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FUTURE
MEETINGS: Meetings
will be at the location noted, at 6:00 pm.
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May
19th: Steve Heithecker will host us
at the Patrick Ranch.
June
9th: At BCCC but the program is unknown.
June
23rd: A party at the BCCC in view of the lack
of a demotion
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Introductions
Tom introduced
our Guest Rotarian and Program Speaker for the evening, Tyler
Davis, CEO & Partner with Matson & Isom Technology Group of
Chico. Travis is also a Chico Noon Rotarian.
Tom shared he spoke
with Steven Heithecker recently and Steven shared his
apologies for missing several of our meetings. Steven asked
to be 'fined' $100 due to the absences.
Tom
and
Peggi presented our Newest Rotarian of the Durham Club to Rebecca
Oberdorf; Shane Oberdorf, her husband and also a new member of
our club, wasn't present this evening, due to illness, to
receive his official introduction. Rebecca and Shane received
New Member Packets, and both now are proud owners of
their own Rotary Club of Durham polo-shirts. Next time
Shane is in attendance we'll recognize and welcome him officially.
Peggi
spoke
about her attendance and experience this past weekend at our Rotary
District 5160's District Conference in Santa Rosa. A very
successful and informative conference. She was at this
conference representing our club both as a member and as the
incoming Assistant Governor for our North Valley Nuts - Area 4
beginning July 1st. Below are two photos she captured during
the, 'In Memorium' portion of the event.
Imogen
spoke
about the newest Durham 'organization' volunteer group ~
DIG. Durham Improvement Group. Both Imogen and Peggi are
on the Steering Committee. DIG is present at the newly
established Durham Farmers' Market each Sunday Morning, held just
north of Steve's NAPA Auto Parts' Store on MIdway 9am-2pm, that will
go through October of 2026. Other Durham non-profits are
invited to set-up a table, as are any local vendors and
businesses. This past Sunday, May 3rd, was the first 'Durham
Downtown Clean-Up and Beautify Day' where the planters and areas
around the Four Corner businesses were power-washed, weeded, swept
and new flowers were planted. A fall 'clean-up day' will be
scheduled. Imogen and her husband, Steve, were instrumental in
the clean-up efforts, so a 'shout out of thanks' to both of
them! Peggi was able to secure complimentary flowers, ground
covered and soil from Hodges' Nursery, so a thank you to
Hodges'! Be on the lookout for future activities from DIG
where you, too, can lend a hand.
John
Bohannon
gave an update on the building construction going on with our
Durham Schools. The bleachers will be ready to use this year
for both the 8th Grade Promotion and High School Graduation
Ceremonies! No more setting up hundreds of chairs at these
events for family, friends of the students. John spoke of
eventually having all of the portables gone but
in the meantime, they're be housed for special projects.
Be
Present
to Win ~ Phil Price!
The Program
Our Program Speaker
this evening was Tyler Smith. He has been a Rotarian for just
one year with the Chico Noon Club and has hit the ground running,
getting involved right away. He's a graduate of Chico State, and
is a member of various organizations within Butte County and Chico.
The focus of his presentation is about AI - Artificial
Intelligence.
There
are two ways to view AI; either in a positive and helpful light
associated with the friendly and happy C3PO robot from Star Wars, or a
more sinister non-human 'being', in a negative non-helpful manner,
like The Terminator. Currently AI is not
inherently creative on its own and still needs people, humans, to
ask the right questions or seek assistance. It's meant to be enhance human productivity and to work more
efficiently with less effort on humans' part.
As
we know, there are The Concerns of how AI might become too
powerful or manipulative over our lives, since the advances are
fast-moving, error-prone and sometimes ethically questionable.
AI is awesome with writing skills and punctuation and grammar but we
need to be cautious seeking factual information. Businesses and
non-profit groups cannot ignore this large part of our existence
today. Tyler compared AIto what it must have been like way back
in the 1400's when the truly amazing 'printing press' was invented, or
even the internal combustion engine. Scary moments of
uncertainty back then but those inventions improved our human
lives dramatically.
