Non-healing wounds can reduce the quality of life and can lead to amputations and death.  Advanced biopharmaceutical wound care products is a growth market.  Kelly Iisakka will share her experience in the expanding and exciting field of regenerative medicine.

 

Noon Thursday is still reserved for Rotary.  Even though we met via Zoom, President Dean Casperson was still able to rally the troops for the Pledge, Four-Way Test, and Reflection.  In her Rotary Reflection, Darlene Anderson invoked the beauty of nature and all that it offers.  It is why we live here.  There is so much we can do close to our homes, for some, literally in their back yards!  No need to travel great distances.  By choosing to live here we have already arrived.

 

The first order of business was to collect fines for the Golden Can, still a source of funds for the Pledge Fund and the Grants Committee.  In this time of COVID the best we can do is the magic words; “the check is in the mail” to the Rotary office!  Past President Elaine Hansen announced her son Tony is driving home through the snow storm from Kansas to get in some ice fishing.  Jenny, daughter of Darlene Anderson, is an adjunct professor at St. Scholastica teaching cost accounting.  Paul Helstrom spoke of Minnesota Power’s goal of generating 100% renewable energy by 2050.

 

Jenny Peterson, Chair of the Grants Committee, introduced two guests, Seth Currier and Maria Alicia, from the Damiano Center’s “Kids’ Kitchen” program to tell us how the Club’s $5,000 grant will be used.  The Kids’ Kitchen provides the neighborhood each afternoon Monday through Thursday a place for children and their families to gather for meals, work, play, and study.  During the pandemic in person activities have been suspended replaced by take-out food and activity kits.

 

And then on to the main event.  The program for the day was quickly introduced by Jerry Pelofske.  Our very own intrepid fellow Rotarian, physicist, and nature photographer Allen Anway took us on a magical and historical tour of Jay Cooke State Park and its 8,800 acres of wonder.  We started in Carlton, just outside the park, at the Thompson Dam which feeds water into what in 1907 was the largest hydro power plant in the nation.  Quickly moving from there we toured the historical creation of the park, its boundaries and the building of the iconic swinging bridge, devastated but not destroyed by the 2012 mega storm.  The magnitude of the damage and the restoration to park infrastructure was revealed in a series of photographs.  Long lost stone structures from an 1870 railroad and the hidden waterfalls only found if you are willing and able to go way off the beaten path, actually way off any path, were revealed.  Many wonders of the park are not shown on any map.  Not even the Park Rangers know where they all are.  With a willingness to explore, there is much to be discovered – and you can find it!