Speakers

Harvey Newcomb is Director of Principal Gifts for The Rotary Foundation in Chicago. He will speak about giving to The Rotary Foundation.

Matt Halley joined Cookie Cart as it’s Executive Director in 2004. Under his leadership Cookie Cart has grown from grass roots organization in North Minneapolis to one of the largest youth employment training program in the Twin Cities.

He holds a Master’s Degree in Social Work from Augsburg College. He has worked in a variety of direct service and leadership roles at Twin Cities youth-serving organizations. Prior to Cookie Cart, Halley had a 10 year career at YouthLink, where he began as a case manager for homeless teens and left as the Executive Director. His areas of expertise include crisis intervention, GLBTQ youth, “learn to earn” training and youth social enterprise.

In the early 1980s Sr. Jean Thuerauf recognized that North Minneapolis teenagers needed a safe and engaging place to spend their time. The streets offered them crime, violence and gang involvement. Sister Jean decided to invite them into her kitchen for help with schoolwork and to learn to bake cookies. From those humble beginnings Cookie Cart has grown into a leading Twin Cities youth development program that utilizes a social enterprise nonprofit bakery to engage teens in building meaningful work, life and leadership skills. 

The bakery serves as an incubator that provides teens from communities of color with a safe, nurturing place to learn hand-on job skills. Teens learn through doing, and Cookie Cart gives them a chance to experience sales, production, inventory, leadership and marketing through the bakery and classes. Supervisors are teachers, and teaching takes priority over cookie production. Mistakes are learning opportunities, and all lessons presented in the context of how to meet the expectations at traditional jobs. As a “earn while you learn” program teens earn a wage at Cookie Cart that has a positive economic benefit to families and the neighborhood.

In May 2017, Cookie Cart opened its second bakery on Payne Avenue in Saint Paul. It will employ 100 East Side teens annually.

Eric Dayton will be the program speaker at the Dec. 13 Rotary Club of Edina meeting. He will speak about “Identity & Entrepreneurship in the North.” The presentation will cover how the North has grown over the past five years from a knit hat into a movement.

Born and raised in Minneapolis, Eric graduated from Williams College with a degree in English and later received his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He was a member of Arctic Transect 2004, a six-month, 2,000-mile dogsled expedition led by legendary polar explorer Will Steger.
 
In 2011, Eric and his brother, Andrew Dayton, co-founded Askov Finlayson, an outdoor clothing company inspired by year-round exploration with the mission to Keep The North Cold. The company measures its own carbon footprint and then gives away 110% of that amount annually to support leading-edge climate change solutions. Askov Finlayson has committed $1 million over the next five years to fund some of the world’s most innovative climate action organizations.
 
Eric and Andrew also own North First Hospitality, which includes The Bachelor Farmer, named one of Bon Appetit’s top 10 new restaurants, and Marvel Bar, a three-time James Beard semifinalist for Outstanding Bar Program in America.
 
Eric is the co-founder and board president of The Great Northern, an annual 10-day winter festival that celebrates Minnesota's signature season. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife and their two sons.

Jennifer Mayerle returned to Minnesota and WCCO, where she began her career as an intern. The Emmy and Edward R. Murrow award winner joined the WCCO team as a reporter in May 2014.

Jennifer, an Edina native, graduated with her bachelor’s degree in Communications and Mass Media from the University of San Diego. Prior to her return to WCCO, Jennifer was an award-winning special projects reporter at CBS46 in Atlanta. While in Atlanta, she also reported for CNN. Before that she was an anchor and reporter at KWES in Midland, Texas, as well as at WKRG in Mobile, Ala.

Lea Olsen is a former Gopher basketball player who found that through sports, she learned work ethic, perseverance and found a passion in life. She has spent her career working in sports and interviewing professional, college and high school athletes. She has recently been disturbed by some of the consistent issues I see starting in youth sports and moving all the way up to the professional ranks.

Olsen decided she wanted to be part of the solution so she created a platform called Rethink the Win. Rethink the Win focuses on helping athletes be healthier, well-rounded people who love playing sports.  

She will speak about Rethink the Win, the state of youth sports and how to use professional athletes to serve younger athletes.

Terry Anderson and Gigi Hickey both joined the Lake Minnetonka DAR chapter within the last 10 years, after their retirements allowed them more time for genealogy and volunteer work. Anderson is currently Regent, and Hickey is Vice Regent.

Joining them in their presention will be Wendi Moffley, daughter of Edina Rotarian Joel Jennings and a recent transfer to the Lake Minnetonka DAR chapter.

The annual Area 3 Vocational Ethics Day meeting will be Thursday, April 18, at the Edina Country Club. This annual spring meeting begins at 11:30 a.m. and concludes at 1:30 p.m. All Area 3 Rotary club members are welcome to attend, and area high schools are encouraged to have their students attend the meeting. In 2018, more than 200 participants attended, including high school students from Bloomington, Eden Prairie, Edina, and Richfield.

Stay tuned for information on this year's keynote speaker at the event.

For more information, contact Dan Hallberg at 952-541-0352.