President's Message 5/25/2016

    June 1 will be Foundation Day.  It will be our Club’s chance to encourage everyone in the Club to donate to the Rotary Foundation.  I do know that some of you feel strongly that your money should stay local so you can see the benefits of your money in action.  I truly do understand that.  However, let’s consider this for a moment.  The world is truly a small place now.  If we need something we go on the internet and we have it in two days from just about anywhere in the world.  If we look at Biddeford and Portland we know that we have people from all parts of the world living and working here now because they want the promise of America, and they want to escape the conditions from which they came.  There are diseases that do not exist in this country that are just a plane ride away from unwittingly being introduced here.

 

 

    We are fooling ourselves if we think our communities are Biddeford and Saco.  They have become the world.  We can certainly debate whether that is good or bad, but it is the reality.  Money donated to the Foundation helps to eradicate diseases.  The residual benefit of that is that such diseases cannot get a foothold in this country.  What do you think would have happened if we did not get ahead of Ebola?  

 

 

    Many of the people who migrate to this country or other parts of the world truly do not want to leave their homes, but the conditions there make them uninhabitable.  The Rotary Foundation supports sanitation and drinking water facilities around the world to allow people to stay home.  The Foundation promotes peace so that less people need to escape parts of the world torn apart by war and perhaps move to another part of the world which is not home.  Imagine if the conditions here were so bad that you and your family were forced to move 1,000s of miles away where you don’t speak the language and you don’t understand the culture.  Then imagine that the circumstances were so bad that you and your family had to go your separate ways.  The Foundation works to improve those conditions so that families can stay together in safer, healthier environments.  

 

 

    Okay, I think I have made my point.  Giving to the Foundation is giving to the communities in which we now live.  So we are going to try and make this fun.  On June 1 please bring in a contribution to the Foundation.  Make a check out to our club earmarked for the Foundation. Bring in cash if you want and tell us it is for the Foundation.  The donation is tax deductible.  For every $5.00 that you give you will be eligible for a drawing for some fabulous swag donated by club members.  So if you donate $100 you will get 20 chances for some cool stuff with the twist that it will be kind of a Yankee swap as well so we will really have some fun with this.  SO PLEASE BRING IN A DONATION TO THE FOUNDATION ON JUNE 1 AND SUPPORT A GREAT CAUSE WHILE HAVING SOME FUN.

 

 

 

 

    One last note to share, I want to thank everyone who worked on the Community Bicycle Center hands on project on May 21.  It was a beautiful, though arguably a little hot, day.  We chipped an incredible amount of brush and cleaned up some really nice areas that the CBC is creating.  I do want to thank Lucie Kay for not only working but for bringing the food.  Most people did not eat, but for those of us who stayed around long enough to eat it was a true treat.  Lucie I would suggest letting people know that there were donuts in the frig (Geez!), and Andy I would suggest ICE next time in the water cooler, but other than that it was a great day of work of which we should all be proud.  Again, thank you all.  

 

 

Thanks

 

Bill