APRIL 15
PRESENTATION OF EMMAUS ROTARY HISTORY AT EMMAUS HISTORICAL SOCIETY
APRIL 17-19
DISTRICT LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE, GETTYSBURG
APRIL 25
EARTH DAY CLEANUP AT COMMUNITY PARK
MAY 3
POLLINATOR HOUSE WORKSHOP
JUNE 6
ERC SUMMER FESTIVAL
JUNE 25
ERC PRESIDENT CHANGEOVER DINNER
Get ready for our SUMMER FESTIVAL!
Mark your calendars for this fun day of working together. Please spread the word & cross your fingers for good weather!
Plant a Row Lehigh Valley: Growing Community, One Pound at a Time
This week, we heard from Karen Fitzpatrick, coordinator of Plant a Row Lehigh Valley (PARLV), a grassroots effort that turns home‑grown abundance into meaningful hunger relief across our region.
The idea is beautifully simple: If your garden produces more than you can use, donate the extra. Volunteers ensure it reaches local food pantries, soup kitchens, and shelters. What looks like a handful of tomatoes or a few extra cucumbers becomes fresh, nutritious food for neighbors who need it most.
But behind that simplicity is a remarkable operation. Karen and her team organize drop‑off sites, register gardens, coordinate volunteers, and—when needed—drive the produce themselves. Their impact is significant: PARLV supports dozens of food‑insecure families every day of the week, with 21 drop‑off locations, 326 registered gardens, and 25 recipient organizations working together to reduce hunger in the Lehigh Valley.
The need is real. Nearly 79,000 Lehigh Valley residents are predicted to face hunger this year. PARLV empowers everyday gardeners to make a tangible difference—one pound at a time.
You don’t need a garden to participate. PARLV gladly accepts produce purchased from grocery stores or farmers’ markets. And if you want to help even more, they are always looking for volunteer drivers, even for as little as an hour or two every other week.
To learn more, register your garden, or find a donation site, visit: https://plantarowlv.org/
They love donations. They love drivers. And they make every contribution count.
A BEEutiful way to care for the environment!
Join Emmaus Rotary Club at Rising River Brewing Co. on Sunday, May 3, 2026 for a Pollinator House Workshop.
Learn about what pollinator houses do to help bees and other garden friendly insects create a healthy environment in your own backyard!
This workshop offers a short educational talk about pollinator houses. Then you will have the opportunity to create your own pollinator house. Appropriate for all ages and family friendly!
This event is a fun family experience and the pollinator houses also make a great handmade gift idea!
Includes: Pre-assembled pine wood house to paint and fill with pollinator friendly materials. Creative painting supplies and organic fill materials all included. Families/groups may paint and fill a single house or purchase multiple houses.
Only $50.
Only 40 houses are available. Pre-registration is required. No refunds for no-show.
DID YOU ATTEND LAST YEAR and you don't need a whole new house to add to your collection yet? Awesome! Restock your fill materials for this season. Your pollinators will thank you! ONLY $10 cash at the door for a refill bag. Get a friend to sign up for this year and your refill is FREE!
This workshop is a fundraiser to support the Emmaus Rotary Scholarship Foundation, Wilmer Schultz Service Above Self Scholarship; to benefit High School Seniors in the East Penn School District with continuing education.
THIS IS A RAIN OR SHINE EVENT. IN THE CASE OF RAIN, WE WILL BE UNDER COVER.
Thank you to our Butterfly Sponsors
Service Opportunities:
APRIL 25 EARTH DAY CLEANUP
Meet at Community Park in the morning. See Karen for more information.
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Mission of Mercy in Pennsylvania, known as MOM-n-PA, is returning to the AgriPlex in the Allentown Fairgrounds again this year! This is a two-day free dental mission for our most vulnerable population, primarily those who cannot afford regular dental care. The event will be held on Friday and Saturday, May 29th and 30th.
We are in need of volunteers to make this mission successful once again. The clinics run from 7:00 AM until 5:00 PM on Friday and Saturday. Volunteers are encouraged to sign up for a full day session if they can, or choose a half-day option.
Up to 500 lay volunteers are needed for positions such as Patient Ambassadors (escorting patients within the facility), Food Service (helping to serve food to our volunteers and some patients), Patient Registration, Translators (especially Spanish but others as well), and to monitor the patient waiting areas.
We are also in need of people who can physically volunteer to help with the clinic set up on Thursday, May 28th starting at 9:00 AM, or to help break down the equipment starting around 3:00 PM on Saturday.
Registration for volunteers is mandatory (no walk-ins) and volunteers must be 18 years old or older.
Please go to https://www.mom-n-pa.com/ for more information and to register for this event. Tell your friends and family!
Finally, if you cannot volunteer but wish to make a monetary donation to support this mission, please do so at the same website. Our budget for this program is $250,000 to cover event space, rental equipment, food and dental supplies. Any donation is truly appreciated.
Thanks in advance for any help you can provide, and I hope to see you at this event!
