President Peter's Perspective

You wouldn’t have known that we are typically dark on Thanksgiving week by the full house of enthusiastic Rotarians present for our meeting.

Thank you to all of you who brought guests. The competition is heating up.

And a special congratulations to our newest Sacramento Rotary Fellow Susan Drack, recipient of the highest honor our club bestows.

Robyn Delong gave us the Ten Rules for Being Human which includes: you receive a body, love it or hate it; it is yours for the duration. We are in a school called life where there are no mistakes, only lessons. Your lessons will be repeated in various forms until you have learned them, then you go on to the next lesson. If you are alive, there are still lessons to be learned. Here is where you are even though there looks so much better. Others are merely mirrors of us – what we love and hate in others are the things we love and hate about ourselves. The answers lay within us . . . look, listen and trust.  We have all the tools we need.  And lastly, you will forget all this.      Let this be a reminder.

One quarter of our Barbershop quartet “The Four Way Test”, Dick Osen, led us in the singing of God Bless America.

Keep our fellow member Brian Kidney in your prayers. He is recovering from a serious car collision at UCD Medical Center. Cards and letters are welcome and he can receive visitors.

One of the many benefits of leading our great club as President is the opportunity to select the beneficiary of our Bids For Kids, which this term will be the Relationship Skills Center (RSC). 

Founded in Sacramento by Dr. Carolyn Curtis (a member of the Rotary Club of East Sacramento) in 2005, The Relationship Skills Center promotes the development of strong, safe, and stable families by teaching couples and single parents the skills to become happy, healthy families for life - skills they did not learn from their parent(s).   Through classroom training and community outreach, we teach communication skills, conflict management, problem-solving, money management, and more. Unmarried couples learn about the risks for children raised without the presence of two parents, and single parents learn the skills necessary to make healthy choices for themselves and their children. Married couples gain the tools to build a stronger foundation that will last the rest of their lives.   So far, we’ve helped over 3,000 participants and their families enjoy happier, more rewarding lives.

RSC offers several interventions to bring these changes about in our community:  1. We train facilitators such as the Bringing Baby Home, which is currently available in three Sacramento Kaiser facilities  2. We offer Community Class such as Mastering the Mysteries of Love, 3. We partner with other organizations to provide services such as a powerful program for mentally (emotionally) ill parolees and 4. We provide direct services to low income families in our Flourishing Families Program.

Several years ago the RSC was chosen as a recipient for a federal grant, along with 120 other similar organizations, to bring relationship skill education to our most fragile families.  We are beyond proud of the fact that we more than doubled the federal goal of couples served through or Flourishing Families program and were thereby granted “exemplary organization” status.

I was surprised to learn that nationally, 42% of our children are born out of wedlock.  In Sacramento County that translates to 6,000 babies a year born to single women.  Think about this - right now in Sacramento County,  we have more than 110,000 single parent head of households. . . not 10,000 which would be a huge number,  but 110,000.  How many of these do you think have enough money to be comfortable? 

Why is this important?   Why should we care?

A struggling single mom cannot give her children everything they need to lead healthy and productive lives.  There are some things that need a man’s hand.

We humans are social creatures and need to feel connected to the human family.  Imagine a little girl who does not experience unconditional love from a man she looks up to – who is not made to feel special.  As soon as she matures, she will get, perhaps for the first time, positive male attention and is soon pregnant.  She likely thinks the man will commit to her because of their child together or she is so desperate for someone to love her that she has a child for that purpose.

For little boys, it is even more tragic.

Our prisons are filled with angry men who hate their fathers, if they ever even knew them. The importance of healthy male role models for our children cannot be over stated.  So strong is the desire to feel connected that men will strive for success and to earn more money throughout their lives to prove their worth. Some will marry a woman they can dominate. Others fight, physically and emotionally, thinking these are qualities of manhood.  They mistake the fear of intimidation with respect. They lie, cheat and steal to “get ahead”.  The sad truth is that children raised in relative isolation most often grow up empty – and they may spend a lifetime looking for ways to fill themselves.  They likely think they have to be better than everyone else to be a man.  I propose to you that virtually all socially deviant behavior can be traced back to a childhood of emotional neglect . . . and not necessarily by bad people.  Abuse is another story with similar but more profound results.

The ideal environment to raise a child is one where a dozen men call the four year olds by name on a regular basis.  This changes them – they realize they are worthy and belong.  This is critical and as a society, we are doing a poor job of socializing our children.  The designs of our suburbs certainly do not promote social interaction.  There is an architectural solution to this social problem – but that is another story.

At the encouragement of our District Governor Bob Deering and with a commitment of continued support from D.G.E. Bill Short,  we have created a program (REact – Relationship Education act) where each club in our district is being asked to help get relationship education curriculum in our middle and high schools and anywhere children gather. It is the personal connections between Rotarians and the instructors to facilitate introductions that are important. 

Please join me in supporting the Relationship Skills Center as we attack the root cause of suffering in our community.  Our goal is to elevate common sense and change the culture of our society through relationship education for our youth.

By the end of next year, with proven success in our district, we intend to share this program with every Rotary District in these United States, with the audacious goal of changing the culture of this great country.

Thank you in advance of supporting our Bids For Kids!

All the Best and Happy Thanksgiving - (Get on the floor and play with the children)