Ed Gauld conducted another song but before he started asked Leo which chopstick is he supposed to hold in his right hand?  The club sang a song popular with Union Soldiers during the Civil War – The Battle Hymn of the Republic (Glory Hallelujah)

Ed Jackson gave the invocation: “May those assembled here today enjoy the many offerings of Rotary. May we abide by the rules we have established, those of trust, fellowship and ethics, and may we place Service above Self, in our daily endeavors. And may we always test ourselves and our efforts to be sure they are the truth, good for all concerned, of benefit to mankind, and provide peace and understanding. And may we always find time for our friends, because our time together is always too short.”

President Dwight made a few announcements:

Need speaker suggestions especially locally would be nice There is a potential second meal option if 12 people want - Cobb salad is one suggestion if others are interested and have different suggestions, please email Dwight.

Steve Day made Paul Harris announcements and presentations to Leo Tseng and Gordon Fell.

Oct 27 is the Paul Harris Celebration at the Westin for District 5280 Many contributions made to RI for Ernie Please consider WVRC in your honors to Sean. Sean McMillan's memorial service will be Sunday August 26, 5:30pm at the Museum of Flying in Santa Monica.

John Heidt announced community service committee dedicated this year of service to Ernie Wolf and Sean McMillan.

Flag exchange with our visitor from Tokyo Chuo, Japan,  District 2750 - Liu Bin.  He is the Chairman of the Board for BALANCENTY GROUP  www.balancenty.com

President Dwight introduced our speaker John Maceri. Thanked the volunteers they are the heartbeat of the organization.  OPCC, (formerly the Ocean Park Community Center), is a network of shelters and services for low-income and homeless youth, adults and families, battered women and their children and people living with mental illness. Founded in 1963, it is a community-supported organization in which staff, volunteers and clients work together with mutual respect to address the effects of poverty, abuse, neglect and discrimination. OPCC’s success with our clients stems from the full range of services provided by our ten main programs: The Access Center, Campion Mental Health, Daybreak Day Center and Shelter, K9 Connection, Night Light, Safe Haven, Samoshel, Shwashlock, Sojourn Services for Battered Women and Their Children and Turning Point.  Their biggest focus is chronic homeless initiatives.  The organization is almost 50 years old in Santa Monica and was started by SM volunteers as neighbors helping friends.  The United Way has made a recent decision to focus on three things; Workforce Development, Education, and Access for Homelessness.  In doing so they have brought together many partnerships with the business leadership community, OPCC, being one of those partners.  As LA County is the homeless capital with an average of 52,000; 13,000 are chronically homeless and of those a third are Veterans. Now permanent supportive housing and having comprehensive supportive services to help them be independent is seen as the best policy vs. "managing" homelessness.

OPCC was and is ahead of curve and has been providing this model of integrative permanent supportive housing solutions vs. managing homelessness and much more $875M year is spent on supportive services and one quarter of that goes to services for homeless for police, paramedics, ERs the collective cost.

Trying to help with the Goal of 2016 for Home for Good launched two years ago Second shift creates more services for homeless that are integrative and holistic. Not just "3 hots and a cot" OPEC has always done this with mental health, battered women shelters, youth services.

Local hospitals St John’s and UCLA Santa Monica approached OPCC to partner with their respite bed program to prevent re-admittances. OPCC has been and will continue to lead as a community and government relations partner toward this effort.

Questions from club:

Aren't most people choosing to be homeless?  The speaker rejects that notion.  In the decades he has spent serving the homeless, he has never met anyone who wants to be and enjoys being homeless.  They often do not have the support to be independent and navigate their many challenges.  OPCC has interim and permanent supportive housing which, has many varieties of support including support for mental disability.

Isn't there housing at the VA? Not enough so VASH provides vouchers to help supplement but they rely on community organizations to supplement. LA has large population because there is a large VA medical campus

What is your agency's budget and where do you get the funding?  $9.7M is the operating budget, 60% from government and they need to raise $3.7M from private donations.  There is also an endowment to support the Center that has been started.

Peter More drove directly to our lunch meeting from getting off of an airplane from Hong Kong.  He gave a loving tribute to Sean (wish I would have taken a picture :( He told how the SM airport director, Sam Trimble, who has spoken at our club a few times phoned Peter immediately when Sean's plane went down and wasn't sure if Sean was flying it or in it but that was the report.  Peter and Shirley went to that area immediately and the captain at the scene was the officer who also spoke to our club.  She did not have any more information but they were trying to see if they could read the #'s on the plane.  Peter also spoke to their mutual airplane mechanic and Sean had a recent oil change and his plane was in fine operating order. The accident site at Glendon and Mississippi has turned into a shrine for Sean with letters and candles.

Peter shared that Sean's second son had brain cancer and that was how he got involved with Angel Flight and raised money and awareness for brain cancer research.  He was the Art of the Brain honoree a couple of years ago at UCLA.  He was an excellent attorney, our past president and friend that is now joining angels in learning how to sing.  God Bless him.