In case you would like to know what we in District 5690 (Kansas/Oklahoma) are doing to help our friends in Greensburg, KS where we have a Rotary Club, here's the scoop . The email at the end of this message was sent by our DGE Rod Kreie on Wednesday, May 9 . Greensburg was 95% destroyed by a 1.7 mile wide tornado which completely destroyed the town of about 1,500 residents. This town is starting from scratch to rebuild as the entire downtown and nearly all the homes were completely wiped off the face of the earth. Some photos are at this link: Click to Open Web Page In the meantime, if you, your club or district wishes to help, here's how: District 5690 has arranged for contributions from individual Rotarians, clubs and districts to be to be channeled through the charitable fund of the Rotary Club of Wichita, a 501 (c) (3). Cash Contributions can be made to "Wichita Rotary Charitable Fund - Greensburg Disaster Relief" and sent to the address below. Please distribute the information as you wish to fellow Rotarians, clubs and districts. The WRCF will then disburse funds to the Greensburg and Pratt Rotary clubs when needs have been identified by those clubs. Checks may be sent to: Curtis Dick, Executive Secretary Rotary District 5690 106 W. Douglas, Suite 909 Wichita, KS 67156 curtis@wichitarotary.org If districts have DDF they would like to commit to a long-term project down the road, we are asking that the district please earmark it for future use (at the district level) and inform us (D5690 - curtis@wichitarotary.org) of the amount they are holding for this disaster. We will maintain a record of committed amounts and eventually come back to request the DDF if it is still available. ---------------------------------------- FROM: 5690 DGE Rod Kreie rkreie@pld.com DATE: May 9, 2007 Dear Fellow Rotarians:

Our modest governor DG John Kempf will be having surgery next week and has asked me to be point man for disaster relief for Greensburg. It’s not “serious” surgery but things need fixed so John’s golf game will not continue to deteriorate. He hopes to be back to “full speed” and playing golf again before summer hits. Knowing John, I’d ask everyone to be thinking of Joni. I can’t imagine John being “cooped” up for 2-3 weeks.

Official call for your help

Last night I was able to talk to school officials from Greensburg. They are having graduation!!!!

It’s very important to the morale of the community that their seniors get the recognition that all seniors deserve. This will be their first community event since the storm and hopefully the spark of hope that they need to keep moving forward.

Our fellow Rotarians from Greensburg have their hands full handling their own personal matters and it’s up to us as their Rotary Brothers & Sisters to give them our support with this project.

I have told school officials that we will take care of everything. Graduation is Saturday May 19th. This is going to take several sets of hands because it’s a big project.

I have appointed Greg Soelter as “Chair” of this event. gregsoelter@yahoo.com 620-353-9234 Cell.

Greg has already secured the tents (Donated from 3I tent guy), sound system, etc. He will need help setting up. He also just had the chairs and tables donated. I know that we have Rotarians with expertise in getting things (hopefully donated) that will make this a very memorable event. If you have ideas, suggestions, or just want to help, please let Greg know. E-Mails might be the best.

He might well need help the day before and the day after for setup and cleanup. Please poll you members and let Greg know as soon as possible how many club members might be able to help, or ideas you might have.

Feel free to call me or E-Mail me also.

Please forward this to all of your club members and/or make announcements in your club bulletins.

This is what Rotary is all about, it just happened to be in our neck of the woods this time!

Thank you for being a Rotarian!

YIR

Rod Kreie DG 5690 2007-2008 214 N. Main PO Box 658 Ulysses, KS 67880 620-356-2950 (Home/Office) 620-353-8415 (Cell) 620-424-1621 (Fax)