DG Marlee's September Message
THE WOW FACTOR LIVES
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This month we are celebrating a few of the successes I have heard about during my DG Visits. There is definitely a WOW factor alive in all of our 7090 clubs. I am awed by their many accomplishments. Perhaps, it is because I developed our District’s first Best Practices Manual that these accomplishments so resonate. Today I am sharing some of them with you in the hope that you – our clubs - will send a description of your service activities to our Director of Service Projects, John DePaolo, for further inclusion in our next update. You can contact John using the Organization Chart on our home page at www.rotary7090.org or http://www.rotary7090.org/DistrictOrganizationChart/2016. Some of the WOW factor indeas you have shared with me - in no particular order, just as they popped into my mind today, include:
A fledgling museum needed $600 for paint – this club accepted the challenge and raised $1400 selling hotdogs…all the money went to the museum.
They source sponsors and partners to provide warm clothes for 370 children in their community.
A summer literacy program at an inner-city school needed hands-on participation and 100% of the club’s Rotarians stepped up to do their part.
This club’s thinking ‘outside the building’ developed into a man-cave tour. All kinds of tours seem to bring people out to see what might be with a little work and lots of imagination.
Many clubs in the WNY area easily fill all their time slots to participate at the Cradle Beach Camp.
Word about the nutritional value of the breadfruit trees is spreading. It’s being milled into a porridge-like meal for school children, in the Caribbean and Pakistan. Where next?
One club’s mid-summer BBQ Auction is the must ‘come home from the cottage’ to attend, selling out with 470 in attendance earning more than $85,000…the planning takes 365 days, the rewards put smiles on everyone’s face.
Got water…have a fishing derby! Trophy fish! Big! And lots of them! Sponsors make it profitable!
Don’t have water…have a spring fishing derby before the community pool opens, yup...fill’er up. Fire up the BBQ! Invite school children to learn the art of putting a worm on a hook, UGH!! As well as, bring challenged adults for a day of sunshine and fellowship. There, you have an event everyone looks forward to for the next 365 days.
A club is launching its first global grant; they been squirreling money away for years to make this a reality in our Rotary Foundation’s Centennial. Or, was that just happenstance?
Literacy! Many clubs help people learn to read in many ways: by gifting dictionaries, books for tots, holding festivals and summer reading programs, teaching parents how to engage children to love reading.
Of course, many of our clubs are participating in drilling water wells in areas where clean water is scare. Add some latrines, and watch the villages ring with the laughter of healthy children. Hope springs eternal!
Since Rotary started the fight against polio, one club’s members have contributed, right out of their pockets, nearly $136,000.
How about sponsoring EarlyAct, add a couple of Interact clubs and you are never short of potential members, lots of friends of Rotary, as the parents and members, eagerly help with community events. Rotary’s light isn’t hidden under bushel baskets here!
One club immediately took me up on the ‘Let’s Top up Our Giving’ for The Rotary Foundation’s Centennial by rewriting their sustaining club’s cheque by including an extra $26.50 each, while I was doing my DG presentation. And here, I thought they weren’t listening!
How about buying a pie at an auction? You’ll find it comes with a bird house or, perhaps even a picnic table attached to sit on and eat your pie.
This meandering list of accomplishments could run to many pages, if I don’t stop my fingers NOW! Space is limited and I have another nine months of DG newsletter articles to write. Watch to see how and when we celebrate the clubs of Rotary District 7090 in my monthly musings. It is so interesting to hear our 7090 Rotarians passionately recount their tales…
TICK-TOCK, TIME IS RUNNING OUT TO REGISTER FOR THE EXCITING ‘LET’S DO’ DISTRICT CONFERENCE! Date: October 21-23, Batavia Downs Gaming and Horseracing in Batavia, NY. Register right now, right here http://districtconference7090.org.