Andy grew up on a small farm south of Wooster Ohio, and from an early age was always growing, building, or designing something he could sell. Andy was a member of almost every club in high school and almost completed every 4-H project in the book during the summer months. He went on to graduate from The Ohio State University with his Bachelors degree in horticulture and food microbiology and was hired as the vineyard manager at The Winery at Wolf Creek in Norton Ohio in 1996.
Andy returned to Wooster and opened Troutman Vineyards and Winery in an old chicken house on the family farm in 2001. In 2002 he purchased The Winery at Wolf Creek and in 2012 opened The Distillery at Wolf Creek. He was also co-founder of the Minglewood Distillery in Wooster.
Andy has served on the board of the Ohio Wine Producers Association, The Ohio Grape Industries Committee, and is a past president of the Summit County Farm Bureau.
He has two children. Daughter Sophia is a first year student at The Ohio State University and son Asa is a junior at Wooster High School. He is an avid beekeeper, gardener, and world traveler. Andy now spends his summers growing grapes in Ohio and winters growing coffee on his farm in Corozal, Puerto Rico.
This year’s Ohio Rotary Presidents-Elect (PETS) has chosen a very special group to support:
My Very Own Blanket is dedicated to warming the heart of every child in the foster care system and other youth in need with their own blanket, to give them a feeling of comfort, security, and most of all, a SMILE.
PETS has set a goal of Ohio Rotarians donating 16,000 blankets to be distributed to children throughout each district. We need your help to reach this goal!
How can you help?
1. Join us at our blanket-making event with our Interact Students on Wednesday, March 30th from 3:00-5:30 at the Canton Symphony Orchestra’s Zimmerman Center, located at McKinley High School where we will work together to make it easy to assemble fleece blankets from kits that the club has purchased.
2. Grab a kit to make at home! This is a great opportunity to get spouses, children, and grandchildren, neighbors, and friends involved with our project.
Kits will be available at Friday meetings, or if one needs to be dropped off to someone, email Jennie George or Rich Micelli and we can arrange to have a kit delivered. These blankets take about 60-90 minutes to make. Blankets are due by Friday, March 25th.
To sign up for the blanket day, to get a blanket kit, or for more information please contact Jennie George at jgeorge@cantoncpc.org or Rich Micelli at rmicelli@ymcastark.org
Most importantly, The Spring Raffle fundraiser is essential to our continued charitable activities. Involvement in the event has been a bit sluggish and I am again urging you to please go online this week before it ends and participate, as well as getting the flyer out to friends and relatives and making a plea to them. We will be drawing winners at our lunch meeting THIS WEEK. It's so important that we have the funding to do the charitable activities we are known for.
Last week we were fortunate to listen to four members of the McKinley Speech Team present their takes on the 4-way test. A big thanks to Jeff Scott for putting another terrific program together. This week we have the honor of having Andy Troutman, Wolf Creek Winery provide a presentation on his business. I'd be lying if I didn't say I was hoping for some free samples!
We have now officially moved into spring and I hope this will translate into a higher and more consistent lunch meeting attendance. Please make every attempt to attend our weekly luncheons. If you have been attending regularly, thank you. If you have been unable to attend in person, but jump on Zoom with us, thank you. If you happen to be missing both the in-person and/or Zoom, please engage. It can be a great opportunity to reach out to existing Rotarians or potential new members and accompany them to the lunch meeting.
At our weekly meeting on Friday March 18, 2022, President Mark welcomed 26 Rotarians and two guest, Dorsey Morrow and Wes Humble, at which four outstanding McKinley High Speech and Debate students presented their orations tying in our Rotary Four Way Test to their takes on current topics.
Secretary Paula presented the following:
On This Date in History:
1766 - After four months of continuous protest in America, the British Parliament repealed the Stamp Act, a taxation measure enacted to raise revenues for a standing army in the Colonies. This issue became a major cause of the Revolution: taxation without representation.
1942 - US President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the executive order creating the War Relocation Authority, charged with overseeing the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII.
1990 - In what was considered the world's biggest art heist, two men pretending to be police officers stole 13 works, including paintings by Rembrandt and Vermeer, from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. The stolen art was never recovered.
1992 - American businesswoman whose name became synonymous with being mean, Leone Helmsley was sentenced to four years in prison for tax evasion. She was quoted as saying, "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes."
Rotary Fun Fact:
Q: Does anyone know why Rotary's polio project is called "Polio +"?
A: It's because Vitamin A is given along with the polio vaccine. This extra measure has averted an estimated 1.5 million juvenile deaths since 1998.
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