Fentanyl Awareness free public concert in Portland Maine's beautiful Deering Oaks Park

Echo report by Aysia Reed for Maine WGME-TV in Portland Maine

PORTLAND, ME (WGME) - An afternoon filled with live music, connections, and awareness on how to potentially save someone’s life.  The program was co-sponsored by the City of Portland with the Rotary Club of Portland, Maine, to raise awareness about the Fentanyl Crisis.

Afternoon concert in Deering Oaks Park helps bring awareness to fentanyl crisis

Community members packed the event, all with one goal: to show support.  Ron Springel being one of them.

Deering Oaks Park in Portland Mine the location for the Sunday, May 7, 2023, Fentanyl Awareness Concert with the Don Campbell Band.

“Really allowing people to understand that they don’t have to live in isolation with their addiction,” said Springel, a community member. “They can come out and get the help that they need.”

Portland Rotary Club Members and the Department of Health and Human Services put on Sunday’s event at Deering Oaks Park to raise awareness about the fentanyl crisis in the state.

“Our main purpose here today is to save one life,” said event organizer Tom Ranello. “If we can save one life, we did what we needed to do. And we’re hoping that we can help people to better understand what goes on with fentanyl.”

Rotary Club of Portland Maine with (center) Don Campbell, the award-winning singer and songwriter who performed live with the Don Campbell Band in Deering Oaks Park on May 7, 2023.

Ranello says he hopes the information at the event will educate folks on the matter and how they can help.

Booths were set up with Narcan, guidance on how to get help, and resources to reach out to.

Surprise guest who attended the May 7, 2023 live concert in Deering Oaks Park was Maine Senator Angus King and his wife Mary Herman.  From left pictures Juliana L'Heureux (aka- Maine Writer) with Senator Angus King, President of the Rotary Club of Portland Maine Bruce Jones and Mary Herman. 

One of those booths is the Portland Recovery Community Center.

“We offer multiple paths to recovery,” said Laura Chritton with the Portland Recovery Community Center. “Wherever someone might be on their path to recovery. Whether they’re not sure, or they’ve been in recovery for years, wherever they might be, they’re welcome to come.”

Award-winning Singer-Songwriter Don Campbell performed with the Don Campbell Band at Deering Oaks Park in a public concert to raise awarenessa bout the Fentanyl Crisis.

According to Maine.gov, 77% of deaths due to drugs were caused by fentanyl in 2021.

Some attending the event have had loved ones struggling with addiction and are at the concert to show support.

Rotary Club of Portland "Rotarians at Work" (left) Paul Tully and Portland Rotary Club President Bruce Jones.

“One of my friends of mine had an overdose, her son, out in Seattle right in their apartment,” said William Higgins. “Luckily, they had naloxone there and were able to save her son’s life.”

Rotary Club of Portland Maine (left) Past President Laura Young, Past President Bowen Depke, and Rotarians Roxane Cole and Zach Newell.

“I’m a nurse and so I wanted to come, both to learn more, and how I can help the families I work with,” said nurse Sydney McMillen.

And this message was echoed throughout the event: the opposite of addiction is connection.

The Salvation Army provided free refreshments to the audience and accepted small donations.  

Solar lights to developing countries and to Ukrainian children

Maine Writer: Rotarians from the Rotary Club of Portland Maine and the Rotary Club of Palm Beach, Florida, have been sending solar lamps to the Dominican Republic bateys where the Haitian sugar cane workers and their families live in villages without electricity.

Rotary in the Dominican Republic! Portland Rotarian Roger Fagan, an audiologist, and the club's DR international service group are bringing solar lights to the Bateyes where the Haitian sugar cane workers live. The group are the fantastic Hearing, Hands and H20 international service committee providing hearing aids, prosthetic hands, and water filters to Dominicans and the island nation's Haitian sugar cane towns. Since the COVID pandemic, these lamps have been sent by ship and delivered to a reliable contact in the DR.

Solar lights are a wonderful international humanitarian program:

By Aliyah Frumin published on MSNBC

Flat-pack bulb brings light to disaster zones

In the developing world, access to a reliable source of artificial light is a significant problem. People living without a regular source of energy sometimes use archaic kerosene lamps to bring light and heat to their homes, even though the side effects of inhaling or ingesting kerosene can be devastating.

Alice Min Soo Chun (Founder and CEO SOLIGHT DESIGN Inc. & Founder President)  has been busy packing 1,000 collapsible lanterns into three giant suitcases. 