Inventions
move us forward,improving human existence, amplifying people's
impact, not 'replacing' them. Helping lawyers, CPAs, doctors and
teachers to become better human versions of themselves. As
educators, how can teachers access learners' understanding of what was
taught in lessons during classroom instruction. AI can be a tool
to improve human performance at their respective jobs. An
important question is who is affected if AI is used incorrectly
or maliciously from its intended purpose? Ask the question:
does AI support our mission? Building Blocks are needed
for effective and save use of AI. Assessment and Planning.
Communicate Plans and Vision For
Usage. Cyber Security. Data Quality Management. And
the most valuable and important implementation needed to keep AI 'in
check' - EMPLOYEE TRAINING. A little skepticism is
okay, don't instantly believe all that is presented with AI is
completely true and accurate. Use AI as an assistant for billing
and finance, for Sales and Marketing, for documentary summarizing or
policy drafting, for streamlining extensive note-taking from meetings,
and for Human Resources tasks. But the bottom line is:
whatever info is found through AI, have the human eye review and
preview that valuable information before implementing.
Recognitions
None
tonight other than he voluntary contribution of $100 by Steve
Heithecker.
Next Meeting
Next
Meeting:
Tuesday, May 19, 6:00pm, Patrick Ranch with Steven Heithecker as
our Guide
Must
be Present to Win
Phil Price!
But he is not there to collect the price
Membership
Bring
guests who you think you can interest in becoming a member. We Need More Members! Your
dinner and your guest’s dinner will be paid for by the Club.
Also, bring a guest to oneof our occasional social gatherings.
President
Tom is asking the members to bring in new members this year.
Go to the
following Rotary International web site for information on
membershipdevelopment: https://my.rotary.org/en/learning-reference/learn-topic/membership
.
From this website there is access to membership development and
other related information.
The
Rotary Foundation Donations
You can make a difference in this world by helping
people in need. Your gift can do some great things, from supplying
filters that cleanpeople’s drinking water to empowering local
entrepreneurs to grow through business development training.
The Rotary Foundation will use your gift to fund
the life-changing work of Rotary members who provide sustainable
solutions to theircommunities’ most pressing needs. But we need help
from people like you who will take action and give the gift of Rotary
to make these projects possible.
When every Rotarian
gives every year, no challenge is too great for us to make a
difference. The minimumgift to The Rotary Foundation is
$25.00. An annual $100.00 gift is a sustaining
member. Once your donations accumulate to $1,000 you becomea
Paul Harris Fellow.
If you have any
questions, ask Steve Heithecker.
It is possible to learn more about The Rotary
Foundation on the Rotary web site.
Your gift can be made online or by sending Jessica
Thorpe a check made out to The Rotary Foundation to Durham Rotary,
P.O. Box 383, Durham, California 95958.
The latest District Newsletter has been uploaded
to DACdb - to view it there go to the District tab, open the District
Bulletin file andlook for the pdf file named Rotary District 5160
Newsletter.
Must
Be Present to Win Drawing:
From
Rotary International’s News and Features Website
{Note
that the proceeding may not be the complete article. See the
complete article onRotary International’s web page.}
Note that
the photos in the original article may not have been reproduced here.
Progress report: Partners for a Malaria-Free Zambia
Rotary and partners scale up by going local, deploying health
workers to confront malaria and more
When
the
Partners for a Malaria-Free Zambia program began five years ago,
RotarianBill Feldt offered a forecast of what success would look like
in 2026:
“I
would
hope we’d see a dramatic reduction in malaria incidence,” he told
Rotarymagazine in 2021. “We’d want to see a self-sustaining health
system that is fully utilizing community health workers, where they
are diagnosing 60 to 70percent of whatever small number of cases of
malaria there are. ... We’ll see that turnover for community health
workers is low ... They will represent thelast kilometer of a health
system that’s very successful.”
