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Every Thursday morning, I receive an email from the World Health Organization with an update on the status of polio eradication. It contains a wealth of information, country by country: where and how immunization campaigns are being conducted, how many millions of children are being vaccinated, and where environmental surveillance has found evidence of circulating virus. But every week, when that email appears in my inbox, my heart seems to stop for just a moment until I read the first few lines – and learn whether a child was paralyzed by wild poliovirus that week.
That, my friends, is where we are today in the work of polio eradication. The question on my mind as I open that message isn't how many thousands of cases we might see in a year, as we did not too long ago, or even how many hundreds. Instead, when that WHO email arrives every Thursday, the single, binary question it answers is: Was there a new case this week, or wasn't there?
Thirty years ago, 1,000 children were paralyzed by polio every single day. Since then, we've marked our progress, year by year, week by week. We've celebrated as country after country, region after region has been declared polio-free. As we've come closer and closer to our goal, and the number of cases has dropped further and further, the children those numbers reflect have become less and less of an abstraction. When I open that Thursday email, I don't wonder what number I'll see. I wonder, was a child paralyzed this week or not?
We are so close to eradication – but there is so much work left to do.
This month, I ask every Rotary club to help End Polio Now by marking World Polio Day on 24 October. Last year, thousands of Rotary clubs around the world held events to raise awareness and funds for polio eradication. This year, we want to see more World Polio Day events registered than ever. If you have an event planned, be sure to register and promote it at endpolio.org so that more people can take part. If you haven't planned one yet, it's not too late – visit endpolio.org to find ideas, information on this year's livestream, and resources to help your club organize a successful event.
World Polio Day is a tremendous opportunity for clubs to highlight Rotary, and our historic work to eradicate polio, in their own communities. It is also a great way to take advantage of the challenge from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: For every dollar that Rotary raises for polio eradication, the Gates Foundation will give two more. Join me, and Rotarians everywhere, on 24 October for World Polio Day – and Be the Inspiration for a polio-free world.
Our honorable 99th President, Keith Kramer has set the following goals for our club this year:
Add 10 new members
50 members participating in service (any one of our service options)
At least 5 members participating in leadership development. (Rotary summit, district conference etc)
Rotary Foundation $5,000
Polio Plus $2,000
Add 2 new service projects (Warm our Community is added for sure and Habitat for Humanity is on hold because of the weather)
1 inbound & 1 outbound exchange student
2 RYLA attendees
4 Social activities
Social media & paper updated on a regular basis
Thank you Keith for your service to our club this year!
Sage Kline pictured here with President Keith Kramer, will be our Rotary exchange student this year. She will be going to Paderborn, Germany. She plans to keep a blog to chronicle her experiences so we hope to share those with the club throughout the coming school year.
As our guests for the installation of Keith, we welcomed the following former Rotary Past Presidents who were introduced by our 60 year member and past president Rod Mahler. 
The Faribault Rotary Club has installed Keith Kramer as it's 99th president for the 2018-19 year. Keith is the Chief Operating Officer are Harry Brown's auto dealership. Pictured here are Keith and his wife Amy and three children Carsen 11, Madelyn 9, and Allison 7.
When Rotary International‘s incoming president challenged each of its members worldwide to plant a tree this year, Faribault’s Rotaryfound some eager helpers to achieve the goal.
On Monday, longtime Faribault Rotary Club member Dick Huston rallied Jefferson Elementary School’s third-graders, getting them to help him plant 93 trees, one for every third-grader in the school.
“Environmental degradation and global climate change are serious threats to everyone, said Rotary International President Ian H.S. Riseley. “They are having a disproportionate impact on those who are most vulnerable, those to whom Rotary has the greatest responsibility. Yet environmental issues rarely register on the Rotary agenda,” he said.
“It is my hope that the result of that effort will be far greater than the environmental benefit that those 1.2 million new trees will bring,” Riseley said. “I believe the greater result will be a Rotary that recognizes our responsibility not only to the people on our planet, but to the planet itself.”
Besides helping achieve the Rotary Club’s goal, Huston saw the tree planting as an educational opportunity for the students to learn more about the environment. Huston said his three pillars are “education, conservation and collaboration,” all of which were accounted for in the tree-planting exercise.
