President Jason Bradshaw called the hybrid meeting to order at 12:20 and concluded it at 1:16!
In the hour-plus of Rotary meal, fellowship and service, the 24 in-person attendees along with the virtual members and speaker covered the following agenda items:
- Bob Cardinal spoke about the true meaning and value of marking a birthday, and led the group in the Four Way Test.
- Laurie Murphy formally introduced the club to her neighbor, Sarah Kang, who is now a new member! Sarah has attended several meetings since last spring; she is a certified financial planner, and shared that she looks forward to getting to know people better as Covid restrictions ease.
- President Jason presented a glass memento to Past President Michael-jon, since the virtual changing of the guard did not allow for tangible recognitions.
- Michael-jon gave an update on the Rondo Avenue project, including several upcoming opportunities to provide in-person service. Donations of pumpkins are encouraged, for kids’ crafts! Donations of cash also make a big difference – overall needs of the food banks and more are up substantially.
- Happy Dollars were gathered for new grandchildren, photo exhibitions, Rotary grants made, and new members recruited.
Our speaker was David Wakely, the State Demographic Center’s Assistant Director of Census Outreach and Engagement. He joined by Zoom, as nearly all state of Minnesota employees have been instructed to not attend gatherings like ours in person.
Census data-gathering ends this month. In 2010, Minnesota was number one in the Nation for known citizen response to the census. We were nearly the worst in the Nation, however, regarding the follow-up rate – the cleanup of those who did not respond to the initial solicitation of data.
$15.5 billion comes to Minnesota based on our population counts and ratio, over the course of a decade. This is $28,000 per citizen, so it concerns the whole state. Medical assistance is the highest dollar figure of funding, by a factor of ten, and comprising half of the total - followed by highways.
Minnesota is also a “donor state”, wherein our citizens pay more in total than we get back in federal funding. We are sixth from the top of the donor states, which are approximately half of all states.
2020 is the first time that we have had online or telephone response options for a census. This may not help with low income communities that have been harder to clean up in past decades. The most difficult population to reach is anyone who is a renter.
Exactly 100 years ago, we crossed the line between numbers of people who live in cities versus rural areas – with more people in cities since that time. This caused a great deal of consternation and legislative reactions in the 1920s and after.
It continues today!
Respectfully Submitted,
John Andrews