Rotary File - March 19, 2013
President Pam Ehly opened the meeting and to introduce us to the idea of Literacy Initiative asked us the meaning of the word “literature.”
Pam introduced and honored Ann Bell who is the founder of Reading With Our Future Fans (RWOFF), a non-profit organization that makes books about college sports widely available to beginning readers. Ann is a retired teacher who taught at Grant Wood Elementary School in Iowa City. This is a grassroots non-profit organization that has received many grants and awards. Currently, books are available that have been written based on sports at the University of Iowa, Iowa State University, and at the University of Michigan. Ann’s ultimate dream is to provide books that correspond with each of the NCAA schools.
Guests and Visiting Rotarians: Jack Cameron introduced several visitors including our club’s outbound exchange student, Connor Henry , along with his parents, Jim and Chris Henry. Connor will spend next year as a student in South Korea.
Rotarians in the News: Both Dave Parsons and Deb Dunkhase were in the news this past week.
Announcements include: Mike Messier reported that the annual Johnson County Community Foundation golf outing will be held on May 23. Volunteers will be appreciated. Our own John Ockenfels will be District Governor in 2014-2015 and because the district conference will be held here in 2015, assistance of club members will be needed. Mark Patton requested volunteers to assist with “Many Hands Make Light Work.” Chris Knapp asked that members bring shoes, particularly children’s shoes, to donate and send to South Africa. It is planned to send 4000 pairs of shoes.
Pam Ehly reminded us that each month the money collected from Happy Bucks goes to a community organization. Sometimes there is a specifically designated recipient, such as last month when our collection of $400 went to the Mexican orphaned children’s dance group, Ballet Folklorico Los Angelitos, which will be performing at the District 6000 convention on April 12.
Happy Bucks were too many to keep up with! This is a happy club! Some causes for all this happiness: Sue Cronin’s grandson turned one; Connie Pestotnik attended Nathan Carterette’s popup piano concert at the Englert; Mike Messier liked it that both Iowa State men’s and women’s basketball teams are at the Big Dance; Pam Ehly was happy to be able to park downtown because of spring break.
Program: Deb Dunkhase introduced John Kenyon, the executive director of Iowa City UNESCO, City of Literature organization. UNESCO is the “United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.”
In 2004, UNESCO started the Creative Cities network. The city of Edinburgh, Scotland volunteered to write the criteria for inclusion in the network if Edinburgh could be named to the network.
Iowa City was designated a UNESCO City of Literature in 2008. It is the third city in the world, after Edinburgh, Scotland, and Melbourne, Australia, to receive this honor. Three more cities: Dublin, Ireland; Reykjavik, Iceland; and Norwich, England have also been designated in the past several years.
In addition to Cities of Literature, there are six other designations as part of the Creative Cities network: Crafts and Folk Art, Fim, Design, Media Arts, Gastronomy, and Music. Another American city, Santa Fe, New Mexico, has been named a UNESCO City of Crafts and Folk Art.
Christopher Merrill of the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program was instrumental In Iowa City’s designation as a City of Literature. He wrote a 75 page dossier showing why Iowa City should be designated.
It is the intention of the Creative Cities network to create creative hubs and socio-cultural clusters so that cities can collaborate with or creatively “steal” ideas from one another. Some examples are: author exchanges, the “benches” program of park benches dedicated to various authors possibly having audible readings of the authors’ work available at each bench. Through these collaborations it is also hoped that international partnerships in creative industries will be developed.
Cities are recognized for excellence in their given areas based on: heritage/legacy, current offerings, and future leveraging of the designation – would this designation help the city build on its heritage, current offerings to continue and expand its quality creative work?
The Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature has sponsored several local programs including: One Book Two Book; Children’s Literature Festival (writing by and for children – and thanks to Deb Dunkhase and Pam Ehly – 900 ICCSD kids submitted pieces about “I had a dream,” and 21 were invited to read theirs at a banquet); UNESCO World Book and Copyright Day; the Iowa City Book Festival (with writers from 30 countries); Paul Engle Day; Hawkeye Readers (Hawkeye football team reads to children in local schools); On the Fly; Little Free Libraries, “Book Marks” (book statues of public art); and a City of Literature app for iPhones (Google map of Iowa City area places of interest).
Relevant websites: cityofliteratureusa.org; iowacitybookfestival.org
Informal notes taken by: Joan Garrity