Families of some third-graders agreed to take trees home and plant them there, others opted to have their trees planted at the school. The rest of the trees will be taken to Huston’s farm, where they will be planted during a special field trip for third-graders later this school year.
“I’m really excited,” said Huston before presenting to the students Monday morning. “The kids are so enthusiastic and ready to go.”
Huston and Rice County Sheriff and Rotary Club President Troy Dunn represented the Rotary Monday, but Faribault teachers led the educational portion. In a slideshow presentation, teachers asked students “What are trees good for anyway?” showing them information from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources website.
The students also learned about northern red oak, quaking aspen, red maple and honey locust trees, the four types that will be planted by the students this year.
“It’s so great to have the school district and the Rotary come together,” said Huston of the event. “In a nutshell, it’s just fun.”
Watching them grow
Dunn, a Jefferson Elementary alumnus, proudly talked to the kids about his own tree-planting experience.
“When I was in fourth grade, I planted six trees at my house and now they’re taller than the school,” he said, describing to the kids how their efforts Monday will pay off years down the road.
“Hopefully, next year, you can plant even more and you can watch the trees grow every year,” Dunn added.
With trees donated by the Rice County Soil and Water Conservation District, fertilizer from the Faribault Garden Club and tree stakes donated by Faribo Farm and Home, the effort is truly a local one that the students will benefit from for years.
What Huston hopes is that those students will see their efforts come to fruition when they graduate.
After each tree is planted, the students will tag their tree to take ownership of it, said Huston.
“Hopefully, they can take some graduation pictures with them when they are done,” Huston said.
Reach Reporter Gunnar Olson at 507-333-3128 or follow him on Twitter @fdnGunnar.
©Copyright 2018 APG Media of Southern Minnesota. All rights reserved.
They look like birdhouses, or maybe mailboxes, but the blue and yellow structures scattered throughout town are actually little libraries the Faribault Rotary Club installed over a year ago. The 2016 international outreach project has served the local community and promoted literacy ever since.
“Literacy was one of the big efforts of our president (Richard Huston) a couple years ago,” said Dick Cook, chair of Faribault Rotary’s International Services Committee. “We took [the little libraries] on because of the demographic in Faribault and the diversity at the schools.”
I’m really big on education, and I think that if you learn to read you can accomplish anything,” said Huston.
Cook and Huston both built the little libraries, which they distributed throughout the community in 2016. Cook said eight or nine of them are now installed outside schools, churches, businesses and private residences throughout Faribault. However, Cook said not all little libraries in town are part of the Faribault Rotary program; some homeowners set them up before the Rotary Club adopted the project.
Seeing little libraries set up in the Twin Cities inspired Huston’s idea to adopt the program in Faribault as the Rotary International’s outreach program in 2016.
“I went to the Twin Cities and photographed eight to 10 I saw there, and they weren’t all the same, so I created my own ideas and dimensions based on what I saw,” said Houston.
Little libraries painted yellow and blue signify their connection with the Rotary, but Huston said he’s painted flowers and other decorations on the house-like boxes. Maggie Chen, an exchange student from Taiwan who Huston and his wife hosted at the time of the project’s conception, painted the one outside Our Savior’s Lutheran Church.
The installation of the little library outside Our Savior’s Church kicked off the Faribault Rotary’s project in July 2016. Cook said that installation inspired a couple requests from Faribault residents to monitor little libraries on their own properties. The Rotary approved those requests after evaluating the suggested locations.
Any resident with a little library installed on his or her property is responsible for monitoring and maintaining the library, and volunteers monitor little libraries outside churches, schools and businesses. However, Cook said patrons generally follow the concept of taking a book and leaving another without much guidance.
Huston monitors the little library at Our Savior’s Church, where he attends services. He tends to add children’s books to the selection while others give away books for adults. If possible, he tries to collect books pertaining to the season. On the rare occasion when the little library needs more books, he informs the congregation of the need.
“There’s a pretty good turnover,” said Huston. “People are not only taking books, but putting books in there. I see quite a bit of variety.”
