November is The Rotary Foundation (of Rotary International) Month 
The mission of The Rotary Foundation is to enable Rotarians to advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through the improvement of health, the support of education, and the alleviation of poverty. The Foundation is a not-for-profit corporation supported solely by voluntary contributions from Rotarians and friends of the Foundation who share its vision of a better world.
There are as many reasons to support The Rotary Foundation as there are ways to do good in the world. Through the Every Rotarian, Every Year (EREY) initiative, your contributions of any amount to the Annual Fund or the PolioPlus campaign are the primary source of funding for Foundation programs. Every Rotarian is encouraged to participate in a Foundation project and make a personal gift to the Annual Fund every year.
To learn more about the Foundation go to www.rotary.org/foundation
Start2Finish Running & Reading Club Volunteers
The Start2Finish Reading and Running Club Program is one of our Club's local service projects for this Rotary year.
Start2Finish is looking for volunteers to help, on a consistent basis. It's an after-school program that runs at the following 5 TVDSB locations on the days indicated from 3:30pm to 5:30pm:Wilton Grove (Adelaide and Southdale) - Tuesdays
Woodland Heights (Springbank and Wonderland) - Wednesdays
FD Roosevelt (First and Oxford) - Wednesdays
Trafalgar (Trafalgar and Hamilton) - Wednesdays
The first half of the club is devoted to physical activity and the second half is literacy. All volunteers are not runners - there are ways to support the kids without actually running. The highest needs, for volunteers, are at Wilfrid Jury and Wilton Grove. They have a high percentage of Western student volunteers, who are away most of December, reading week, and from spring exams on. Those times they are extremely low on volunteers at that club.
The Rotary Foundation Contribution InformationAnnual Fund: Your gift to the Annual Fund helps Rotary clubs take action today to create positive change in communities at home and around the world. Your contributions help to strengthen peace efforts, provide clean water and sanitation, support education, grow local economies, save mothers and children, and fight disease.
PolioPlus: We’re closer than ever to ending polio. Just 22 polio cases were confirmed worldwide in 2017, which is a reduction of more than 99.9 % since the 1980s, when the world saw about 1,000 cases per day. In 30 years, we’ve gone from 125 polio-endemic countries to 3. Rotarians have helped immunize more than 2.5 billion children against polio in 125 countries.
It costs an average of US$3.00 (Cdn$3.93) to fully protest a child against polio, including the cost of the vaccine and activities to deliver the vaccine such as transportation costs, vaccinator stipends, vaccine carriers, chalk to make houses after each visit and dye to paint children’s fingers purple to indicate they have been vaccinated. A child must receive multiple doses of polio vaccine to be fully protected and therefore must be reached multiple times.
Check out this year's World Polio Day livestream on endpolio.org . Listen to the global health experts and celebrities as they share Rotary’s progress on the road to polio eradication.
The support of Rotary, donors, and governments remains critical in the final stages of polio eradication. Every $1 Rotary commits to direct support for polio immunization will be matched 2-to-1 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Therefore:
a $20 donation = $60 = 15 children being fully immunized
a $50 donation = $150 = 38 children being fully immunized
a $100 donation = $300 = 76 children being fully immunized
There are two easy ways to make a contribution to The Rotary Foundation:
a) give your cheque or credit card information to Sandy at Monday’s meeting and we will forward your payment to The Rotary Foundation (Canada). As an FYI Cdn $1.31 = US$1 for the month of November.
b) make a donation through the RI website: login to Rotary.org
On the home page click on “GIVE” – upper right corner of the page
Go to “I WANT TO SUPPORT ROTARY’S CURRENT WORK” and/or
Go to “I WANT TO SUPPORT A POLIO-FREE WORLD” and click on “GIVE NOW”
Under Annual Fund click “Annual fund – SHARE”, click “Continue”,
Under Polio-Plus Fund click “PolioPlus”, click “Continue”,
Local Lager - Rotary Beer Fundraiser
Here’s where you can stock up on your Rotary beer for all those upcoming summer BBQ’s!!!” Only at these Beer Stores:
1199 Oxford St. W, London
1080 Adelaide St N., London
1005 Wellington St., London
1225 Wonderland Rd. N, London
1014 Talbot St., St. Thomas
Local Lager is also available at the Marienbad Restaurant.
Breakfast of Champions Award Recipient
This past Tuesday at the Breakfast of Champions, organized by St. Joseph’s Health Care Foundation and the Middlesex branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA), the two Champion of Mental Health Awards were presented by CMHA Middlesex. They recognize a group and an individual who make significant contributions to mental wellness in our community.
Mental health advocate Kristen Legault-Donkers, a psychology student at King’s University College, received the ‘individual’ award for the series of books she published on depression, anxiety, ADHD and bipolar disorder geared to children. Through a partnership with our Rotary Club the books will be distributed to 100 elementary schools in the Thames Valley District School Board. Congratulations Kristen!