District Governor Kyle Haugen
Kyle’s message was a huge Thank you to our club from Rotary International for our past support, both with service projects, and our financial support.
After a brief background on himself, he challenged us to honor President Ian Riseley’s initiative for environmental sustainability and plan a tree for every rotary member in our chapter, 62 to be exact. He commented on the current status of our efforts to eradicate polio, and mentioned that at a district level, there is an initiative underway to create awareness and work to extinguish the issues of human trafficking and sex slavery that most of us go unaware of. If you have any interest in joining the initiative for this let him know.
Kyle reminded membership should be our number one priority. We are proud to be Rotarians, we should be shouting it from the roof tops and letting everyone know what Faribault Rotary does, and what Rotary International can do for a community. He encouraged us to keep growing and reminded us to make sure to work on retention of current members by getting everyone involved. New ideas from new members help re-engage long time members.
To wrap up his presentation he dove a little deeper into the financial side of Rotary and challenged all of us to give a little more. Kyle said there were requests for $118,000.00 in grants last year and we only had $78,000.00 available to fund those grants. He said “the Rotary Foundation is our charity, I encourage you to make it your charity of choice for two reasons: 1. We take good care of our money, and 2. We have a “say” in where it goes.” Consider that when you are giving, and give as you are able.