School is out for the summer. Vacations are being planned. The kids are “sleeping in” while mom and dad are busy with their work.
Summer is a great time for transitions. Rotary goes through an annual transition each year in June with the fiscal year of this worldwide non-profit organization end on June 30th, being end of second fiscal quarter as your accountant would state. It is a time of change with elected officers and board members moving from one elected slate to the incoming slate of Officers and Board Members. Plans have been made for the 2026-27 year with budgets prepared and fund-raisers planned. This is an ongoing transition year after year except for no changes in long-term goals and values that Rotarians worldwide share!
Rotary’s monumental goal is the complete eradication of Polio worldwide. This Project started when Rotarians in the Philippines completely erased Polio in this nation of islands over 30 years ago. Polio has basically been eradicated, well almost, except in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Less than 100 cases of polio have occurred in those two countries in the last nine or so months.
As a result, Rotarians and their partners including the Bill and Linda Gates Foundation, are doubling, tripling, their efforts to eradicate this water-borne disease by increasing the intensity of the Polio oral immunization program. Since records are almost none-existent in the rural areas of those two countries, the pinkie of each child being immunized for Polio is dipped in permanent purple ink. The permanent purple will eventually wear off, but it is there until the child is five or six. By then, the child is old enough to not have to go through the oral immunizations since only infants receive the drops of the Polio sera orally. The goal is to get all of the infants immunized. Once there are no more Polio cases for three years, oral immunizations and purple pinkies will continue! Medical authorities want that three-year window of no Polio cases to ensure that Polio has been completely eradicated!
Rotarians are working to provide available water throughout the world with their programs of drilling water wells, particularly in Third World countries. In many countries, fresh potable water is available only by walking several miles to the “watering locale” and then coming back with the necessary water for that home. Teams of Rotarians visit these remote areas to help drill those water wells.
Rotarians are also planning fund raisers for scholarships to give to graduating seniors to continue their education whether it be at universities or trade schools. This is done via individual scholarships or by endowed scholarships. Locally, the Rotary Club of Conroe has an endowed scholarship at Lone Star College to assist those furthering their education at LSC. I also know of several Rotarians who have established scholarship programs with fund endowments at the Montgomery County Community Foundation.
Rotarians work together and with others to help better the world. For more information on Rotary, please email to rsaikowski@comcast.net.