but the Rotary was very instrumental in helping us get our community gardens up and running.
Speaker 4:We have a system now where we aren't only inviting people to come for food. They're coming for food, they're coming for pet food, they're coming for clothing, they're coming for community resources. But there's another piece of it, and that is circle of life, baby. That is, what else are we doing besides making sure that people have food on the table, which is vital, right? Well, one of the other things that we're doing is we're recognizing the importance of earth sustainability, right, and so the way we're tackling that is every week we are getting volumes of fresh vegetables. Well, when you're getting those on pallets. You're always going to have some spoilage. 100% of that used to go into the dumpster. Zero goes in. Okay, 1% maybe goes in the dumpster now, because what we're doing is we have a composting program.
Speaker 1:I was going to say you're using it as compost. The farm girl from Missouri, I'm like, ooh, I know where this is going.
Speaker 4:Right behind the church.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful.
Speaker 4:We have another group that comes out and they compost every week and we are making thousands of pounds of compost and what are we doing with that? We are schlepping it up to the garden and we are planting and growing food, and that is community-wide. That is, folks that are coming to us for assistance have now found some meaning in other things that they're doing there. What are they doing? They're helping us in the garden, they're helping us with the compost program. They come out like Buffy does annually to our pet blessing in the park and they come out and see us as volunteers. One of my very favorite client stories that I have was about a month after I opened. I had a couple that had come from Indio on the bus and the guy said do you need any help? And I said well, yeah, we always need help. You're coming a long way. He says it doesn't matter, You're coming a long ways, it doesn't matter. That couple stayed with us for three years.
Speaker 1:They take a two-hour bus ride to come and volunteer with us on a Tuesday. Wow, that's dedication.
Speaker 4:It is it's dedication and it's the connection that community is making. So for our connection to Rotary, this is one of those quiet, unsung roofs that is making such a gigantic impact all over our organization. It is really exciting to me because without these kinds of partnerships, we're going to still do the work that we're doing, but we're certainly not going to do it as well. We maybe are not going to be able to help as many people as we help, and at the end of the day, to me, that's really what it's all about.
Speaker 1:Well, chet, you couldn't have said it any better, and that was what I was feeling. About this particular interview is that there's so many collaborations from different organizations, and the other part in why we have this podcast as well is the fact that there's these quiet collaborations and these sustainable projects that are going on throughout the world with Rotary, and we don't really talk about it much because we just do what we do right. We're people of action, we make it happen and we don't go bragging about it, and this isn't necessarily bragging. The point is to let the communities know that these things are out there and how important they are, what a huge impact that they are making on people's lives right here in our world, in our region, in our cities, in our towns and towns, and that collaboration with organizations like yours, chet, is the lifeblood of what we do.
Speaker 2:And people are always looking for opportunities to volunteer. I mean, they say, a person who volunteers and gives to others leads a much more happier and satisfied life. So we hope from these podcasts that we can also get more people to volunteer and to do things within their community.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we go right back to the mental health the same thing about pets mental health. One of the best things that you can do for your mental health is to get involved and give back to others, and that's what Rotary is all about. So let's talk about how can someone connect with our Palm Desert Rotary and also chat with your organization. So go ahead and take it away, Chet, and then we'll go to Buffy after that.
Speaker 4:For our organization. They can go on the St Margaret's website and they can connect to us through that. And what is that URL to us through that? And what is that URL?
Speaker 1:That URL is stmargetsorg and they can donate there, they can volunteer there, etc. All right, now, buffy, how can someone be involved with Rotary, specifically your club?
Speaker 3:Well, we meet at Palm Valley Country Club, which is on Country Club Road Street Drive, whatever Country Club and we meet every Tuesday at 1145. And they're welcome to join us for a meeting. We'd love to have people come and just see what we're about. They can also. We have Facebook page Palm Desert Rotary and palmdesertrotarycom, I think.
Speaker 1:I think that's our URL. And they can come and visit at the meeting, or they can come and volunteer with you, right?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And I wanted to comment about one other program. It's not Chet's program, but it doesn't matter. It's an incredible program and it's called the Backpack Program and everybody goes. Oh, we do school supplies. This has nothing to do with school supplies.
Speaker 3:Palm Desert Schools or the Palm Springs schools identify 30 kids in each grade who need food on weekends. These kids, without the school lunch program or whatever, they don't eat and so, anonymously, they go to Food Now, pick up backpacks and they have six to eight proteins in them, just for them, not for the family, just for them to eat over the course of a weekend. They drop the empty backpack back on Mondays and that program we donate a chunk to them every year as part of Angels of Service. A chunk to them every year as part of angels of service, uh, but it's. It's very important to keep that program going and they want to increase it. Right now, I think we're servicing about 350 kids, um, but they'd like to expand it to every school in Coachella Valley if we possibly could.
Speaker 3:Um, and it's not our program, it's just a program that we support, but it's an important one and it's just another finger of what this whole thing is. That just grew up because we were looking for something to do when we couldn't do anything else and it's become bigger than life program. I announce it, announced it every week. Up until last year we were self-funded, we had, we were not part of our budget. We we strictly it was donations from club members and we managed to keep it. So anyway, I any any donation, whether it be food and food, non-perishable food items, dog food items, dog food items, dog items yes.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 4:Chad. Don't forget the cans. Yes, do you need backpacks?
Speaker 3:You know we haven't supplied backpacks, but I'm sure they wouldn't go amiss, Because I may know somebody who may have several cases of new backpacks.
Speaker 1:Ah, look at that, oh wow.
Speaker 4:And it's this kind of thing that makes these connections happen. I'm so sorry, that's my dog.
Speaker 1:We have a theme on this podcast. The dogs are chiming in because they're like, yeah, this is good stuff. See, I love the fact that you know here we are right here making another connection and hopefully helping from one organization to another to another, and that is what Rotary and People of Action are all about.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And you know, in today's environment, with our economy and everything you know, people don't talk about what their needs are. So we're meeting those silent needs, as we call them, and to be able to send home this food for these children over the weekend, you know it's vitally important. I mean, these kids are our future. We need to, you know, keep them motivated and keep them healthy and also show them what community service is about and how we need to help our neighbors and our friends. Again, sort of going to our prior podcast of, you know, creating peace, this is a way that we also create peace within our communities, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Any final thoughts?
Speaker 3:I love Rotary, I can't say anything else and I love Rotary.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a good way to end this podcast. Well, thank you both, and I am really profoundly appreciative of this connection.
Speaker 4:Buffy, y'all are amazing. Thanks, Chet. I just cannot appreciate it enough.
Speaker 1:I want to come out and see all the puppies and the cats. You guys should have a pet day where everybody brings their pets so we can enjoy that. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Well, and thank you, chuck, for everything you're doing for your community. Okay, thank you for having us have a good day. Thank you for having us.
Speaker 1:Bye-bye.
Speaker 3:Bye-bye.
Speaker 1:So that wraps up this episode of Heroes of Hope. We are so happy that we have an audience out there listening. We want you to subscribe, share and tell your friends about the Rotary Community Heroes of Hope, because that's how we get the word out about the impact we're having in this world.