Shortly after Christmas, she’ll cart them by herself to war-ravaged Ukraine. Her goal is to distribute as many of the portable solar lights she created to as many children in hospitals as she can.

“I want these kids to know that we haven’t forgotten about them and that the world cares about them,” said Chun, the co-founder and CEO of Solight Design. “I want to tell them that the light is basically like holding sun in your hands…and the light of their imagination is even more powerful than the sun – and that they are going to get through this.”

Girls in Nepal with a Solight lantern following 2015, earthquake.

Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy grid have left many without power. After Chun spoke to a children’s hospital in Lviv, Ukraine, she said she learned many young patients there were scared and struggling during the rolling blackouts. She also said she learned at one hospital, nurses at one point were cooking for food for infants in the Intensive Care Unit and didn’t have light and power, and were having a difficult time even just boiling water.

Chun, 57, who was honored on Know Your Value and Forbes’ 2022 “50 Over 50,” Impact list, knew she had to help.

The entrepreneur had previously delivered her origami-style “SolarPuffs” to children in Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in 2017. The lanterns have also been distributed to war-engulfed countries or areas hit by national disasters, including in Nepal, Haiti, Ghana, Liberia and more.

“When we gave our colorful lights [to kids in Puerto Rico], it was easier for them to relax and fall asleep. They used a blue light as a nightlight, which helped them in the evening….So when I heard about the kids in Ukraine, I said ‘I have to go and take these lights to them,’” said Chun.

The lanterns, said Chun, will be paid for by Bob Iger, CEO of The Walt Disney Company. Iger reached out to Chun after his team saw her work featured on “Gutsy,” Apple TV+’s show by Hillary and Chelsea Clinton, which spotlights some of the world’s bravest and boldest women.

To get to Ukraine, Chun will fly into Krakow, Poland and then will take a six-hour train to Lviv. She plans on delivering the lanterns to children in three hospitals.

Chun is planning on making a second trip to Ukraine in the spring to deliver an additional 4,000 lanterns.

Chun grew up in South Korea and then upstate New York. As a young girl, her mom taught her origami (the genesis of the SolarPuff), in addition to sewing. 

Always creative and fascinated by design, Chun studied architecture at Penn State, and eventually earned her masters in architecture at the University of Pennsylvania.

The idea of the SolarPuff came about in 2006 when Chun’s son was diagnosed with asthma. At the time she was living in New York City and learned one in four kids in the Big Apple had asthma due to air pollution. She decided to focus on solar technology while teaching at Columbia University. Three years later, she developed her first inflatable solar light prototype. And in 2015, SoLight Designs was born.

Despite the potential danger of her upcoming trip to Ukraine, Chun said she isn’t afraid.

“I’m a little nervous. But I’m more excited than anything,” she said. “…If I can go and make a difference in this small way, there’s hope for everyone.”

Thank you Senator Susan Collins - at the Rotary Club in Portland Maine

This newsletter from the Washington DC office of Senator Susan Collins with my husband as a veteran who was honored at the Rotary lunch (picture far right) with Richard L'Heureux, MCPO- USN-Ret.

Expressing Gratitude for Those Who Served at the Portland Rotary Club’s Veterans Appreciation Day

Senator Collins delivered remarks at the Rotary Club of Portland’s Veterans Appreciation Luncheon the day before Veterans Day.

“It is estimated that some 48 million Americans have served in uniform since the founding of our nation. Today, more than 22 million veterans live among us, more than 127,000 right here in Maine. To put that in perspective, Maine has more veterans per capita than all but two of the other states in the country. We are proud of our state’s contributions to protecting our nation,” said Senator Collins.
Senator Collins also spoke about her father, Don Collins, a World War II veteran who saw action in Europe and fought at the Battle of the Bulge, where he was wounded twice. Sergeant Collins earned the Combat Infantry Badge, two Purple Hearts, and the Bronze Star.

“Like so many, the gratitude I feel for our veterans is steeped in more than history. It also is personal – I am one of the millions of Americans who have the privilege to call a veteran 'Dad.’ One of my earliest childhood memories is going with my father to the patriotic parades in my hometown of Caribou. He hoisted me high on his shoulders, and from the best vantage point along the route, I saw hats go off and hands go over hearts as Caribou paid its respects to our flag and honored our veterans for their service to our country.