Jefferson and Lincoln Elementary Schools have taken on little libraries. Cook and Huston both noted ones located outside Congregational Church, kitty-corner from the former Divine Mercy Church building, and at the State Avenue home of Lincoln Elementary librarian Judy Carver.
“If people want them, I would certainly make sure we got it done,” said Huston. “I would build it or someone else would build it.”
After a couple years in the works, Huston said the little libraries still attract patrons and maintain circulation.
“It’s pretty interesting and gratifying to see people are using them to the extent they are,” said Huston.
Reporter Misty Schwab can be reached at 507-744-2551. Follow her on Twitter @APGmisty.
©Copyright 2017 APG Media of Southern Minnesota. All rights reserved.
In order to place eight Buddy Benches at Faribault’s seven elementary schools, the Faribault Rotary worked to raise $10,000. But now that the benches are in place, the real work of educating teachers and students has begun.
The eight benches were installed across the Faribault area from Lincoln Elementary to Nerstrand Elementary in October in an effort to encourage inclusiveness among area kids. Two benches were installed at Jefferson Elementary, which has two playgrounds.
The idea of a Buddy Bench is to provide kids a visible place to sit at their playground if they are feeling alone, sad or left out while other students are at play. The goal of the bench is to attract those kids to the bench and to who’s sitting there so they can include that child.
While the aim of the bench seems simple, the Rotary members who embarked on the mission to put Buddy Benches at each school are working to make sure the benches aren’t just benches.
“Number one, it’s not just a bench,” said Jake Cook, the former Rotary president who made Buddy Benches his presidential project. “It’s to help students engage other students that aren’t feeling involved that day or are having a bad day.”
While he has not seen the benches in action yet, Cook said his children, who attend Nerstrand Elementary, have seen it work, and included kids who are sitting on the bench and taken a seat there themselves during a bad day.
“It’s great to see the finished project and hear stories from teachers and staff and my own children who have used them,” Cook said. “From my understanding, the benches are doing what I’d hoped they’d accomplish.”
The work continues
Last year, when the Buddy Bench project was being concocted, Cook teamed up with Kelly Velander, another Rotary member, who he credits with actually bringing the idea to Faribault after seeing a news report about them working in other communities.
Each year, the Rotary Club president devotes their term to a project like a downtown mural or the Security State Bank clock restoration. Last year, Cook took on Buddy Benches, raising the $10,000 and working with each of the elementary schools to implement them.
Up until the benches were unveiled in October, Cook and Velander took their efforts inside each of the seven schools, working with educators and the students themselves to maximize the effect of the benches on playgrounds.
“We actually had a meeting with staff members from each of the schools,” Cook said. “We wanted to maintain continuity among staff members, so we provided them with PowerPoints and materials developed by Kelly Velander.”
After those meetings, which took place in the first few weeks of the school year, Cook and Velander then asked the teachers to find time to talk with their students about how the Buddy Bench works.
After the conversations took place, Velander said the education appears “seamless,” among the faculty, staff and students across Faribault.
“Staff are saying that students are out there using it and students are dropping everything to go help students on the bench,” Velander said.
One of the educators who participated in the training was Jim Huberty, a behavior interventionist at Jefferson Elementary School. Huberty has noticed students using the benches at Jefferson and appreciated the training he received, pointing specifically to a video emphasizing the importance of using the bench to build longterm relationships.
Most important to Huberty, however, is the impact the benches could have within the walls of Jefferson Elementary.
“The need to fit in and that need to have social interaction is huge and I’m sure that it does transfer over into the academics,” he said. “If a kid is emotionally ready to be with a group of people, they are more ready to learn.”
In the training, teachers and students are taught that the bench should not be a place to sit and socialize, but rather, to promote socialization on the playground. Also, Cook emphasized that a student seated on the bench should play with the first person that offers, and not pick and choose the friends that ask them to play.
“I am proud that we have this in Faribault and I think we have had great support from the community on getting it going,” she said. “Being accepted by peers is a huge issue for students, so I’m hoping that this creates an empathetic group of people growing up in Faribault.”
Reach Reporter Gunnar Olson at 507-333-3128 or follow him on Twitter @fdnGunnar.
