September 10, 2025 Breakfast Meeting Notes
Guests: Sean LaRoque-Doherty (director of Bridge House), Yvonne (a Rotarian from Hudson, Massachusetts who is moving to our area), and Mike Sun.
Lora won the 50/50.
Mike drew for the card game but got 5 of spades. The game continues.
Club weekly highlights: Alicia has resigned from her position as co-president. Tony would like to see more member participation in all club events, so he is looking for someone to take over Rotary trivia. If anyone would like to do a Rotary minute, Mike has a whole library of possible Rotary minutes. Finally, Tony passed around a signup sheet for people to share their favorite hobbies: you could dance, sing, or do something else to share with the group.
Service Projects: Today after our meeting several of us will be going to Paradise Point to help move canoes and kayaks into winter storage. A week from Saturday is the End Hunger event in North Conway; we are donating $250 for ingredients and will be helping to make Mac and cheese, a pasta meal, and cinnamon oatmeal meals. If you wold like to sign up to help, see Denise. Our club has accepted 400 meals to bring back to PACC and the senior center. Finally, Plymouth Pride Day is October 4 at Rotary Park. We’ll serve lemonade and have Rotary swag on display.
Hometown Holiday Celebration is coming up and we need to get started. We need a committee to work on the float.
The board will discuss whether we should work on public awareness of the lack of NH state support for veterans’ services. We may want to work up a template for a letter that club members can send to their legislators.
Penny sale: Sharon brought a box of perforated sheets for the sale. As you collect prizes, attach a sheet to your prize and fill out the top half and the bottom half in full. If there are any changes in contact info, mark them on the sheet. Give a gift description and be sure to put your name on the bottom of the sheet. Please fill these out before setup (which will be on October 15 at 5 pm at the high school).
Street sales for Penny Sale grand prize will start soon. Please sign up…last year we had a lot of slots left open. Tony asked if we could sell Penny Sale tickets at the Pride event; this may not be appropriate given that they are trying to raise money too, but Denise will check.
Tony and Mike stand with Sean Doherty, executive director of the Bridge House.
Ken Evans introduced our speaker, Sean Doherty of the Bridge House. We are now in the 3rd year of our foam project and the last year has been much more efficient with the use of the Flippin’ Furniture truck. We’ve learned a lot about the Bridge House in that time and Sean is here to tell us about recent changes there.
Sean has served as executive director of the Bridge House for the last year. He was interim director for 4 months and before that served as compliance agent. The Bridge House is a recovery-friendly emergency center, serving veterans and others who need supportive housing. The goal is to serve all people with compassion and without judgment.
The Bridge House started in 1986 when a group of volunteers came together to support growing numbers of homeless and veterans with a 2500 square foot shelter. They were able to buy the property and worked there for the next 15 years as the Pemi-Bridge House.
In 2003 they committed to relocating and building a new facility. In 2005 a 4300 square foot building was designed on their property with an expanded kitchen and room for 20 residents. They can accommodate families as space permits (a family of 2-3 is usually ok, but larger families need to go to a larger shelter.
The new facility has a nurturing environment that enhances recovery. Residents meet weekly with a caseworker to get support with GED acquisition, basic life skill training in budgeting and finance, transportation to jobs, medical and surgical appointments, counseling and other types of support. An evening meal is served every night at 5:30; volunteer cooks prepare the meal. Denise comes in on Sunday mornings to prepare breakfast and plan meals for the week.
The shelter is as dry shelter, so no alcohol or drugs allowed. They do random drug testing and if people fail the test, they are expelled. There is no fighting and no stealing. Residents help out with dinners and everyone helps to keep the facility clean. A real sense of community brings a stabilizing influence to all residents. The shelter allows the homeless to use their shower facilities and laundry.
They now have a 30 bed plus shelter facility. They get calls constantly from the community and from other shelters. They have fewer than 10-15 residents right now, but during the colder months they are always full and sometimes even need to have people sleep in the hospice room. They are also a 90 day shelter, in which people are given 90 days to help get through a substance abuse problem or whatever until they can find a more permanent situation. There are 6 permanent supportive housing units that receive vouchers. The homeless population is getting older and the Bridge House is dealing more with physical and mental illness and substance abuse. The organization is constantly evolving to help people.
A board of directors governs the Bridge House and governs oversight and advocacy. If you are interested in serving on the board, see Sean. The executive director is responsible for the $1.5 million annual budget, handles the annual audits, and works on private support to reduce the need for public financing.
For financial support, each town provides warrants, usually about $2000 per town, although they do not charge Plymouth as they provide a lot of services. The shelter runs two stores, Ladders and Flippin’ /Boomerang, that sell products to raise money for the Bridge House. They receive a lot of support from the local grocery and fast food stores, all of which are in walking distance of the shelter. Many of the residents work at Ladders.
Denise noted that last night’s Zoom meeting on growing your membership was excellent. The ideas presented there will be discussed more in the future.
Happy dollars were shared by Denise and Tony.
Respectfully submitted,
Lora Miller, secretary