February 20, 2008

Quite often, I hear comments and feedback regarding my column and I wanted to thank everyone for reading it and those of you who take the time to tell me how much you enjoy it and look forward to it every week.  I've begun to notice that every compliment I hear is usually followed by the sentence "I never thought Rotary was so fun!"  This was especially true after hearing about the Rotary Trivia tournament several weeks ago!  In fact, many people have confessed that they thought Rotary would be a stodgy and boring affair that consisted exclusively of older people and on top of that, how much fun could community service be?  After all, if community service, along with fines and jail time, are among the punishments that judges can impose on law-breakers, how glamorous could it be?  

 

I'm very happy to be able to contradict these assumptions since, as you can see from my descriptions, Rotary meetings are anything but dull and boring and Rotary makes serving the community not only painless, but an incredibly great time.  And our local Rotary club is lively enough to have attracted fun, friendly, and fascinating members of all ages, though I have to admit to being the youngest!  Here are just a couple examples of the ways in which the Deposit Rotary Club and Rotary International have a great time raising funds to help others in our local and global communities.

 

First of all, at a recent lunch meeting, club secretary Rick Zacharias read the minutes of the Rotary Board of Directors meeting held the previous evening.  One of the matters of new business that had been discussed was the pink flamingo situation.  Apparently, some of Rotary's pink flamingo assets were in disrepair and new flamingos had to be procured so as to preclude the possibility of a dreaded flamingo shortage and thus avoid the risk of our fine club suffering the embarrassment of being represented by less-than-healthy looking large pink plastic birds.  Thankfully, the club was adequately reassured of the state of its flamingo holdings.  I hope to have accurately portrayed that part of the meeting considering that this columnist may have missed some of the important pink flamingo details while he was taking his notes, distracted by fits of laughter.  A dull meeting it certainly wasn't!

 

I also wanted to mention that Rotary International in Great Britain and Ireland livened up their flood relief fundraising efforts by holding a glamorous fashion show during London's fashion week back in September.  Attended by all sorts of celebrities and featuring the modeling talents of Naomi Campbell, Lily Cole, Claudia Shiffer, Elle Macpherson, Fergie (the Duchess of York), Faye Dunaway, and Sting, top designers such as Chanel, Emilio Pucci, and Versace contributed garments and helped Rotary raise one million British pounds (about US$2,000,000).  Rotarians are experts at achieving the best results from their community service initiatives by getting people involved and having a fabulous time!

February 13, 2008

This week, I wanted to bring attention to the fact that Rotary International and Rotary clubs around the world are commemorating the twentieth anniversary of Rotary's commitment to eradicate polio from the planet.  Twenty years ago, Rotary International (the global network of local Rotary clubs) joined the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and two agencies of the United Nations: the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in forming the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.   The program has proved to be enormously successful based on the fact that a 60% drop in polio cases occurred during 2007 and that there has been a 99% drop since the 1980's, when the initiative was started. As Rotary and its partners successfully educate people about the virus and supply oral vaccines to spread worldwide immunity, much financial support has poured in to help the project.  It is estimated that Rotarians alone have given $630 million to fighting polio, not counting the time and other personal contributions that are provided by members of Rotary every year.  Also, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations just recently gave a $100 million grant that Rotary International has promised to match.  

 

Despite the initiative's success and the fact that—for most of the developed world, at least—polio is no longer a public health threat, there still exist corners of the world where the virus is still a very real and daily cause of misery.  These are the places where Rotary and the other partners of the initiative plan to concentrate their efforts.  For example, in Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, Mali, and Pakistan, vaccination teams are trying their hardest to reach every possible individual, especially children, in the most rural and isolated locations.   These teams are made up of public health professionals, activists, and Rotary volunteers from places like the United States, Canada, and European nations.  This month's issue of the Rotarian magazine, includes many moving and inspirational photographs of children being immunized.  In particular, I found particularly striking the picture taken in Addis Ababa, Ethipia, where three smiling children hold up their stained fingers (indicating their having received the vaccine) in an image that recalls those of excited Iraqis whose fingers were stained during the country's first democratic elections since the fall of Saddam Hussein.  Adding to the power of the photograph was the fact that celebrity singer Beyoncé Knowles accompanied the group to Ethiopia.  In addition to her helping give the oral vaccines herself, her presence brings worldwide attention to the persisting hardships that polio inflicts on many people and to remind us all that with the help of Rotarians and other individuals everywhere, polio's days on earth will soon be numbered.

February 6, 2008

At the Deposit Rotary Club's weekly meeting on January 30, no speaker or activity was scheduled after lunch so that the club could catch up on business matters, planning for future projects and events.  With no program to report on, I decided that this was the perfect opportunity to use my column to bring one very special Deposit Rotarian to center stage for a well-deserved révérence (the elaborate bow ballet dancers do when receiving applause).  I've taken the liberty of declaring this remarkable person the Rotary Review's Woman of the Year:  Mrs. Nancy Zacharias. 

 

I'm sure that everyone who knows Nancy—a.k.a. everyone in town—is already aware of the reasons that the staff at the Rotary Review—a.k.a. me—would choose Nancy for this prestigious award.   It is hard to imagine this community and many of its unique and valuable programs without Nancy's talent and hard work.  In Rotary, for instance, Nancy serves as Treasurer, which is an office that holds a huge amount of responsibility with all the money Rotary takes in and distributes back to the community and all the paperwork and legal forms that go along with it.  I absolutely marvel at the amount of time and meticulousness she must put into making her Treasurer's reports and budget spreadsheets, which can only be described as fiscal works of art.  She also just recently handled the administration of our lottery fundraiser, for which she has to remain dutifully on top of who wins the daily contest, and she also is the editor of our club newsletter which is utterly essential, not only for keeping Rotarians informed of club happenings, but also for assisting the Rotary Review staff in compiling the column every week!

 

Next year, Nancy will be taking on even more endless work for Rotary.  Since we will have a different club president each month, it seemed necessary to find someone who was undeniably intelligent, articulate, organized, experienced, and highly respected to help keep the presidency from falling apart into a chaotic mess, much like Condoleezza Rice does on the federal level.  We are truly blessed to have Nancy on board. 

 

Unfortunately, I don't have the space in this column to give adequate treatment to all of Nancy's accomplishments and contributions to Rotary, let alone the life of our entire community—her work for the Deposit Free Library just being one important example that comes to mind—but it was my hope that by bringing the attention of all the readers of my column to Nancy's impact, you will be able notice for yourself all the ways she enriches life in Deposit and all the work, both in the public eye and behind the scenes, that she is able to successfully tackle and of course, how we all benefit from it.  

 

Perhaps Nancy's greatest contribution is her genuinely warm presence and fabulous sense of humor which unfailingly brighten every place she happens to be.  Her kindness, determination, and caring manner greatly inspire me, as I'm sure they do countless others lucky enough to know her.  Thank you, Nancy, for everything you do.