By Christina Schwinn, past president of the Rotary Club of North Fort Myers, Florida, USA
Even on an ocean cruise, Rotary’s magic unites members to serve others and create lasting change. I was on a world cruise on the Viking Sky recently when I decided I wanted to connect with other Rotary members and service-minded individuals. I spoke with the cruise director, who organized meetings for us in the Wintergarden, a light-filled space on deck 7 primarily used for afternoon tea service. He graciously advertised our meetings on board and in the cruises’ bulletins.
During the first meeting, I met John Curtis, a past governor of Rotary District 5810 (Texas, USA) and his wife, Janie. During subsequent meetings, we learned about people’s service efforts, including one that Marie Smith was heading up. She had collected donations of books from passengers with the intention of giving them to a school for disadvantaged children in Zanzibar. We agreed to help present the books when the cruise ship docked in Zanzibar in a few weeks.
Unfortunately, a cholera outbreak closed the port at Zanzibar so that Viking Sky had to instead extend its port days in Mombasa, Kenya. We fretted over how the Rotary members among us were going to help Marie deliver her books.
That is when John put on his Rotary hat and contacted the president of the Rotary Club of Mombasa, Hamid Aboo, also a past district governor. He made arrangements to receive and deliver the books at the Mombasa dock. The Rotary Club of Mombasa is a healthy, diverse club that does many projects. They had recently received a container of solar lamps from a Rotary club in Miami to deliver to a school with no electricity.
On the evening that the Viking Sky reached Mombasa, John and Janie and Marie were entertained for dinner as guests of the Rotary club (I was unable to attend as I was on Safari). They were joined by three other past governors – Hamid Aboo; Peter VerBeeck of the Rotary Club of Key Biscayne, Florida; and a gentleman from Mombasa who served 25 years ago.
Plans were made to offload the 700 books the following day. They were packed in eight ‘banana’ boxes, and two very large roller suitcases, labeled, and weighed. The Viking Sky staff organized the customs documents. The ship’s crew offloaded the books, and the Mombasa club received them and shipped them to the school in Zanzibar.
While none of us saw the smiling faces of the children when they received the books, we know that those Rotarians and Marie Smith made a difference in the lives of many children in Zanzibar. And that is the magic of Rotary.
https://blog.rotary.org/2025/07/15/connecting-for-good-with-rotary-on-the-high-seas/