Meeting Recap for March 17, 2014
Is Rotary International really international? Any doubts people had about that were thoroughly dispelled Monday by Kim Lorenz, the second of our featured speakers for Rotary Club of Sacramento’s Centennial Speaker Series.
Lorenz, a 34-year Rotarian from Seattle, is Rotary International’s official liaison to World Vision, the 47,000-employee, $3-billion global faith-based nonprofit organization that touches 100-million lives in 100 countries annually.
Introduced by Chair of the Day Paul Cantelli, Lorenz brought with him an impressive slide presentation to help depict the strong relationship and shared values of Rotary International and World Vision that includes more than $10-million in joint projects.
Although Rotary and World Vision work closely together on a number of issues, clean water was Lorenz’s main focus. “Every day, 3,000 children die of water-borne diseases,” he said. “Can you imagine what would happen here if even one child died of that? But elsewhere it is all too common.”
As bad as that is, there is even more fall-out from the lack of clean water according to Lorenz: “When children are sick from drinking bad water, they can’t go to school and learn. It is hard to focus on learning when you don’t feel good.”
Lorenz said the problem is especially a problem for women and girls, who are often the ones who have to walk miles to get water. “They are often denied the ability to go to school anyway,” he said. “This makes that even worse. And they are frequently targets for rape as they walk along lonely trails.”
World Vision targets the water-borne illness problem with a program it calls WASH (Water and Sanitation and Hygiene). Rotary’s companion program is WASHRAG (Water and Sanitation and Hygiene Rotary Action Group).
“We often find ourselves working in the same location at the same time,” said Lorenz. “On numerous occasions we’ve been able to leverage each other’s expertise and dollars to produce an even greater result.”
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President Thom Gilbert had Kevin Smith-Fagan open the St. Patrick’s Day festivities by leading the club in singing “When Irish Eyes are Smiling” and the lunch menu featured (what else?) corned beef and cabbage.
The Centennial Speaker Series Sponsor was David DeRoos of Citygate Associates. DeRoos and Citygate also sponsored the pre-meeting wine reception during which our own Rotary Rooters entertained the guests. Dave spoke about his involvement in World Vision and how his sponsorship of a young man through high school in Kenya opened his eyes to world community service. His company Citygate Associates provides services in the area of general management consulting.
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Speaking of guests, Past-District Governor Bob Deering and District Governor Elect-Elect Barbara Tracy joined us for the luncheon. District Governor-Elect Fred Teichert made it a District 5180 “hat trick.” New member Kathe Nathan and renewed member Valerie Piotrowski greeted members and guests at the front door. Jim Craig provided the final thought.
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Past-President Walter Dahl auctioned off four one-day tickets to Disneyland and the winning bidder was Susan Drack. The Centennial Committee held another raffle with all proceeds going to benefit Power House Science Center and our Foundation’s literacy programs.
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