Eli Crist, a senior at CMR, presented to Rotary about a volunteer trip that he was a part of to serve the people who live on the island of Tuvalu.

 

Tuvalu is an island country in the Polynesian sub-region of Oceania in the Pacific Ocean, about midway between Hawaii and Australia. It lies east-northeast of the Santa Cruz Islands, northeast of Vanuatu, southeast of Nauru, south of Kiribati, west of Tokelau, northwest of Samoa and Wallis and Futuna, and north of Fiji.

 

He presented a slide show highlighting the activities which they engaged in such as spearfishing, snorkeling, basket weaving, and cooking traditional meals. 

 

He explained that when they arrived on the island there were not many planned volunteer activities, so they had to find opportunities to help out. They helped with trash clean up and banana tree pruning to name a few. 

 

Mayor Cory Reeves was welcomed to our Rotary Meeting this past week. He shared about his full-time job with Great Falls Public Schools overseeing the ReStart program that he helped develop and launch for students who are at risk of dropping out of school. The intention is to provide an alternative environment that fosters academic and personal growth to prepare these students for adulthood and citizenship. 

 

Mayor Reeves shared some current topics that the City is working on including new industry growth in Great Falls and the construction a fire training center to replace the obsolete site for new fire fighters. He also spoke to sustainability considerations related to downtown parking, parks and rec sites, and the civic center. He encouraged people to share ideas with him and to attend the City Commission meetings to express their opinions on these topics. He fielded a large number of questions from Rotarians on topics varying from housing developments, homelessness, and gang activity.