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What Does Rotary Do?

 

The following is information provided by Club President David Yeghiaian at the August 25, 2008 Rotary Club of Green Bay meeting. It responds to the question, “What Does Rotary Do?” as many Rotarians struggle to answer this question when asked as they want to name the 1 thing that Rotary does. The short answer: There isn’t 1 thing – there are many.

 

INTERNATIONAL

  • Rotary International is the world’s first service organization – formed in 1905.
  • It is one of the world’s largest service organizations with 1.2 million members belonging to nearly 33,000 Clubs in more than 200 countries. Its motto is Service Above Self.
  • Its Ambassadorial Scholarship program is the world’s largest, privately funded scholarship program. Each year, it provides approximately 800 scholarships internationally – with each scholarship at $24,000 – nearly $20 million.
  • It is focused on helping with Child Mortality as 10 million children die annually from preventable causes – with 4 million dying in the 1st month of birth. Of these 10 million, 1.3 million are from malaria. Last year, Rotary provided 1.1 million bed nets to Africa to help, estimated to prevent nearly 700,000 premature deaths.
  • It helps with Disaster Relief efforts as it created a Shelter Box program that provides shelter, blankets, tools, nets and many other disaster relief equipment for up to 10 people for a minimum of 6 months. Since 2001, more than 500,000 Shelter Boxes have been distributed in more than 40 countries – including the U.S. In addition, Rotary’s Shelter Box Response Team was the first and only group to get to the most devastated area in Myanmar after its recent cyclone devastation.
  • And of course, there is Polio. Rotary is responsible for helping eradicate polio worldwide – and it is succeeding. Since 1988, polio cases worldwide have been reduced from 350,000 to less than 2,000 – a 99% reduction.
  • Bill Gates believes so much in eradicating Polio that through his Foundation, he recently donated a $100 million challenge grant to Rotary International.

DISTRICT (REGIONAL)

  • Rotary is divided into more than 500 Districts. Our District is much of northeastern Wisconsin and the U.P. and our current District Governor resides in our Club – Tom Friese. We are also fortunate to have past District Governors with Tom Guyette and Jim Bowley.
  • In our District, there is the Etta Project in a village in Bolivia. This helped impoverished families with food, as well as collaborating with Engineers Without Borders to create a water filtration system for each home for $30. The water from this village is some of the most diseased water ever tested – which is a leading cause for Child Mortality – and now it’s drinkable.
  • If you’d prefer to help malnutrition – the root cause of 5.7 million children deaths annually – we have Power Flour. This is a barley malt flour added to children’s porridge providing basic nutrients they wouldn’t otherwise receive. Children’s weight gain has doubled in 5 months for those using Power Flour vs. those not using it.

GREEN BAY (LOCAL)

  • Our Club began in 1917 and has approximately 100 members. In 2004, our Club formed a dental project for children in Green Bay Public Schools that were in need of dental care. More than 5,500 children have received care that otherwise wouldn’t. Our Club helped raise more than $300,000, and with grants and other donations, turned this into $1.6 million – and eventually spun this off into a separate non-profit organization.
  • We have a Men’s Closet whereby we partner with the Salvation Army to provide clothing to men in need of it. During the past 2 years, Men’s Closet has had nearly 1,100 visitors.
  • We have just started another local project focused on Poverty & Hunger. We will partner with Festival Foods existing “Food for Neighbors Project” with a goal of expanding it. This project is designed to help supply our local food pantry’s with basic food supplies which are distributed to children and families in the community. We will help enhance contributions to this effort along with involving Rotary members to increase the community awareness of poverty in our community.
  • And we have a Local Foundation that gave more than $28,000 last year to local organizations such as Einstein Project, YMCA, Encompass, GBSO and many others.
  • So, what does Rotary do? We Serve! And we do so by collaborating with other service organizations. There isn’t 1 thing that Rotary does. What makes us Rotarians and focused on Service Above Self is that our members can help with whatever they’d like – Polio, child mortality, poverty, water, etc. – wherever they’d like – internationally, northeast Wisconsin, or Green Bay. This is what makes us different. This is what makes us Rotarians.

 

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