This weekend, despite a location glitch beyond our control, several Rotarians, Interactors, and area businesses came together to create a successful Purple Pinkies Against Polio event. Many thanks to Elise Frank, foundation chair, for organizing the event and volunteers. Special shout-outs go to the MDI High School Interact Team, Tim Rich and the Independent Café, Thirsty Whale Tavern, the First, Mount Desert Islander, Bar Harbor Chamber and Bar Harbor Merchants Association as well as WNSX for helping us.
When I was thanking Susy Del Cid Papodopoli, incoming president, she said, “We are a team.”
It’s good to be a part of a team. There was a lot of talk at the Wednesday club meeting about local projects versus global projects, business networking versus service, and the thing is that these things don’t need to be mutually exclusive. We can work on polio, on water sanitation, on wheelchairs in South America, while working on a playground in Bar Harbor, supporting the Bar Harbor Food Pantry, Criterion Theater, and creating an anti-bullying program and promoting local literacy.
When I walked into the Independent Café on Saturday during the Polio project, Sallie Boggs and Steve Boucher were talking to a man visiting from Portland. The man runs a recovery center for addiction. He’s interested in talking to our club. The opioid crisis is one of the things mentioned on Wednesday. Because Sallie was there working against polio, we made a connection with someone who can help us with a future project, or at least inform us about the problems of addiction in Maine.
Connections. Teamwork. Networking. Service. One thing leads to another and the best way to reap the benefits of doing good in our community and beyond is volunteering, speaking, making connections, putting yourself out there, being vulnerable and listening.
I am so excited to see the good things Team Rotary will continue to do and how we’ll all be stronger people because of it, learning and growing together.