“Our veterans provide all of us with an inspiring view from strong shoulders. From that vantage point, we see that the burden of service must be borne willingly and with modesty. We see that challenges must be met and that threats must be confronted. And we see that we have an obligation to always respect, honor, and support tho

Pope Francis Welcomes Rotary to Jubilee Audience

I am very proud of Rotary for supporting this:

Rotary hosted a panel discussion in Rome to highlight efforts to alleviate the plight of refugees from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. More than 60 million people, including 11 million Syrians, have been displaced by war and violence over the last four years. Such extensive displacement has not been seen since World War II.

Pope Francis welcomes Rotarians!

Pope Francis greets Rotary International President K.R. Ravindran at a Jubilee audience at the Vatican on 30 April, where 9,000 Rotary members were special guests of the pontiff.

Thousands of Rotary members, motivated by a special invitation from Pope Francis, gathered at the Vatican in Rome on Saturday to celebrate a message of compassion, inclusiveness, and service to humanity.

At midmorning, the group -- numbering some 9,000 members from 80 countries -- made its way through the congested streets of Rome, past the tight security surrounding St. Peter's Square, and settled into the area reserved for Rotary in front of St. Peter's Basilica for the Jubilee audience.

Francis, a 79-year-old Argentine, urged the crowd of more than 100,000, which included members of the police and armed forces from around the world, "to build a culture of peace, security, and solidarity around the world."

His message of peace resonated with Rotary members, including R. Asokan from Tamil Nadu, India. "His message about peace is about accepting. Rotary, which accepts all walks of life, can carry his message to all our clubs, therefore carrying his message to all our communities," says Asokan.

Though Francis is the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, his words often reach a wider audience. A poll published earlier this year found him to be one of the most liked and trusted world leaders.

That's what made this event at the Vatican so appealing, says Adriana Lanting, who traveled from California, USA, to attend. 

"To have such a transcending figure together with a transcending organization like Rotary in the same place is something I just couldn't miss," says Lanting, a member of the Rotary Club of Long Beach.

Madrid Zimmerman, another Long Beach member, isn't Catholic but says Francis has a knack for touching people's hearts regardless of where they're from. "Rotary has the same effect," she adds. "We may have different ways of expressing it, but our [Rotary] action in helping others comes from the same place.

"This event is a reminder that we only have one goal and that's to give service to those who need it. I think that's the message I want to bring back to my club," Zimmerman says.

After the Jubilee audience, Francis met with a small delegation of Rotary members led by RI President K.R. Ravindran. The pope spoke to Ravindran about the importance of vaccinating children against polio and encouraged Rotary to continue its efforts against this disease.

"I have been honored and deeply touched to have had the opportunity to meet Pope Francis earlier today, and to have heard him tell us to continue our fight toward polio eradication," says Ravindran, who is Hindu. "It has given me even more pride in Rotary's past, even more faith in its present, and even more optimism about its future, than ever before."

MITIGATING THE MIGRANT CRISIS

On Friday, Rotary hosted a panel discussion in Rome to highlight efforts to alleviate the plight of refugees from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. More than 60 million people, including 11 million Syrians, have been displaced by war and violence over the last four years. Such extensive displacement has not been seen since World War II.

In the discussion, moderated by Vatican Radio, experts from the World Food Programme, the Jesuit Refugee Service, and UNHCR (UN Refugee Agency) talked about ways to help migrants start over in their new countries.

Rotary General Secretary John Hewko, speaking on the panel, pointed to several initiatives Rotary clubs have undertaken to integrate refugees into society, including computer coding schools and a vocational training project in Rimini, Italy.

"The plight of today's refugees is really a litmus test for today's compassion," Hewko said.

He encouraged audience members and panelists to use their connections to provide the resources and funding needed to address the humanitarian crisis.

After the panel discussion, Bonaventure Fohtung, a member of the Rotary Club of Upper Blue Mountains Sunrise in New South Wales, Australia, said that Rotary and the pope have the same agenda when it comes to helping migrants. Recently Francis took 12 Syrian migrants, three families including six children, back with him to the Vatican after visiting a camp on the Greek island of Lesbos.

"We need to go home from this event and set an example. Each club should do something. Just one thing to help these refugees can make a remarkable difference," he added.

The two-day Rotary event in Rome, tied to the Vatican's Jubilee of Mercy and dubbed the Jubilee of Rotarians by organizers from District 2080 (Italy), also included benefit concerts and three fundraising dinners for polio eradication.
By Ryan Hyland

Rotary News
2-May-2016

(I am a member of the Rotary Club of Portland Maine!)