A Simple Gesture Listed as Speaker at Healdsburg Rotary March 9 Meeting

Healdsburg Rotary’s public events page lists a speaker entry reading, “Speaker: Mark Martintill Topic: A Simple Gesture March 9th 2026 at 12:00 pm. More info.” That listing identifies the noon meeting on March 9, 2026 as the club slot where A Simple Gesture is scheduled as the topic, though the page snippet does not show a meeting location or additional speaker biography.

A Simple Gesture’s Healdsburg-Geyserville program describes itself on its local event page as “Healdsburg's Simple Gesture: A Community Response to Hunger” and cites that “More than 13% of people right here in this community face food insecurity, over 3% experience hunger on a regular basis.” The site instructs residents to “Just fill a bag of nutritious shelf-stable pantry food, leave it on your doorstep, and we take it to a Food Bank or pantry in your community,” and it publishes a Food Pick-Up Events Calendar that lists a March 7 pick-up, noting that “all events start at 9:00 am” and that pick-ups occur the first Saturday unless a holiday intervenes.

Local Rotary members featured in community coverage have already been involved with A Simple Gesture. Dave Henderson, described as “a recent new member of Healdsburg’s Noon Rotary Club,” said he had been preparing a food collection effort with the Redwood Empire Food Bank before encountering A Simple Gesture: “I was going to launch a food collection program together with the Redwood Empire Food Bank, and then talked to them quite a bit,” and “Then just by chance I found out about this ‘A Simple Gesture’ program.” Dr. David Anderson, identified as “another Noon Rotary Club member and an early adapter to the program,” described the program’s visible tools: “They give out unique green bags with ‘A Simple Gesture’ printed on them. People are encouraged to fill the bag with food items for the Food Pantry (a suggested list is included), and then leave the bags on their own front step.”

Healdsburg Tribune coverage ran an item headlined “A Simple Gesture makes it easy to help out” inside its Healdsburg Happenings roundup, including a photo captioned “A Simple Gesture food collection drivers.” The Tribune item noted the program’s wider pickup adoption, saying it “is becoming a popular fund-raising program for other area Rotary clubs, in Rohnert Park and Cotati and Windsor, with more coming on board and ‘getting with the program,’ as it were.” A Simple Gesture’s own site is quoted in the Tribune item with a broader appeal: “As federal funding for essential programs like SNAP and local food banks continues to decline, communities must take initiative,” states the asimplegesture.org website.

Social posts tied to the Rotary‑A Simple Gesture connection appear on club feeds. One Facebook snippet reads, “A simple gesture can make a real difference The Healdsburg Rotary Club Noon is proud to partner with A Simple Gesture & The Healdsburg” and an Instagram snippet carries similar text ending “& The Healdsburg Food” in the truncated copy, signaling public promotion of the partnership.

The events-page listing and program calendar appear to point to two related but separate engagements: a community pickup scheduled for March 7 at 9:00 am and a Rotary noon meeting on March 9 at 12:00 pm where A Simple Gesture is listed as the topic. The speaker name on the Rotary page is shown as the single token “Mark Martintill,” which the event snippet does not clarify and which merits confirmation for correct spelling and affiliation. If the March 9 listing proves accurate, the noon meeting will provide a public forum for the program that already runs recurring green-bag pickups and has active connections with local volunteers and partners such as the Redwood Empire Food Bank and the Healdsburg Food Pantry.