President-Clent presided over our meeting, Art Harrington guided us in prayer, AJ led us with the pledge to our flag, and Christie with the Four Way Test. Thought of the Day provided by Katheryn: “Hope is a quality inside every person, and you can place a transformative demand upon your heart to believe for the absolute best outcome” Rick Rigsby.
Jim Huffman made his debut appearance as Sgt. at Arms along with Greg Raskin, and immediately had to fine themselves for not wearing pins. Dan, who had previously announced he shopped at Costco for anniversary jewelry, was naturally fined by Greg for not shopping at Raskin’s Jewelry. Jon Berry was fined for turning off his cam so he could work during meetings, John Stewart was fined for driving to Yuma during our meeting, and those who got rain were fined a buck and those with snow two bucks.
Clent gave happy bucks for all the energy and humor so early in the mornings, John Scholl was happy to participate in giving Covid vaccines to his school district, Dennis Light paid to celebrate moving to the next stage of Covid vaccinations to include 65+ (not that this had any relevance to our club), and Donna donated happy bucks in thanks to Terry and Teresa sharing information on our Yarnell water project. Lots and lots of happy bucks for the rain and snow.
Bud introduced our guest speaker Nancy Van Pelt, a welcomed and familiar visitor to our club. The topic of Nancy’s presentation to our club today was “Building Peace Through Rotary,” a topic to which she is clearly committed. Nancy joined Rotary in 2008 and went on to serve as the first District Governor of District 5495 in 2017-18, its inaugural year and played an active role in the 
rewarding and challenging process of merging two Rotary districts (5490 and 5510) into a cohesive single District. She has served Rotary in many capacities at the club, district and multi-district levels, having organized and participated in wheelchair distributions, international service projects, Polio immunizations and three international Peace conferences. As District Governor she focused on peace-related projects, increasing collaborative relationships and building bench strength.
Nancy began by highlighting the supreme importance of facilitating and maintaining peace, particularly during these difficult times, and she illustrated in a vast array of examples of how Rotary has played a central figure in establishing peace at the community, state, nation and world-wide levels, including Rotary’s participation in the formation of the United Nations. She related Rotary’s Seven Areas of Focus directly with building the conditions for peace.
Nancy really drove home the connection between the community and international service projects and the facilitation and maintenance of peace. She cited John Hewko, Rotary General Secretary and CEO as saying, “When you launch any project to support education, health, or economic development in your local community, or elsewhere…. you are building the optimal conditions for positive peace.” Nancy provided a variety of slides illustrating how District 5495 in general, and Sunup Rotary in particular has contributed to peace through Rotary projects, focusing on our club’s vast community service projects, to our enthusiastic participation in RYLA, to our club’s dedication to the Dolly Parton Imagination Library literacy project.
Nancy and other like-minded members of District 5495 established a Peacebuilders Network towards the end of her term as District Governor that has continued to grow and gain recognition. The Peacebuilders Network is an e-network of Rotarians and Peacebuilder Club representatives that meets monthly to share ideas, report on our clubs’ activities, and collaborate on projects that benefit the members and clubs in our District and our communities, both local and international.
If you are interested in participating in the Peacebuilder’s Network, or simply to join with like-minded members, please attend an e-meeting. Visitors are welcome. The Peacebuilders generally meet monthly from 5:00 to 6:00pm on first Tuesdays. For more information and login information contact PeaceResources@Rotary5495.org. Todd Clancy is a long-standing member of the Peacebuilders Network and you can also contact him with any questions. Thank you, Nancy, for all the tremendous hard work and time you are dedicating towards this noble purpose. 
