Corey Minor Smith earned a Bachelor’s Degree of Arts in English and a Master’s Degree of Education in Guidance and Counseling from Bowling Green State University. Corey then earned her Juris Doctorate from the University of Toledo College of Law where she served as President of the Black Law Student Association, competed in the 15th Annual University of Minnesota Law School National Civil Rights Moot Court Competition and won first place in the American Society of Composers Artists and Publishers’ Nathan Burkan Memorial Competition.
She is a member of the Ohio and Georgia bars and licensed to practice before the United States District Court of the Northern District of Ohio. She began her legal career as an Assistant Prosecutor and later served as a Judicial Attorney authoring decisions that were upheld by the 9th District Court of Appeals before establishing the Law Office of Corey Minor Smith, LLC. Currently, as General Counsel for Stark Metropolitan Housing Authority (SMHA), Corey represents SMHA in civil and administrative proceedings and guides the Executive Director and SMHA staff on an array of complex legal, labor relations and contract matters. Nationally, Corey was a panelist at the Housing and Development Law Institute conference in Washington DC. Internationally, Corey presented in Cape Town, South Africa during the Southern African Housing Foundation Conference as a delegate of the United States.
The Canton Oldtimers Ladies Auxiliary Club honored Corey with its Phenomenal Woman Award, she was named one of Stark County’s Twenty Under 40! and an ATHENA International Women’s Leadership Finalist. The Boy Scouts of America Buckeye Council also honored Corey with the Spirit of Scouting Award and she was inducted into the YWCA Women’s Hall of Fame, Class of 2016. Her current community activities include being a motivational speaker, a member of the Honorable Judge Ira Turpin Scholars Recognition Committee and the Akron/Canton Barristers Association. In addition to being a proud member of the Stark County Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated, Corey is a graduate of the 2008 Class of Leadership Stark County’s Government Academy and Leadership Stark County’s 26th Class. Among her accomplishments, Corey was the first African American female to be a candidate for Judge in the Canton Municipal Court and received 30% of the vote against a 20+ year incumbent. Subsequently, Corey was elected to the Canton City Schools Board of Education after receiving the most votes out of five candidates. Most recently, on November 7, 2017, Corey received the most votes out of six candidates and was elected to be a Canton City Council at Large member. She is the first African American to ever be elected to the position.
This school year in collaboration with Buckeye Council and Canton City Schools, are offering an in class Rotary Scout Program at classes at Belle Stone, Allen, Dueber, Cedar and Madge Yotz schools. Collectively, there are forty (40) students in these classes. Due to some limitations on out of school trips, we were not able to offer the combined class holiday event that we had in the past. As many of these students come from some challenging experiences, the teachers they asked if possible if we might be able to provide sweatshirts to the students for Christmas. A special thanks to Mindy Fankhauser from the Buckeye Council who was able to arrange for sweatshirts with the Rotary Scout logo on a short notice. A very special thanks to Past President, Rick Taylor, who was able to serve as Rotary Santa on very short notice to make deliveries to the classes.
The Rotary Scout Committee again thanks our club members for their continued support of this special project. We would like to also like to thank the teachers, Mrs. Antol at Belle Stone, Mrs. McAllister at Allen, Mrs. Grnache at Dueber Mrs. Patterson at Madge Yotz and Mrs. Lohr at Cedar and Mindy Fankhauser from the Boy Scouts whose collaboration makes it possible for us to offer this program to our Rotary Scouts.
The Rotary office received a "Thank You" letter from Dawn Campanelli, President of Junior Achievement of East Central Ohio. Dawn writes:
"Dear Ms. Tietze ~ Thank you for your generous donation of $1,500.00. Your donation will support project-based educational initiatives that help strengthen 17,000 students' knowledge about:
employer expectations to secure and keep a job
entrepreneurial skills to understand how business works
money management skills to manage income earned from work
The value-add of Junior Achievement is the involvement of trained business volunteers sharing real world of work experiences with students in the classroom. A complete list of JA Volunteer Opportunities can be found at www.jaonline.org/volunteer-opportunities."
