At our meeting on October 12, our new District 7210 Governor, Jim Damiani, visited our club meeting. Mr. Damiani hails from the Nanuet/West Nyack Rotary Club and is a real estate agent with Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty.
During his visit, DG Damiani and past president of our club , John Ingalls, installed Jessica Snyder as a new member. Ms. Snyder is the owner/manager o f Snyder Property Management in Greenville.
In a special ceremony, John Ingalls was presented with a Paul Harris fellowship to recognize his long term contributions to the Rotary Club of Greenville and the Greenville community. Mr. Ingalls was president of the Greenville Rotary Club from 2013 to 2017. In order to receive the award, which is named after the founder of Rotary International, Paul Harris, a significant donation must be made to the Rotary Foundation. Our club decided to make this donation on Ingalls’ behalf to recognize his exceptional service to the club, as well as to honor his belief in the tremendous value of the humanitarian work of The Rotary Foundation. Ingalls is an owner of GNH Lumber, Inc., a graduate of Sage College and a veteran of the US Navy.
It was also noted that Mark Wilcox, vice president of the Greenville Rotary Club, has achieved a memorable 32 years of perfect attendance at Rotary meetings.
A successful wine auction was held at the meeting, in order to raise funds for the club to sponsor a second Shelter Box to provide housing and necessities for victims of the latest hurricane in Puerto Rico and the fires in California. The Rotary Club had previously purchased a Shelter Box to help with the storm in Texas. Sturdy green ShelterBoxes contain family-sized tents specially designed to withstand the elements and provide people with temporary shelter until they are able to start the process of rebuilding a home. ShelterKits contain all of the essential tools people need to start repairing and rebuilding homes straight away, as well as the items that help transform shelter into a home, like cooking sets, solar lights and activity sets for children.
District Governor Damiani noted in his after-dinner speech that Shelter Box, an organization founded, staffed, and run by volunteer Rotarians, is active in ten different countries right now. He stated that that is proof that Rotarians take on tough challenges. Due to the work of the Rotary Foundation and Rotarians around the world, there were only eight cases of polio world wide last year. This is compared to 350,000 cases 30 years ago when Rotary took on the challenge of eradicating the disease. The organization has committed to provide $1.2 billion over the next few years to finish the fight against polio.
Damiani reminded our club that under the leadership of the new Rotary International president, Ian Risely, Rotary has faced the problem of our changing environment. Risely has challenged each Rotarian to plant a tree before Arbor Day of 2018. One tree absorbs 40 pounds of carbon per year, so with 1.2 million new trees planted in the next few months can make a huge impact on the carbon in our atmosphere. The Greenville Rotary has accepted this challenge, and is planning a tree planting in a public area as well as on private property, under the leadership of club member Robert Snyder.