June 3 2009

Our cultural ambassador scholar, Courtney Gibson, talked to us about her project in Ecuador. if you are interested - check out her blog http://www.courtneyinecuador.blogspot.com/ and for more information go to Fund for Intercultural Education at http://www.fevi.org/

Rotary Meeting of June 3, 2009
By: Clark Kent
Reporter for The Daily Planet


Each Wednesday as we arrive to attend our Rotary meeting most of us look forward to starting our morning with a delicious hot breakfast “buffet” bar that rivals any restaurant in the area. Many of us in the Rotary Club of Lake Murray – Irmo have known our caterer Tim Scott since the early 1990’s when he was not only a member of our Club, but was also responsible for catering our breakfast meal. He has been our caterer, “off and on” (mostly “on”) during this time. Tim owns his own catering business known as Tim’s Catering Service in which he manages out of the kitchens of Shandon Methodist Church in downtown Columbia. For the past nine years Tim has been the Director of Shandon Methodist’s Kitchen Ministries in which he and a staff of volunteers prepares several weekly meals for the congregation. He and his staff also provide continental breakfasts for the Sunday school classes each week. His service to Shandon Methodist keeps him pretty busy during the week, but he is available to handle other outside catering event like our Wednesday morning breakfast. As many of you will remember, Tim owned Capri’s Restaurant in the Kroger Shopping Center which featured delicious Italian cuisine. Since closing that restaurant a number of years ago Tim has focused mostly on his catering business. His catering for our Rotary Club breakfast actually starts the day before when he makes the food purchases and preps his casserole dishes. Tim arrives around 4:45 AM each Wednesday morning at his Shandon Methodist kitchen to begin the cooking Rotary breakfast. He is usually finished cooking and loading up his van by 6:15 to start heading our way with the hot food. Even though our meeting doesn’t start until 7:30 Tim is usually set up by 7:00 for those of us arriving early. We want to thank Tim for his loyal service to the Lake Murray – Irmo Rotary Club and the delicious hot breakfast that he provides each week.

Before beginning today’s program Rod Funderburk introduced Miss Courtney Gibson who is our Rotary Cultural Ambassadorial Scholar recipient. Miss Gibson will be headed next month to the South American country of Ecuador to help build a library and community center in the impoverished town of Lumbisi. She asked for donations of children’s books (preferably in Spanish), school supplies, art materials, or monetary contributions to help in the purchase of building materials. For those who would like to correspond with Miss Gibson her address is; www.courtneyinecuador.blogspot.com

This week’s featured speaker was Adele Little, the Co-Director of Healing Species, a non-profit organization based in Orangeburg. Ms Little gave a power point presentation about the mission and origins of Healing Species.
The mission of the Healing Species is to intercept crime and violence by reaching children with our innovative, successful, and unique 11-week violence intervention curriculum. Rescued dogs - dogs nobody else wanted - assist us in teaching children:
• life-lessons in respect for the feelings of others,
• gaining power and authority from principles and acts of mercy and compassion instead of from bullying or "violence for violence,"
• age-appropriate awareness on abuse and how to get help and that what happens to us does not have to define us.
• methods for conflict resolution,
• self-esteem from developing responsibility, and
• how to take the initiative to create a more compassionate planet.
Through several years of legal research and personally conducting interviews with convicted violent offenders, Cheri Brown Thompson, founder and director of the Healing Species, discovered that not only did all of the violent offenders that she personally interviewed, but also all of those that she encountered through extensive literature reviews have two things in common: 1) they were abused as children and 2) they first acted out that abuse on the only victim more vulnerable than they, an animal. This realization led to the founding principles of the Healing Species, a program dedicated to ending the cycle of returning "violence for violence".
Thompson gave up practicing law, and now serves as the executive director of the Healing Species. Today, there is a waiting list of schools to be served, and Healing Species staff serves over 4,500 school children with the 11-week program each year in South Carolina. Healing Species also has satellite groups in several other states including: Arizona, Washington State, and Colorado.
Founding Principles
• Crime is a learned behavior. It can be unlearned. Even children who have never been nurtured can learn “how to” nurture others and themselves, thus intercepting the cycle of violence, abuse, neglect, and crime.
• Healing Species does not only address the problems of violence, truancy, and poor performance in school. Instead, Healing Species addresses the roots of these problems by dealing with issues of poverty, returning violence for violence, and gang related activities.
• The Healing Species curriculum opens the eyes of children and teens by teaching and empowering them that they do not have to “give-up” or “drop-out”. There are other choices.
• The lessons provide an epiphany for the children that they do not have to accept abuse; they do not have to join gangs; they do not have to sell drugs; and they do not have to fight their way through life.
• Healing Species Character Education can literally lift these children from an environment of violence: by empowering children with age-appropriate awareness about abuse and providing tools for getting help if in abuse;
by making certain the children learn appropriate ways to deal with bullies; by providing avenues of resolving conflict without fighting; and by providing “hands on” experience with lessons in respect for the feelings of others, and gaining power, leadership, and esteem from practices in mercy instead of from bullying.
• Once children gain empowerment in taking care themselves, the Healing Species opens their young eyes to ways of “making their heart strong” by teaching them how to practice responsibility, compassion, and empathy by reaching out to those around them.
• The children learn first hand that – just like the visiting dogs nobody else wanted- that they are important and do have something to give.
Ms Little wrapped up her program by giving some impressive statistical proof of why Healing Species has been successful thus far with their mission.

o Out-of-school suspensions for violent behavior decreased by more than 50%
o Retaliation Aggression, General Aggression, and Total Aggression Combined decreased by 62% o Teachers rated displays of violence by students decreased by 66.9%
o Choice making using empathy increased by 42%
o Suspensions decreased by over 55%