Martin Cohn holds up containers of Green Mountain Yogurt made from surplus milk. By Martin Cohn, past president of the Rotary Club of Brattleboro, Vermont, USA In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Vermont dairy farmers were in trouble. With the close of colleges and restaurants, there was too much supply of milk. This…
Hall full of food purchased by the Rotary Club of Newlands for distribution to 17 Early Childhood Development Centres in Langa, Cape Town, South Africa. By Vanessa Rousseau, Rotary Club of Newlands, South Africa As members of the Rotary Club of Newlands in Cape Town, South Africa, we could not stand by watching the devastating…
The Degree 33 Surfboard Team consists of a half dozen members of Surfers Unite Rotarian Fellowship who raised more than $400,000 last year in the 100 Wave Challenge. This year due to COVID-19, participants can take part around the globe during an extended two-month period. By Brett Morey, chair of Surfers Unite Rotarian Fellowship and…
Tory Paxson and her family By Tory Paxson, vice president, Boothbay Harbor Rotary Club, District 7780, Maine, USA What’s life like for people between the ages of 18 and 35 in the Boothbay Region of Maine? Through Rotary, young people take on leadership positions that expand their skills while they serve. Rotary does more than…
By David Peterson, Club and District Support Manager, and Victoria Schiffman, Member and Club Management Product Owner, Rotary International Imagine this: You meet a fellow Rotarian at an event. You are interested in collaborating on a project and promise to follow up. A few days later, you realized you’ve misplaced their contact information. Now what?…
Cyndi Doragh By Cyndi Doragh, Zone 34 assistant Rotary coordinator and member of the Rotary Club of Fort Myers South, Florida, USA Nearly three decades ago, I wanted to join Rotary. The first club I tried to join told me they weren’t accepting any more bankers. (In those days, it was common for Rotary clubs…
Local civic and government officials and representatives from ten Rotary clubs at the 2019 World Polio Day event. Photo by David Andrews By David F. Andrews, three-time past president, Rotary Club of Oshawa-Parkwood, Ontario, Canada, and chair of District 7070’s Public Image Committee After many years of celebrating World Polio Day with proclamations, updates from…
A hybrid meeting setup with a webcam on a dampened tripod, a laptop, and a projector. By Patrick Eakes, Zone 33 Rotary Coordinator Patrick Eakes In our area, the global pandemic arrived like an unwelcome dinner guest. Within a matter of days after the first local case of COVID-19, my Rotary club’s meeting location closed,…
Rudy Balmater By Rudy C. Balmater, membership committee chair, Rotary Club of Jakarta Gambir, Indonesia In early 2019, I received an online membership inquiry from Dicky Armando, who lived in Pontianak in the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan. Pontianak is about 735 kilometres away from Jakarta and reachable by airplane in less than two hours.…
A delegation of 30 Papua New Guinea participants funded by the Evangelical Lutheran Church take part in the Global Cyber Peace Conference. Elaine Pratley By Elaine Pratley, Rotary Peace Fellow This has not been an easy year. I attended my first virtual funeral because of local lockdowns due to COVID-19. Friends have lost jobs and…