by Lorine Parks
Festive fall figures decorated our dining room for District Governor Cozette Vergari’s official visit. Greeter Donna Langley handed out Hershey bars at the door - your choice of dark chocolate or with almonds - and DG Cozette was impressed with the idea, because the candy comes in a specially printed sleeve with the 4-way Test and a reminder of our latest project.
Dan Fox led us in our long-rehearsed Welcome Song, with its sonorous final finale, “from year to year,” and Cozette applauded us. Time now for us to start learning something new, Dan. “Santa Claus is coming to town?”
One important ceremony before we got to hear the Governor’s formal address: she had the happy task of inducting four new members, and they are all women. “I love this,” she said. “I’m for fifty-fifty, for having both men and women, but this…” Cozette lost no time in having the candidates for membership raise their right hands. Repeat after me,” she said, “I promise to serve in Rotary with pride, passion and purpose.” Judy Reynolds, Debbie Fox, and Marci Morgan and Terri Vaco, all also solemnly promised “to support President Alex and all future presidents.” And just like that, our club grew by 5%.
Diane Davis, and sponsor-spouses Jim and Dan, were invited to come forward and pin the newest piece of jewelry on our newest Downey Rotarians. See below for an interview with Debbie Fox; stories introducing Marci and Terri, both of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, will follow soon. Judi was featured in last week’s Bub.
Cozette is an amazing woman. A member of the State Bar of California, she is trained in mediation, and has received Court appointments as legal counsel for minor children in high conflict custody battles. Cozette established her own law firm in 1996, but before her career in law, she made her living in the Performing Arts.
Cozette holds a Bachelor of Arts from USC in Dance. She completed her course work toward a Master in Education at SC and earned a lifetime teaching credential in English and Physical Education. Cozette performed in musical theater both locally and internationally; she taught dance at the high school and college level, owning and operating 3 dance studios. Cozette and her husband Richard Moon met in Rotary and have a blended family of four children, two daughters-in-law and one grandson, with a granddaughter due in October.
“I was born a long time ago,” DG Cozette began, “when there were new post- war tract houses in Westchester, which is where my Rotary Club is now. And I have seen change. Rotary has played a tremendous part in the development of this region.”
“For my governor’s year, Cozette continued, “I have four goals, or dreams. The first has already been nearly accomplished: Rob De Cou’s Run to End Cancer. Rob, a Playa Sunrise Venice Rotarian, came to me and offered his passion and gift for endurance running. He gave me the choice of dedicating an event to ending child sex trafficking, or End Polio Now. I had another plan for the former, so I decided to take him up on the latter. I reckoned that if every Rotarian in the District gave $26 to help him run, we would raise a quarter of a million dollars.
In August Rob ran from an alkali sink, two hundred feet below sea level in Death Valley, to Whitney Portal at Lone Pine in the Sierras, in 48 hours. He continued all the way to the top of Whitney for good measure, and left his signed wrist bands from the Rotary run with the registry in the stone hut at 14,994 feet above sea level. “At the Million Dollar Dinner later this month,” Colette said, “we will put finis to Rob’s project, by announcing how much of the quarter million we raised (hint: expect us to go over the goal).”
“My second dream for this year,” Cozette went on. “is to have dinner with 750 Rotarians at the Foundation Celebration on October 28 at the JW Marriott Live Downtown. This wish is going to come true too. Fritz Coleman, the TV personality, will emcee and Dr. Peter Salk will be our speaker.
Peter will tell the thrilling story of how his father, Jonas Salk, developed the vaccine for polio that the United State uses because it cannot accidentally cause polio. “He tried it out first on us kids,” Peter likes to tell. Peter and his two brothers were human guinea pigs for their father’s experiments. “He gave us the shots in our kitchen,” Peter recalls. “My father boiled the needles and syringes on the stove top, then lined us up. I hated shots. But for some reason, the shot that day didn’t hurt.”
It is interesting that both Dr. Salk and Rotary tackled the polio problem, and then went on to tackle another difficult problems. The elder Salk spent his last years searching for a vaccine against AIDS. While Rotary’s next world-wide project is easy access to clean drinking water, and that people living in poverty are taught sustainable means of raising their standard of living.
Fulfilling these first two ambitions would be enough for many people but DG Cozette wants to accomplish more. “My third dream,” she said, “is to go with my fellow District 5280 Rotarians on a Humanitarian Mission.” In March she will get her wish: project Colombia will visit Bogota and an inland town, carrying out 13 tasked projects which have been chosen by the local Rotary District in Colombia. There are a very few seats left, so inquire now if you want to join in.
Cozette’s fourth and biggest dream and the most daunting project she has ever tackled, is the problem of child sex trafficking, in this District.
“It’s right in your own back yard,” she said. Downey Rotarians might remember the L A Times headline on March 9, 2016: Cerritos-Artesia, CA – “The suspects may have an operating human trafficking network that stretches from Southern California to the Bay Area, ... hidden in an apartment in the 16800 block of Downey Avenue in Paramount.”
“Human traffickers prey on some of the most vulnerable members of our society to exploit them for labor, for sex and for servitude of all kinds,” Colette said. Children whose average age is 13 are being used over and over for prostitution, which is now Big Business.
Child exploitation is so much more lucrative than selling drugs ever was, the organized gangs and crime syndicates are finding out. A drug can only be sold once. But an enslaved child can be sold over and over a thousand times a year. Young children are being brutalized, while monsters profit in the millions from this exploitation. But, how can there be slavery in our “free” society?
Children are solicited to join over the Internet. The computer and iphone right in your home are the instruments. Once tempted away from home and hooked, most victims are manacled by their own shame and fear from breaking away.
Cozette told us of steps that have already been taken to break these child victims away from their downward cycle. Special courtrooms have been set aside for these child victims when they come to trial. The Court System deals with them as the victims of commercial and sexual exploitation.
Elected officials, mental health professionals and 12 non-profits are working with victims of child sex trafficking. Most are girls, but there are boys as well. Once released into custody, they need serious rehabilitation to be able to re-enter normal society. As a start, restraining orders have been placed against their predators.
“I have continued to meet with Homeland Security,” said Cozette, “and with elected officials and non-profits who are assisting these victims. District 5280 is creating a Human Trafficking Task Force in partnership with Homeland Security, as a model for all Rotary Districts in California, Nevada and Arizona. For my part, I have been asked to serve as the State Coordinator for California. And Rotary International is well on board with this issue.”
What can a Rotarian do? One can begin small, by donating items these victims need, but what? The answers to these questions will come soon, as Cozette unfolds her dream’s projects for the year, and enlists the support of everyone in District 5280.
As she finished, Cozette was given a rousing standing ovation.