Mother Nature...

During the past few weeks, Mother Nature has certainly decided to flex her muscles a bit around our country. Having several family members currently Florida, and friends working through the challenges in Texas; I, like many of you, have experienced the concern and worry for our friends and family dealing with catastrophic events. I can recall many of us making comments about the a-typical summer that we had here in Central New York. Looking back at some of our simple cloudy days, lower than average temperatures, and maybe some rain; our summer doesn't seem too bad. Reflecting on what hundreds of thousands of others are dealing with because of Mother Nature, really puts things into perspective. I talk a lot about how an individual's perspective can influence their attitude, and this is a perfect example. There are many things in life that we cannot control, but our perspective is not one of them. We can control whether or not we seek to understand a situation/event. We control the ability to find the positive in our own individual challenges. And we control the ability to show compassion and concern for others. Given the challenges that Mother Nature has presented to many people across our country in recent weeks and days, we can control how we appreciate what we have and we can control how we help. Many of our schools are already working on plans to support schools, communities, animals, and others in Texas and soon, Florida. If you have an idea or desire to help support others in our country, please contact your school's principal to discuss what is being done or can be done. It's times like this where the little bit of snow we receive each winter and the mild summer, don't seem like such a big deal.

Drive For Your Students Event

Rome Free Academy, in conjunction with the RFA PBIS team, is sponsoring their first ever DRIVE FOR YOUR STUDENTS TEST DRIVE EVENT whereby Buick will donate $10 for each test drive up to a total of $10,000 to our school. Davidson Auto Group will be bringing 10 shiny new Buicks to RFA during it's Open House on Tuesday, September 19, from 2:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. for the test drives.  Any driver age 21 or older with a valid license and proof of insurance is encouraged to come and test drive a Buick to help raise money for our students. We are encouraging all of the Rome City Schools to support this event. As a special incentive:  the building that has the highest percentage of adults doing test drives will receive a FREE MUFFIN MONDAY sponsored by RFA's PBIS team!

Mentoring Program 

The Rome City School District will once again be participating in the New York Mentors program, in conjunction with the Rome Area Chamber of Commerce. Having become a State-wide example and a leader of the program, our Rome schools are expanding the offering from three schools to five schools for 2017-2018. This year, Bellamy, Gansevoort, Joy, Staley, and Denti will all be participating schools. Students who will be mentored will be either fourth or fifth grade children and anyone 18 years or older willing to devote one hour a week is eligible, including working persons, college students, and retired senior citizens. Sessions will occur once a week beginning in October and will run from 3:10 p.m. to 4:10 p.m. For more information or to sign up to be a mentor, contact Rome Area Chamber of Commerce President William Guglielmo at 315-337-1700 or New York State Mentoring Advisory Council Member Frank Di Berardino at 315-337-4721. 

Host Family Needed

Each year the Rome Rotary Club welcomes a foreign student to our community for the school year. Usually, each exchange student lives with three different families through the course of a year for about 3 1/2 months each. This year’s student is a boy from Hungary. He is living with Sam & Cynthia Pendergrast. We are looking for a host family for winter (December through mid-March) and spring (mid-March through June). Our community life has been enriched by many students you may remember through the years – Mathilde Crampon from France, Gustavo Calderon from Ecuador, Sandy Li from Taiwan, and many more. If your family would like to find out more about hosting, please contact Sam Pendergrast, who is the Youth Exchange Officer for the Rome Rotary Club, at 315-617-3567 or slpender55@gmail.com You can find out more about the Rotary Youth Exchange Program at www.7150youthexchange.org/ Please talk to Sam Pendergrast before beginning an application to become a host family.