Rotary
members
launched the initiative in 2021 to reach more than 1.2 million
peoplewith malaria prevention information, testing, and treatment. The
effort was supported by The
Rotary
Foundation’s first $2
million Programs
of
Scale grant, which was matched by the Gates
Foundation and World Vision to
create
a $6 million project.
Implemented
from
2021 to 2024, the program trained community health workers to test
andtreat malaria closer to people’s homes so they wouldn’t have to
travel to clinics. Easier access means more frequent detection and
early treatment, andtherefore fewer severe cases and deaths.
The
initiative
grew out of a smaller partnership between Rotary members in Zambiaand
Feldt’s home state of Washington to distribute bed nets, and it
continues to scale across Africa through an expanded initiative, the
Rotary HealthyCommunities Challenge.
A
2025 annual report details the successes, lessons learned, and what’s
next —and finds that Feldt’s forecast was not off the mark.
Community
health
workers
Most
community
health workers learned to provide services beyond malaria,
includingcare for pneumonia and diarrhea. This freed up health
facilities to deal with more urgent cases.
1.
2,500
Community health workers trained
2.
1.25
million
People with improved access to malaria testing and treatment
3.
94%
Retention rate for community health workers
Malaria
testing
One
lesson
learned is that the effort to eliminate malaria isn’t a straight
line;better testing and more reliable data uncovered more cases.
1.
747,000
Malaria tests conducted by the program in 2024
2.
60%
Cases of malaria detected in the 10 target districts by community
health workers — cases that would have been missed or else found at
amore severe stage
Severe
cases
While
community
health workers can treat most malaria cases in the field,
undernational protocols they must refer children under 2 months old,
pregnant women, and people with severe symptoms to health facilities.
1.
1%
Malaria cases detected by community health workers that they
referred to health facilities
2.
6,498
People admitted to health facilities for severe malaria in the
target districts
3.
75
Deaths from malaria in those districts in 2024, marking a drop in
most districts
What’s
next:
Rotary Healthy Communities Challenge
The
success
of Partners for a Malaria-Free Zambia led Rotary, the Gates
Foundation,and World Vision to scale the project even further. The
result was the Rotary
Healthy
Communities Challenge, which is expanding
the proven community health worker model to reduce severe disease and
death fromnot only malaria but also pneumonia and diarrhea, among the
top killers worldwide of children under 5.
With
Rotary
members leading the work, the program is being implemented in 2024-27
inthe Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Zambia.
Here’s a look at what’s been accomplished so far.
Democratic
Republic
of Congo
Despite
an
Ebola outbreak, supply delays, and insecurity that forced the
program’starget areas to decrease from three provinces to one, the
program was able to deploy health workers to areas that had never seen
health care before.
1,097 community
health
workers trained
Mozambique
In
the
program’s first year, Mozambique faced postelection instability and
heavyrains, making some communities difficult to access. Still,
program leaders began tapping into existing training structures and
engaging with communitiesto create demand.
122 community
health
workers and 2,852 community health volunteers trained
Nigeria
Program
leaders
helped support the government’s new community health worker
strategyand worked to strengthen government partnership.
706 community
health
workers trained
Zambia
The
program’s
work in Zambia will focus on some of the final locations in need
ofcommunity health workers. In the first year, program leaders worked
to refine data collection systems to incorporate pneumonia and
diarrhea in addition tomalaria.
1,462 community
health
workers trained
*all
figures
as of February 2026
This
story
originally appeared in the April 2026 issue of Rotary magazine.
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The Rotary International web site
is: www.rotary.org
District 5160 web site is found at www.dacab.com. But you
will need a user name and password. Contact your editor
for instructions.
The Durham Rotary Club site
is: www.durhamrotary.org
The Rowel Editor may be contacted at: pbprice1784@gmail.com
The deadline for the Rowel 10:00 am on
Wednesdays.
The Editor’s photographs published in the
Rowel are available, upon request, in their original file
size. Those published were substantially reduced in file
size.
If anyone finds an error in this Rowel, please email me. I
can do a corrected Rowel within the first day or two.
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