It’s that time of year when we are in the midst our Annual Charitable Fund Drive! As is customary, I will be making a weekly plea from the podium for your participation.
The Charitable Fund is vital to our Club’s philanthropic endeavors. With this fund, we support projects such as Polio Plus, the Philomatheon Society, RYLA, Rotary Scouts, Interact and Scholarships. This year we also started the Backpack Project under the charitable fund. It is important that we continue to support projects in the community where we work, live and play.
I am not going to be focusing on the goal amount – instead I’m hoping for 100% participation. It’s not important how much you give, just that you give something. Please consider your gift with a generous spirit. **Please make checks payable to the Canton Rotary Charitable Fund
In Rotary, our diversity is our strength. This idea dates back to the earliest years of our organization, when the classification system was first proposed. The idea behind it was simple: that a club with members who had a wide variety of backgrounds and abilities would be capable of better service than one without.
In the years since, the idea of diversity in Rotary has come to be defined more broadly. We have discovered that a club that truly represents its community is far better able to serve that community effectively. Looking ahead, it is clear how essential diversity will remain in Rotary: not only to strong service today, but to a strong organization in the future.
One of the most pressing aspects of diversity to address in our membership is the age of our members. When you look around at almost any Rotary event, it becomes immediately obvious that the age range in the room does not promise a sustainable future for our organization. Our membership is near a record high, and we are bringing in new members all the time – yet only a small minority of those members are young enough to have decades of Rotary service ahead of them. To ensure a strong and capable Rotary leadership tomorrow, we need to bring in young and capable members today.
We also cannot discuss diversity in Rotary without addressing the issue of gender. It is difficult to imagine that just three decades ago, women could not join Rotary. Although we have come a long way since then, the legacy of that misguided policy is still with us. Far too many people continue to think of Rotary as an organization only for men, and that idea has had a detrimental effect on both our public image and our membership growth. Today, women make up just over 21 percent of Rotary's membership. While this is certainly a great improvement, we have a long way to go to meet what should be the goal of every club: a gender balance that matches the balance of our world, with as many women in Rotary as men.
Whatever brought each of us to Rotary, we stay because we find value in Rotary membership and believe that our service has value to the world. By building clubs that reflect that world in all its diversity, we will build even more enduring value in Rotary: Making a Difference.
Corey Minor Smith earned a Bachelor’s Degree of Arts in English and a Master’s Degree of Education in Guidance and Counseling from Bowling Green State University. Corey then earned her Juris Doctorate from the University of Toledo College of Law where she served as President of the Black Law Student Association, competed in the 15th Annual University of Minnesota Law School National Civil Rights Moot Court Competition and won first place in the American Society of Composers Artists and Publishers’ Nathan Burkan Memorial Competition..jpg)
This school year in collaboration with Buckeye Council and Canton City Schools, are offering an in class Rotary Scout Program at classes at Belle Stone, Allen, Dueber, Cedar and Madge Yotz schools. Collectively, there are forty (40) students in these classes. Due to some limitations on out of school trips, we were not able to offer the combined class holiday event that we had in the past. As many of these students come from some challenging experiences, the teachers they asked if possible if we might be able to provide sweatshirts to the students for Christmas. A special thanks to Mindy Fankhauser from the Buckeye Council who was able to arrange for sweatshirts with the Rotary Scout logo on a short notice. A very special thanks to Past President, Rick Taylor, who was able to serve as Rotary Santa on very short notice to make deliveries to the classes. .jpg)
The Rotary office received a "Thank You" letter from Dawn Campanelli, President of Junior Achievement of East Central Ohio. Dawn writes:.JPG)
It’s that time of year when we are in the midst our Annual Charitable Fund Drive! As is customary, I will be making a weekly plea from the podium for your participation.
In Rotary, our diversity is our strength. This idea dates back to the earliest years of our organization, when the classification system was first proposed. The idea behind it was simple: that a club with members who had a wide variety of backgrounds and abilities would be capable of better service than one without.
