Literacy Council
Bill Grennell has worked for The Literacy Council for just over one year now... and is new to Rockford as well as Illinois. Prior to moving his famile to this area, Bill worked as the Executive Director for a Red Cross Chapter in rural Virginia in the southwest corner of the state. While there, BIll raised awareness of what the Red Cross did for the community as well as raising funds and recruiting volunteers foe the organization. In September of 2017, Bill deployed for two weeks to Florida to help respond to Hurricane Irma's destruction.
Prior to working for the Red Cross, Bill worked for the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Southern California, raising over 1.3 million dollars each year to help children and families going through tough medical situations.
Prior to that, Bill worked for the Boy Scouts of America. He started his career four days out of college, in rural Missouri then promoting to northern Minnesota and then promoted back home to Southern California for a total of 23 years with the Scouts.
All in all, Bill has been a non-profit executive for 31 years this month. During his career, Bill has been a Rotarian in four different clubs and visited many others as both a visiting Rotarian and a program presenter.
Bill also married his wife in the same month that he graduated and started working for the Scouts and now has four grown sons and as of last October... one daughter-in-law. Three of his sons are living her in Illinois and his son and daughter-in-law live in North Carolina.
Bill and his family have really enjoyed moving to this area... for a comparison, Bill's last service area in Virginia has 16 counties... the populations of all sixteen counties was smaller that the population of Boone and Winnebago counties combined.
Bill will talk to us about how the Literacy Council has fared during the pandemic and what are the plans as the area opens up in June. This will be an interesting and informative program and one which you will want to invite a friend or prospective member to join us either in person at Memorial Hall or via Zoom. You can forward the Zoom meeting information to them. Linda Niemiec will introduce our presenter and act as Rotary host.