Charlie Incalcaterra
cjidmd@ptd.net
Meeting Roles
April 16, 2026
Greeter
Waddell, Mike
Sign In
Whitcomb, Roger
Invocation
Wills, Chris
Invocation
Boyer, Geoff
April 23, 2026
Greeter
Zayaitz, John
Sign in
Zayaitz, Rick
Invocation
Birdsell, Ceil
April 30, 2026
Greeter
Verrastro, Salvatore
Sign in
Blose, Don
If you will not be at the meeting when you have an assignment, please arrange for another member to swap or cover for you.
Geoff Boyer - April 13
Lindsay Steele - April 19
Alan Fornwalt - April 21
Irvin Keister - April 25
Weather Policy
Our weather policy is to cancel our meeting whenever East Penn has a weather cancellation or whenever there is a 2-hour weather delay (or is virtual). EPSD's process for determining safety is robust, beginning the night before when they consult with Accuweather, PennDot, and other officials. Please sign up for weather alerts by going to the following link, entering your information and searching for East Penn School district. https://asa.textcaster.com/asa/ba251a36-ebf8-4c1a-8247-4becb2e26e07
Speaker Recommendations Do you know someone who would be a great speaker for one of our upcoming Thursday morning meetings? If so, please contact Anthony Moyer (anmoyer1229@gmai.com - 610-295-7691.
Have something to announce in the Trumpet? We are always happy to receive information to include in the Trumpet. If you have additions, please email ccallkennedy@gmail.com and include the word "Trumpet" in the email.
Spoiler Alert! Leonard Reed, Rotary Club of Emmaus
You are not the only person throwing away fuzzy asparagus. Every week we perform the ritual on trash night called - I wonder what that used to be. We empty science experiments into the garbage, try to reclaim plastic containers, and swear we will do better next week. For the typical American home, food waste is a significant problem. At scale on the national level, it’s staggering, and as the adage goes, a goal without a plan is just a wish. Rotary is working on a plan.
So how bad is the problem of food waste in the United States? To fully understand the scope of the solution needed, the FDA used 2010 as a data baseline. Their research found that combined food loss from retailers to consumers constituted 31% total loss. That’s 133 billion pounds of food worth $161 billion. The waste affects far ranging individual components like labor and energy used from production to shipping and distribution, as well as potential lost opportunities. Although there is movement at the federal level to reduce waste by 2030 through partnerships between the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Rotary has focused our attention at the local community level with programs to reclaim unused food before it becomes waste, and reuse food waste through composting programs.
In Frederick County Maryland Schools in 2018, Rotary Interact students launched a program called “Lunch Out of Landfills” to cut down on food waste in schools. With the help of five local Rotary clubs contributing funds from District Grants and money from local and state government, the program eventually grew to 14 schools. Initially set up to separate food into compostable and non-compostable waste, they also began collecting unopened food and partnering with local food banks and homeless shelters to further the benefits of cutting waste. Unfortunately, the pandemic halted the program, and through students graduating and faculty moving on, it has not been restarted to its peak scale.
Last year, Rotary District 7430’s Environmental Sustainability Team began putting the pieces together to create a reusable blueprint to recreate a Lunch From Landfills-style program with a focus on composting organic food waste. First, we started by interviewing school district officials from Frederick Maryland to see what worked and what could be improved. Their primary strength was data collection being the foundation of their program. Starting with a food study, they were able to create solid base-line information from which they could view the problem accurately and create meaningful solutions.
Dawn Ashbacher, the Sustainability and Compliance Senior Manager for Frederick County Public Schools (FCPS) offered many pieces of advice, from the importance of involving custodial staff in the planning and implementation, to the FDA statutes covering food waste in schools. The most important part of creating and sustaining a food waste program in schools, Ashbacher says, is the volunteer faculty member who becomes the de-facto manager and Rotary liaison. Even with the number of high school volunteers through Rotary Interact who graduated and moved on, it was actually the retirement or leaving for new jobs elsewhere of faculty members that affected the implementation of the program the most. That’s why it became so important for our group to start with finding a foundational faculty member.
Dr. Seamus Clune of the Perkiomen Valley School District in Montgomery County has volunteered to be that faculty member, along with Dr. Beanne Berry of the Department of Sustainability at Ursinus College. Our initial plan is a food waste study at Skippack Elementary next year to lay the ground for a future composting program; first in one school, and then throughout the district. The long-term vision is a partnership with all stakeholders in creating a step-by-step blueprint that can be replicated by other Rotarians in their local school districts.
Currently, Rotary has partnered with Dr. Clune in a Vision Garden project at Skippack Elementary School. Through a grant from District Governor Mary Cook, and in collaboration with representatives of the Lenape tribe, students are planting a garden as they learn about the native tribes of Pennsylvania. The Three Sisters, corn, beans, and squash were traditionally grown as the corn provides support, the beans nutrients, and the wide squash leaves keep weeds down. Asparagus didn’t make the cut.
