Rotary's Hidden Influence
The rotary magazine just did an article on the many programs that were initiated by Rotarians and you might not be aware of their origin yet they continue to this day
A teenager named Herman Allen was critically injured in a streetcar accident in Elyria, Ohio many years ago. Since there was no hospital in this small town, Homer died. A Rotary member of the town said he would have lived if there would have been a hospital or some type of community health. Homer's father joined the local Rotary club and dedicated his life to create such a program for children who were disabled. He founded what was then called International Society for Crippled Children. Paul Harris was the organization's first chair. That organization is now called Easter Seals.
So many ideas from Rotarians helped humanity in a variety of ways. A few come to mind-Little Free Library, water projects worldwide and the Citizen's Climate Lobby. Other ideas enhance the community. i was recently at a Rotary meeting in Duluth, home of the iconic Aerial Lift Bridge. Years ago the city provided very little lighting for the lift bridge but the Duluth Rotary chose to make it one of their projects to really light up the bridge in a more dramatic way so shipping vessels could see the bridge from a long distance. They also were behind lighting the bridge in red, white and blue lights on July Fourth. It's things like this that can draw new members to our club. The panel on Human trafficking that we did is such a program and our Rotary received many compliments for that timely program. Perhaps you know of a project we could get behind that enhances our piece of the world.