Rod Mahler presents our Faribault Rotary Club president, Troy Dunn with a new U.S. flag to replace the one that was present for 45 years and first saw use during Rod's year as club president in 1972-73.
(Reprinted with permission from the Faribault Daily News)
There are few things better than books to put in the hands of youth.
Rotary Club of Faribault, United Way and UNITY students from Faribault High School are doing just that. With the installation Wednesday afternoon at Our Savior’s Luterhan Church of the group's first “little library” (though not the first in town).
“We’re hoping to put five or six of them up in the community in areas where there is a lot of diversity,” Rotary member Dick Huston said. “The hope is to increase reading, which translates to a better education.”
Huston built the library himself, and Taiwanese exchange student Maggie Chen, who lives in Huston’s home, painted it. It’s essentially a large mailbox with a small wooden house at the top of a wood post. On one side, there is a door with a glass window, so anyone can see the books inside.
Many of those books are donated by community members to Rotary, and many come from United Way. The latter organization’s executive director, Adam Von Ruden, was on hand for the installation.
“For us, this project really falls in line with what we do in the community and advocate for,” he said.
Faribault United Way currently runs its own book program, the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, which supplies signed up children with a new book, once a month, from birth to 5 years old. The program is currently at capacity with 875 kids.
Von Ruden notes that in the age of iPads in school and smartphones everywhere else, getting a book in a kid’s hand remains an important step.
“It’s just such a benefit to get kids reading,” he said.
Huston expects more little libraries to be built throughout this year. He said they’ll be strategically placed in areas they might be needed.
Children (and adults) are free to take a book inside the library at their own leisure. They’re encouraged to bring it or another book back, but they don’t have to, as Rotary and United Way are standing by to replenish.
Meanwhile, the UNITY students, represented on Wednesday by Rene Villalta (El Salvador), Tufah Abdulahi (Ethiopia) and Sagal Jama (Somalia), will stop by the little libraries weekly to check if they need to be restocked. UNITY is a group at the high school, where students organize events and opportunities for peers from all different cultures to come together and learn more about each other.
Abdulahi noted that the little library project is a good for the students to participate in the club and help youth in the community.
“It’s to help people better understand reading,” she said.
“It’s really good for kids,” added Jama.
Villalta noted the little libraries could be even easier to use than the regular library.
“It’s free. There are no due dates. You can take your time,” he said in Spanish, translated by his step-mom.
This new project is one of many that Rotary leads in the Faribault community and elsewhere. With clubs in countries all over the world, Huston noted, the Christian organization is made up of more than just Christians, and it aims to help more than just Christians, too.
“In Faribault, there is such a diverse population,” he said. “We have a four-way test: Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build good will and better friendships? Will it be beneficial to all concerned? This project checks all those boxes.”
On Tuesday September 22 at 6:15 pm Faribault Rotary Club and the City Council of the City of Faribault had a dedication ceremony for the renovated Security Bank clock at 302 Central Ave. Mayor John Jasinski began the ceremony thanking all those involved including the Faribault Rotary Club, city staff, and Mike Elwood/ Jim Pilcher, who repaired the clock. President Huston talked about our Rotary Club's 96 years of contributions to our community and how Rotary International's Polio eradification efforts around the world have isolated the virus to just Pakistan and Afghanistan. He also read the dedication plaque on display near the base of the clock. Also, special thanks to Rotarian and Chamber President Kymn Anderson for her leadership and hard work in making Al Burkhartmeyer's wish to have this clock working again. Welcome to the Faribault Rotary Club!
Rotary International is the world's first service club organization, with more than 1.2 million members in 33,000 clubs worldwide. Rotary club members are volunteers who work locally, regionally, and internationally to combat hunger, improve health and sanitation, provide education and job training, promote peace, and eradicate polio under the motto Service Above Self.
The Faribault Rotary Club was established 96 years ago on May 1,1920 as Rotary's 596th club with 22 charter members and by the end of the first year membership had reached a total of 35. The next year 21 more members were added. The first President of the Faribault Rotary Club was Frank W. McKellip. On June 29, 2016, the Faribault Rotary Club installed its 97h President, Jake Cook, for the 2016-17 Rotary Year.
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