Events

Our Ryla Students will be sharing their experiences with the club.

We will also here from Paige Thomas: Paige Thomas, age 14,  is a Girl Scout from Lee’s Summit, Missouri.  She has previously earned her Bronze and Silver Award, and now is working on her Gold Award.  Paige is developing a percussion park at Rotary Youth Camp in Lee’s Summit as a fun and sustainable resource for special needs children.  As a student of piano for almost 10 years, Paige enjoys the benefits of music therapy herself, and now wants to share that with the community.  Rotary Youth Camp has served children for 100 years now, and provides the perfect venue for this amenity.  Paige is a student at Summit Christian Academy, where she is a member of the National Honor Society and has been featured on the scholastic honor roll for the last three years. 

With more than twenty-five years of experience in public affairs, Kimberly Gencur Svaty is a nationally recognized leader in energy policy.  As a former board member at AWEA (now American Clean Power), Kimberly is a respected industry expert and a sought-after source of information in local, state, and national publications and news-form documentaries.  Kimberly began her work in the traditional utility space but in 2007 she formed Gencur Svaty Public Affairs and has managed the development of the clean energy economy in Kansas since that time.  When she took the helm of the Advanced Power Alliance in Kansas, there were only two operating wind farms in the state, and since that time the state’s clean energy footprint has added an additional forty-one operating wind farms, new solar farms, and an overall clean energy portfolio of more than eight gigawatts of electricity, making Kansas one of the largest clean energy states in the nation.  Kimberly was directly involved in every piece of policy at the state and local level influencing those projects during that time period.  During that same stretch of time, Kimberly also became the mother of four children and she and her husband raise them in Topeka and on their operating livestock and crop operation in central Kansas which provides a unique perspective into the intersection of energy, agriculture and water policy along with the challenges of further seeding the clean energy economy in rural areas to power more urban population centers.  Kimberly's roots and heart remain in Lenexa/Overland Park where her extended family still lives. She is a proud Shawnee Mission Northwest Cougar! 

Did you know that Kansas City is the home of a non-profit that is in the International Air and Space Hall of Fame for changing the lives of thousands of people seeking free, long-distance transportation for medical care and treatment?  Jenna Gerdes, Outreach Director at Angel Flight Central shares about the mission of providing free flights to people in need via a network of volunteer pilots from the Midwest and beyond. Angel Flight Central has provided over 35,000 free flights over its past 28 years as a non profit, headquartered at the downtown Kansas City airport.

Founded in 1996, Medical Missions Foundation was established to address the desperate need for medical services around the world. Their continued mission is to provide surgical and medical care to underserved communities throughout the world and here in the Kansas City metro area.

Dave Helling has covered politics in Kansas and Missouri for four decades. He has worked in television news, and is a regular contributor to local broadcast programs. Helling writes editorials and columns for the Star, and is the co-host of the weekly “4Star Politics” show. He was awarded the 2018 ASNE Burl Osborne award for editorial leadership. He was a reporter and anchor for KCTV and WDAF. He is a Teaching Fellow at the Dole Institute of Politics and the University of Kansas

This will be the first meeting of our combined clubs! Come and meet your new fellow Rotarians!