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Notes from the President
The Temple Rotary Club is finalizing our DAP Matching Grant for the year. The DAP Grant this year consists of giving about $3,500.00 worth of books to the TISD Wheatley Library. They want to have a ceremony on Tuesday, May 25th, at 9:00AM at Wheatley Elementary School. The Rotary club needs to put name plates in all the books before the ceremony and so we need to meet in the Temple Library, 3rd floor, board room at 7:30AM, May 25th. We will then need some manly men and women to help deliver all the books to Wheatley and participate in the ceremony.
The Temple Daily Telegram will be there covering the event and it will be great publicity for the club. It would be great to have a lot of folks participate in the book plate party and the ceremony to show the community what kind of great work we do for them.
Please let us know if you will be ble to come to one or both of the events.
Please RSVP, me, Susan Connolly at sconnolly6@gmail.com and Judy Duer jduer@ci.temple.tx.us and let us know if you will make it.
If you cannot make it please don't email. Please email at the latest Monday, May 24th. Thanks for everyone's support.
Lonzo Wallace has brought to my attention that some Rotary folks have started parking in the "Fire Lane" at Wildflower Country Club. Please park
in a proper parking place. We need to lead by example. We are a group of professionals serving in a wonderful "Service Club" and this is one more opportunity for us to demonstrate "doing the right thing".
Delores Sims brought the Temple High School Rotary Interact Club to our meeting. They told us about raising funds with bake sales and then buying books for Kaleidoscope and other libraries. Great work!
May is the Membership Drive Month so bring a prospect to this weeks meeting. If you bring a guest who joins the club, those club members names will be put in a drawing to win $100 toward their Paul Harris fund. Let's get motivated!!
The Paul Harris matching fund drive will end this week. The club will match up to $200 toward a members Paul Harris. Bring your checks to the next meeting.
Last Weeks Program - By Gail Peek
Early Act/First Knight at
Lakewood Elementary School
At our recent Rotary Club Board of Directors Meeting, Shawn Hunt told two Red Badger attendees, “You get out of Rotary what you put into it.” Well said Mr. Hunt. Well we “seasoned” Rotarians got a lesson in what it means to be a Rotarian from some very impressive fourth graders from Lakewood Elementary School!
Rotarian of the Day, Barbara Bozon, introduced the program of the day—members of the Early Act/First Knight program at Lakewood Elementary School. These youngsters are learning the “ins and outs” of Rotary and should have a chartered club in the near future. At this point, they meet every other week and have a full slate of officers responsible for running the club. They have help from their teachers, and our Rotary Club, but the driving force for the program is the motivated young participants.
Lakewood Elementary School received a grant from the Belton Education Foundation (“BEF”) which was used to introduce the students to the moving experience of Greg Mortenson. Mr. Mortenson, an accomplished mountain climber, suffered injuries while trying to climb K2 in Pakistan. He was helped by the villagers in Korphe, Pakistan. While in the village he saw the dire circumstances under which children in this poor and remote area tried to learn. He promised to help build a school for them. So began the Three Cups of Tea story.
This amazing experience in commitment to help those very far from and different from residents of Central Texas became the international project of the Lakewood Elementary School Early Act/First Knight members. They learned of the Pennies for Peace charitable organization that is committed to providing the tools for learning for children in remote areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The BEF grant allowed the group to purchase copies of the book Three Cups of Tea and develop a power point presentation of the goals of the Pennies for Peace program. The youngsters shared this incredible project with their classmates resulting in 706 school children learning about the challenges of poor children in parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan and more importantly, how they could help. Between April 6th and May 21st Lakewood Elementary School is holding its Pennies for Peace drive. In the course of this effort they shared what philanthropy means and how important it is to help others with their classmates.
The Pennies for Peace program brought home how a simple act of giving can have a remarkable impact. For one penny, a child in a remote village in Pakistan or Afghanistan could have a pencil. Two pennies buys an eraser. Two to Three dollars can pay the costs of a teacher for a day. Five thousand dollars can support a school for a year. Fifty thousand dollars can build a school with a useful life of between five and ten years. You get the point! A little can go a long way. If you visit the website www.threecupsoftea.com, you learn that this human to human link is one of the most fundamental ways to provide hope to those with very little.
The Three Cups of Tea website notes that [A]s of 2009, [Greg] Mortenson has established or significantly supports 131 schools in rural and often volatile regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan, which provide education to over 58,000 children, including 44,000 girls, where few education opportunities existed before. Further, as one author put it, “…The governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan are both failing their students on a massive scale. The work [Greg] Mortenson is doing, providing the poorest students with a balanced education, is making them much more difficult for the extremist madrassas to recruit.” -Ahmed Rashid, best-selling author of Taliban: Militant Islam and Oil in Central Asia and Descent Into Chaos.
Congratulations for the Early Act/First Knight team for identifying such a powerful and worthy international project to support, and for sharing their learning experience with all of their classmates. The children in Pakistan and Afghanistan are not the only ones whose lives are being touched so dramatically. What an incredible life lesson in service above self for the entire Lakewood Elementary School community.
The Early Act/First Knight group must also select a local program of service. They will help purchase back packs for children in our community who might not otherwise start the school year with some of the most fundamental tools for learning.
Whether you are helping children in need in very distant places or children in need close to home, the point is the same. If we all pull together we can make a substantial difference in one person’s life. That person can pass that experience of helping and service on to others resulting in a strong sense of community. When we all have a stake in the community, we find more creative ways to work through our different views and different circumstances precisely because we see ourselves as part of one group.
Building community is not easy. The Early Act/First Knight character trait of the month—Perseverance—will serve these youngsters well. It is easy to solve simple questions. The test of one’s metal is the ongoing commitment to tackle the most difficult and persistent issues that challenge us. Indeed, that is an extremely important lesson that Greg Mortenson is sharing with us. He refused to give up on the children of Korphe to whom he made such a bold promise. With the help of youngsters such as those at Lakewood Elementary School’s Early Act/First Knight program, Mr. Mortenson’s dream will live well beyond him.
And so my fellow Rotarians, out of the mouths [or actions] of babes comes the compelling reminder that WE GET OUT OF ROTARY WHAT WE PUT INTO IT, and when we dream big, set high goals, so many wonderful things happen. The trick is to start. What is your next step to help our Rotary Club live up to the bar that has been set by the Lakewood Elementary School Early Act/First Knight team?
District 5870 Information
The February, 2010 District Newsletter is currently posted on the District Website. The link to the district newsletter is http://www.rotary5870.com/Newsletter.cfm
Scheduled Programs for May & June
Please let me know if you have a program you would like to share and we will book them.
May 27- Lamar Eidson - Kids Against Hunger of Central Texas
June 3 - TBD
June 10 - Sheri Givens - Texas Public Utility Council
June 17 - TBD
June 24 - Rotary Assembly
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