I hope everyone had a great weekend!
Our speaker this week is Matthew Adams. Matthew Adams was born in Savannah, Georgia, grew up in Chechesse South Carolina, and received his PhD in history at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland in 2015. He has written a novel entitled “Well, Well Na’itnit” (2011), a collection of short stories, “I See Your P and Other Fine Tales” (2015), a nonfiction history book, “Cadillacs to Kyiv” (2017) that deals with American funded refugee relief after WWI, and a collection of poems, “Foreign are the Leaves” (2019).
Dr. Adams is an Associate Professor of History at Savannah State University specializing in Modern European History. At the beginning of the Ukrainian War, Dr. Adams traveled to Poland to help facilitate the escape of his friends and Ukrainian family members from the war-ravaged areas. While there, he saw the suffering of Ukrainian refugees and with the support of his Polish associates created a nonprofit relief organization called Polafund.
He spent the summer of 2022 traveling back and forth from Poland to Ukraine facilitating relief. Polafund has since helped over 3000 refugees and IDPs and has raised $700,000 in relief funds. Dr. Adams currently lives with his family in downtown Savannah, Georgia
Children's Center
In April of 2022 The Children’s Center had a Gala to raise funds to upgrade their outdoor education program and after many months of working with the Town of HHI for permits and designs, The children’s Center is now ready to start building! Assuming the materials arrive in a timely fashion they are seeking volunteers to help build everything. I am speaking with Jody at this time for concrete dates, times and sign-up sheets. Right now it is looking like Feb. 4-5th, Feb. 10-11th, and Feb. 18-19th. I will keep everyone posted with information as I get it.
St. Patrick's Day Parade
In case you were not at the meeting on the 9th, it was discussed that we can participate in the St.Patrick's day parade this year. There is a cost to do this, and we would need to decorate a float or walk the parade.
It would be a great opportunity for our club to get our name out there for the rest of the island. And Rusty brought up as well that we could have Backpack Buddies as well as some people from The Children's center on the float with us. The parade will be on the 12th of March. Starting point is near Celebration Park and the finish line will be by Park Plaza.
To date, (Jan. 14th) I have 8 yes’s and 2 no’s for the parade. In order for us to do this we'll need a few more people. So far walking the event with a banner might be our best option. Please email or call me and let me know if you are willing to help with this.
Board meeting will be on January 25th at 5pm.
Thank you everyone!
Angie is an with oversight of Technology & Innovation, Communications and Cultural Affairs. She holds a Bachelor of Art in Psychology and a Master of Personnel and Employee Relations, both from the University of South Carolina. She is also a Riley Fellow, having graduated from the Riley Institute at Furman University Diversity Leaders Initiative in 2019..png)
