Announcements from August 15 Meeting

Posted by Kristin King

COMMITTEE REPORTS

President Jasmine Mills

  • Membership dues invoices are out and are past due (July 15). Please make sure your email address is up to date with Tony as he goes by the ones in ClubRunner. You can arrange for a payment plan throughout the year with Tony or Jasmine. You may also pay for all of your lunches up front for the entire year or be billed for them.

  • Reminder: Please register and pre-pay for lunch by Saturday before each Tuesday meeting. . You do not need to register for the meeting if you are not buying lunch. Leigh Acevedo is on a mission to decrease financial and food waste. You have the option to pay quarterly or for the whole year (contact treasurer Tony Uhrich with questions).

  • Reminder to provide any and all feedback in real-time (don’t wait until the end of the year)
  • Birthdays/Anniversaries
  • Miles Diede spoke about what Savannah Ghost Pirates has to offer to groups. Ice Deck, VIP seating, The Overlook, Chatham Parkway Toyota Club Lounge, Fan Zam (Zamboni), High Five Tunnel, and group shot on the ice. Potential for our holiday party- BOD is working on options.

  • Upcoming Speakers - contact Lee Perry for speaker ideas

  • Let Jasmine and Jamie know if you spot club members in the news, any recognition/awards/announcements on social media - let's spread the good MetRotarians news!
MEMBERSHIP

  • Reach out to a committee chair if you have not heard from them yet following the committee "speed dating" and roundtable discussions at our July 18 meeting

  • Membership push led by Zerik in September - focus on bringing guests who might be a good fit for our Metro.

  • If you have not received a membership pin yet, let Jasmine know as she has pins. Possible resurrection of "wear your flair" with incentives! 

SERVICE

  • Ro updated us on the very successful service project with the center for the blind this past weekend. They sent Metro a thank you card.
  • SCBLV 60th Anniversary Sept. 28th 5:30-8:00
  • Metro Service Superlative award presented to Sam Carrol and his family for crushing it at the service project. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SOCIAL

  • 3rd Tuesday, August 29, 4:00-6:00pm, location Tiedeman Park. Let Sarah know if you have a “must taste” dish!

FOUNDATION

  • When you give to the foundation, a portion of those funds come back to us for our District Designated Funds as a grant to our ASP.
  • Paul Harris Fellow Awarded to Ro Patrick!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
DISTRICT EVENTS:
  • Golden Isles Veterans Village in Brunswick is raising funds for their 30 tiny homes & center project. If anyone would like to contribute, you can make a contribution via Venmo @tony-Urich (note what it’s for) or cash. Any amount helps us purchase a $180 brick.
  • RLI-9/16 7:30-am-3:30 at GA Institute of Technology. Register by 9/6 @rlitraining.org $100. Click Here.

GUESTS/VISITORS

  • Kristen Crawley- Fitz Hale, United Way & Katie Rudder Fender, Dir of Community outreach at South University
  • Zerik Samples, Susannah (Suz)Smith, Cecelia Russo Marketing and leadership SE GA, and Miles Diede with Dir of Ticket Sales Savannah Ghost Pirates
  • Anne Kuhlke-Lee supporting featured speaker
  • Brook Allison (member of Charleston Breakfast Rotary Club, Commercial Flooring)
FEATURED SPEAKER: Bridget Cross, Perinatal Health therapist
 
Bridget shared that she and her partner had both of their children through IVF, and mentioned her motivation for her current work was based partially on her own experience with postpartum and the day-to-day stories from her clients.
 
The perinatal term refers to the start of the pregnancy and extends until 2 years postpartum. This includes experiences of pregnancy or infant loss, termination, and infertility. Applies to dads, partners, etc…Maternal/Perinatal mental health refer to the mental and emotional wellbeing of an individual during the perinatal period and includes depression & anxiety.
 
 
 
Georgia Statistics:
  • #1 complication of childbirth in the U.S.
  • 1 in 5 parents will experience a PMHD (1 in 3 for BIPOC)
  • 1 in 4 parents will experience a traumatic birth
  • 41% or perinatal women report symptoms since the pandemic began\
  • Highest maternal mortality rate and labeled “the most dangerous state for pregnant women.
  • Black mothers are dying at the rate of 3-4 times higher than their white counterparts, regardless of location or socioeconomic status.
  • Rank the lowest in access to mental health care in the US
Georgia Fund for PMH:
  • Provides fully funded mental health care
  • All fundraising through third party and crowd funding
Goal: raise $50,000 to provide 10 fully funded therapy session to 50 perinatal mothers and parents. Applications open to anyone who has been effected by any perinatal issues in the past two years. (currently there’s a waitlist of applicants- once funding is secured, recipients are matched with a therapist to begin treatment.
  • $8,000 was raised in the first 6 months which directly funded 10 full sessions for 8 mothers.
Background: 
 
In November 2022, Bridget Cross launched the Georgia Fund for Perinatal Mental Health, which provides fully funded therapy sessions for moms & parents across Georgia. She has been practicing individual and family psychotherapy since 2007 and earned her Masters in Social Work with Honors from the Hunter College School of Social Work in New York. She also worked in the arts for over 15 years before becoming a therapist, and earned an MFA in Poetry from Sarah Lawrence College.
 
Before moving to Savannah in 2015, she worked in New York City with clients from diverse racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and spiritual backgrounds – in community mental health clinics, college counseling centers, clinical research programs, and court-based settings.
 
She received postgraduate training from the NYU Institute for Psychoanalytic Education, and she has trained in perinatal mental health, internal family systems, somatic experiencing, trauma-informed therapy, and motivational interviewing. In 2020, she also completed a yoga teacher training program (200-hour).

She currently serves on the Board of Postpartum Support International (PSI) Georgia Chapter and also volunteers as a PSI State Coordinator for the Savannah area. She is a certified Perinatal Mental Health (PMH-C) provider through PSI, and in 2019, she helped form the Maternal Mental Health Collective of Savannah.