Governor's Message for January
Happy New Year. We are now into the New Year and we have many things to think about. January being Rotary Awareness month makes us ponder as to how much we do know about Rotary and how we promote it to those who are not yet Rotarians.
How do we explain what Rotary is when we are asked? What does the pin that we wear on our lapels signify?
Rotary International is the oldest service club organization in the world, plus one of the largest. Now we have 1.2 million members all over the world with 32,000 clubs in over 200 countries.
Rotarians build goodwill and better understanding throughout the world by assisting with Humanitarian and educational projects that address the underlying causes of various conflicts, poverty, literacy and decease.
Rotary's commitment to children of the future is a "polio free world".
Two billion children under the age of five have received the oral polio vaccine, sparing an estimated 5 million from a lifetime of paralysis and preventing 500,000 new cases each year.
Recently it was announced that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation had donated over $100 million as a matching grant to The Rotary Foundation. We, as Rotarians will rise to the challenge and match this money over the next three years as we make the final push to eradicate Polio. How exciting!
So, during January and the coming months' let us make our local communities more aware of Rotary's' contributions towards bringing health and peace to this world that we live in.
As Rotary Shares
June Catchart
District Governor