President Nancy Riker opened the virtual meeting at 6:03 pm.
She noted that we are very busy this month and gave a report on some events:
- We had the Community Service Chair, Khaled Sabah, lead 10 Rotarians on a 5K last Saturday;
- We supported one of our Community Service grants – “Teams Run DC” – it was a virtual run. Different groups did their run at different times and some Rotaracts participated; and
- This Saturday Rotarians for the Equality of Black People will gather for a 5K run down at the C&O Canal in Georgetown.
Nicole Williams provided details of the upcoming event on behalf of Lisa Cohen, Chair of the Ad Hoc Committee, Rotarians for the Equality of Black People. She pointed out that there is a flyer on the website and the event will take place Saturday, August 1, 2020, leaving from the C&O Canal in Georgetown (3000 K Street, N.W.) at 8:00 A.M. Be sure to bring your cameras.
Sergeant-at-Arms Bob Schott presented the Rotary four-way test and then announced birthdays and anniversaries.
President Riker asked visiting Rotarians and visitors to introduce themselves. Shawn McAllister from Rotary Club of Capital Hill joined us. He is also the District Governor nominee and he will be our District 22-23.
Tiffany Tate presented a member moment.
David Klaus gave the Embassy Relations Report. David provided an overview of our Twin Cities Clubs. The Twin Club movement has existed in the Rotary world for many years as clubs have found it advantage to work together on common projects and to promote peace and international understanding. He provided us with the three (3) criteria our Board Directors established in 2008:
- We shall have no more than one (1) Twin Club per Country;
- Each Twin Club should be in the Capital City of the Country;
- We shall have one (1) Sister Club, the Rotary Club of Tokyo, and all of the others will be Twin Clubs.
David gave us a look at the Twin Club Certificate of Recognition and provided a wealth of information, including that our club currently has 13 Twin Clubs.
President Riker noted that the Embassy Relations Committee and the Twin Clubs Committee are now combined.
Lisa McCurdy introduced our speaker, Peg Hacskaylo - Peg is Founder and CEO of the National Alliance For Safe Housing (NASH), a subsidiary of the District Alliance For Safe Housing (DASH), a local safe housing program that she founded in 2006. Peg is a Social Work Professional designing and delivering services for women, families, and victims of crimes for more than 25 years. She has overseen the development of innovative programs providing safe housing options for hundreds of survivors and their families.
Peg is sought after to consult with by federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Department of Justice, and State and Local agencies concerning all aspects of domestic violence, sexual assault, and housing collations and programs.
NASH’s mission is to insure that survivors of domestic and sexual violence have a full range of safe housing options through improved access, increased resources and innovative solutions. NASH’s vision is to create a world where safe housing is a human right shared by everyone. NASH is a member of the Domestic Violence and Housing TA Consortium. Ms. Hacskaylo reported that Five (5) federal agencies came together in 2015 and developed a MOU so that they could collectively address the issue of domestic and sexual violence and housing and homelessness and the incidents of the degree to which victims of domestic and sexual violence become homeless and are shutout of housing options.
NASH and five (5) other sister agencies were bought in to do the work for them by providing training and technical assistance across the country to try and help build bridges between domestic and sexual violence providers and homeless and housing agencies. All of this is to make sure that survivors do not become homeless because of abuse.
DASH (founded in 2006) has provided housing for all survivors through DASH by using a human rights and trauma inform lens. DASH does not screen survivors out of their housing for whatever reasons or presenting issues they might have had when they came to DASH in need of housing. Survivors are provided space and the time to move forward with their lives in a way that makes sense to them. DASH realized that here were victims of domestic violence being shutout of victim specific housing programs because there was not enough room or because of various reasons like drug issues, or documentation issues or mental health problems. These victims would then end up in the homeless housing systems where they were not able to receive the kind of services they needed to address the trauma that they experienced. If they were not able to receive those services, or get into a homeless shelter, they would end up going back abusive situations. Because of the gaps in services, DASH operated in a way that would keep victims from falling through the cracks and the model became nationally known. DASH began to get requests by others for training and technical assistance.
Next, we connected during a seven-minute small fellowship breakout session.
President Riker adjourned the meeting at 7:07 pm.