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Jamie L. offered our invocation. Announcements were fast paced: Brian T. reminded us to get our Lucky Duck Derby tickets to sell, followed by Randy K. telling us we will be distributing Josh the Otter water safety books to kindergarten students after our meeting on May 15th. The crew that cleaned up our Highway 210 ditch on the west edge of town, consisting of Wally C., Lisa M., Cody O., Keith O., Matt S. (with two young daughters), and Pete W., picked up 24 bags of garbage. We sang Happy Birthday to Honorary member Elaine Olson on the actual day of her birthday. Keith arranged a lille dessert treat for each one of us in honor of his mother's birthday and brother Guy from the Sunrise Club also joined us.  We were reminded of the social at Fergus Brewing on Wednesday evening, May 1st from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.,. We were also asked to complete the survey we were sent for our club visioning on Wednesday, May 8th; the visioning will occur from 5:00 to 9:00 p.m. at the offices of Trilogy (in lieu of a club meeting that day), with a dinner to be provided. The survey can be accessed at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZCPWJ8K. Finally, we were reminded that there will be no lunch served at our May 1st meeting -- bring your own or eat before or after. There were brags galore! Brian T. was happy about passing an electrical inspection and also expressed his appreciation for Elaine. John M. told us he attended an event in Fargo-Moorhead the prior Monday night at the YWCA honoring 20 women, including his oldest granddaughter who is leading efforts to prevent suicide. Tim H. will be gone in May so marked off the meetings he will miss on his card. Wally C. said his grandson did a fantastic job in the lead in Footloose at a production in Fairmont and also complimented guest Gary Nolte for his talking about Recital for a Cause on public television. Josh B. put in for missing a couple meetings and for the birth of their third daughter two Wednesdays ago. Katie J. put in for the many wonderful memories from her trip to Israel and for news she received her certification as a health and wellness coach. Holly W. apologized for not helping out on the ditch clean-up and also to tell us her son was nominated to participate in Boys State. Keith O. marked off spots on his card in honor of Elaine and told us he and brother Guy are heading to Norway with their spouses. This writer also acknowledged Elaine's birtrhday and indicated he hoped Katie would be able to give us a program on her trip. Guest Cindy Nolte told us of the wonderful influence Bob and Elaine Olson have been in her and Gary's lives. Buzz L. noted his business was celebrating its 110th anniversary that day. Past District Governor Gary Nolte and wife Cindy, both members of the Moorhead Rotary Club, spoke to us about the ongoing effort to rid the world of polio. They presented President Zack with a certificate of appreciation for our Club's financial support of the campaign in 2022-23.  The Noltes have traveled (on their own dime) to four National Immunization Days in Ghana, Niger, Nigeria and India. Each trip was 10 days, with five days spent administering oral vaccines. No new wild polio cases were reported for a 20-week period in 2023 but some were found at the end of the year and now we have gone five weeks without any new cases. All the new cases were in Afghanistan or Pakistan, with the Taliban assisting in the vaccination efforts, albeit opposed by ISIS. Surveillance clinics have been set up all over the world and they have not only been used in the polio eradication effort but to deal with COVID and Ebola. Cindy told us that she considers camels to be the worse mode of transportation she has experienced. We learned that during the Pan Am Games in Niger, the government had polio victims under arrest and that on one of their trips Cindy and Gary visited the detainees. In Niger, a Muslim country, the Iman let Rotarians into their Mosk, with the women even allowed to go into the area exclusively for men. To get over a belief by some Muslims that the vaccine was being used to sterilize children, Imans from northern India were sent to Indonesia to see the vaccine made. Gary also told us he gave himself the drops to convince a father to allow his children to be vaccinated, and also employed a red nose to break down barriers as he went from dilapidated structure to dilapidated structure. They often had to stop providing vaccinations at noon because of the heat they were dealing with and needing to maintain a cold chain (using generators for the vaccine to be effective.  In additi8on to providing polio vaccines, Gary and Cindy's work on these trips has included distributing clothes for children, mosquito netting to protect against mosquito bites that can cause malaria and providing Vitamin A supplements to aid vision. Going forward, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has renewed its commitment to the eradication effort through 2028, matching up to $50 million raised by Rotary each year with $100 million. The hope is to have the world certified polio free in 2028, which takes three years of no new wild polio cases. Gary told us that tracking the virus has improved greatly over the years, now with the use of cell phones. The only other effective way to fight polio is to provide clean water. Polio is only spread by humans through their feces that get into the water supply. Finally, Gary told us that Recital for a Cause raised over $115,000. |
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