The club with a motto to put service above self is celebrating 100 years of doing good across the globe.
This April, the Nanaimo area’s five Rotary clubs are marking the centennial of the Rotary Foundation, which sends donations overseas for different projects and provides dollars for initiatives of local clubs, from an educational facility and water wells in Ghana to maintenance of Rotary Bowl and renovation of the Bastion.
The foundation began in 1917 with an aim to do good in the world, and it’s spent more than $3.7 billion on sustainable projects to date, such as training future peacemakers, supporting clean water programs, building educational facilities and feeding the hungry, a Rotary press release says.
Rotary clubs and the members both donate to the foundation and can apply for money through it for projects.
The Rotary Club of Nanaimo has given about $730,000 to the foundation, according to member Dave Hammond, who said the foundation is best known for PolioPlus – a campaign to end polio that’s been running since 1985 and has seen a 99.9 per cent reduction in polio cases, the Rotary International website shows. He said the foundation is also big on peace in the world, sponsoring university programs in peace and reconciliation, as well as reading, education and women’s rights in developing countries.
“It’s a celebration by the Rotary world of spending 100 years doing these kinds of things and it just gets bigger all the time,” Hammond said.
Foundation parties are happening all over Vancouver Island and the world, celebrating what the foundation has meant to Rotary, said Don Dempson, member of Rotary Club of Nanaimo North and public image director.
The party comes here Saturday (April 1), proclaimed Rotary Foundation Day by the City of Nanaimo. There will be a flag raising at city hall and a public event at Beban Park at 6 p.m. with cake, beverages, information displays, guest speakers and the award of Paul Harris Fellowships.
People should go to learn more about rotary, what the foundation does and what it’s done in the past, Dempson said.
“When you start talking about $3.7 billion being spent to help people all over the world, give them a better quality of life and in many cases, saving a life, that’s the impact of what it’s doing,” Dempson said.