Like Blue Eyes sang, “It was a very good year.”
The Rotary theme this past year was Rotary Serving Humanity – and District 5950 indeed Served Humanity.
Take the simple human cycle of life. A young girl goes through puberty. In so many under-developed countries of the world, she is not able to run to Walgreens and pick up a box of Kotex. She is considered unclean and misses four or five days of school each month. I’ve talked about Maple Grove Rotarian Judy Johnson whose grassroots leadership helped last year’s District Conference attendees produce 567
feminine hygiene kits, distributing most in Africa. Since then they have added 1,000 more!
Sew-a-thons across District 5950 create a product that can break the cycle of poverty for
these young girls. Rotary is Serving Humanity.
Rotary also serves humanity through peace and conflict resolution. Ellen Kennedy (Minneapolis University) leads this program for Peace Scholars pursuing Masters-level education abroad. We asked Peace Scholar applicant Sarah Erickson what she thought of the Rotary motto, Service Above Self. “Service above Self is service beyond the individual and even beyond the country; it’s service that is driven by a vision of a greater good.” Our interview committee was taken aback by this beautiful articulation of what we all believe. Sarah’s goal is to facilitate and advocate for peace, and to mitigate or prevent conflict in the Middle East. Through these students, Rotary is Serving Humanity.
In my opening remarks to 100 high school faces at Camp Enterprise last November I remember saying “…get to eat on the weekends.” You could see in their eyes that they had never really been challenged to consider missing meals, being without a roof over their heads or missing the love
and support from family. One camper’s essay described the inspiration she felt from Camp Enterprise speakers, especially one who anticipated that one of these students could be the person who figures out how to desalinate ocean water on a massive and efficient scale. This student was awestruck by the idea that she could be the one to make such a difference! A Camp Enterprise youth just may be the one who changes the world and Serves Humanity.
In three decades we have gone from 350,000 cases of wild polio to just 22 this year. Wow! And we must continue until
it is gone because if Rotary stops here, by 2024 we will be back to 350,000 cases a year. We have to drop it to ZERO! Do that and this disease will be no more. Think about how the $100,000 our clubs raised this year contributed to this effort! Because of Rotary’s polio vaccination efforts, more than 16 million lives have been saved from a crippling life. District 5950 is indeed Serving Humanity.
My personal theme this year was “Great, on Purpose!”
It is about being intentional. It is about doing what you do to serve humanity. It’s about generating a buzz, because when you create motion and you create emotion. Emotion and enthusiasm create a vibration that is attractive and causes Rotary to grow. Rotary has grown because clubs are being intentional. For example, Minneapolis City of Lakes established a committee to seek out and bring into their club more diversity. Diversity is vibrant because it celebrates the differences in people and what they each have to offer the world. By being intentional, they set up a paradigm, a lens that their club now looks through, to add diverse members.
Another example is Edina Morningside where President Tom Gump’s intentional goal was to bring in a high quantity of high-quality new members. The vibrancy he created was so strong that the club grew from 68 members to 93 in one year, and increased club giving from $20,000 to $45,000! Tom’s shared vision was that these new members lead and give of themselves immediately. He invited them to join the Paul Harris Society right out of the gate.
I see vibrancy throughout the district because clubs chose to become Great, on Purpose!
Thank you for your generosity! District 5950 topped $748,000 in giving and is just $14,000 away from the goal that was set a year ago. That’s 98% of the way! Wow! Thank you!
I have enjoyed being your District Governor. My goal was to lead in a way that people felt a little different, looked at what we do and how we do it just a little different – by creating a sense of vibrancy, and infectious energy – so that people wanted to do Rotary, to be great at it, and to do it with intention and purpose! Yes, I think we have become more vibrant, more successful, and we have indeed been Great, on Purpose!
Thank you for allowing me to serve you this year, and to Serve Humanity!
