The Rotary Review
The Official Newsletter of District 6880
Holger Knaack Jerry Blacklaw RI President Governor, District 6880
OCTOBER 2020
Hurricane Sally Makes Landfall on the Alabama Coast
September 16, 2020
GOVERNOR VISIT SCHEDULE
OCTOBER 15- Montgomery Capital
OCTOBER 16- Montgomery Sunrise
OCTOBER 19- Daphne/Spanish Fort
OCTOBER 21- Opp
OCTOBER 22- Evergreen
OCTOBER 27- Troy
OCTOBER 28- Auburn
OCTOBER 29- Tallassee
NOVEMBER 3- Enterprise
NOVEMBER 4- Mobile Sunrise
NOVEMBER 5- Greenville
NOVEMBER 10- Elba
NOVEMBER 12- Fairhope Sunset
NOVEMBER 17- Andalusia
NOVEMBER 19- Mobile
I like the song “On the Road Again” by Willie Nelson. The last line of the song says, “The life I love is making mu-sic with my friends.” At this writing, October 3, Cynthia and I have had 10 face to face Governor Club visits, and one Zoom visit. We are immensely enjoying the chance to make new friends with Rotarians from all over the District. Clubs are different; venues are different; the spirit of the meetings is different; attendance is different (about 50% of what it was prior to Covid); some clubs are reserved, and some are outgoing. But the common theme is exactly what you would expect - a group of men and women who enjoy getting together with friends and are committed to doing good things in their community and even around the world.
Thank you to the clubs that have shown hospitality to the Governor and his wife. We have enjoyed developing new friendships, and we can hardly wait to get on the road again over the next two months. We will not stop until we have visited or Zoomed with all 49 clubs.
Sincerely, DG Jerry
On the Road
Again. . .
With DG Jerry
DGN Dell Goodwin, AG Michael Smith, Dothan Ro-tary Club Pres. James Etheredge & DGE Bruce McNeal (left)
iPDG Skip Dotherow & Selma co-Presidents Jerria Martin and James Steele ( (below)
DGN Dell Goodwin, Dothan Tues. Pres. Heidi Condrey, and AG Michael Smith (below0
AG Roy McAuley, President of Prat-tville Millbrook, David Walters, and Sam Marsal (left)
Phenix City Presi-dent, Chandra Wright (right)
President of Foley Club, Rick Conway & Tom
Chris Thomason, President of the Sumter County Club (left)
President of the Demopolis Club, George Durbin ( above)
District 6880 Calendar
● OCTOBER 8-10 – Virtual Zone
Leadership Summit
2021
SAVE THE DATE: 2021
● January 15-16 District Midyear Conference, January 15 & 16 in Dothan, for ALL Rotarians and Training for new President Elects and Secretary Elects. More to Come!
●MARCH 18-20. PETS (virtual)
● APRIL 29-May 2 – District
Conference at Perdido Resort on
the Gulf
● June 12-16 Rotary International
Convention in Taipei
The Rotary Review
Kathy Hughes, editor
Published on the 15th of every
month. Club News, pictures,
etc. are due on the 10th of every
month.
DISTRICT INFORMATION
DG Jerry Blacklaw
850-910-0990
District Facebook Page- Rotary District 6880
Online Membership/info
calendar/pmail
DACdb
District Website
Rotary6880.org
District Directory
Posted on website
Note: The following story is a series of emails exchanged by Rotarians. I put them together in the
narrative below. It is one amazing story, but them again, the main characters are Rotarians.
A Rotary Story… Dear Rotary Family
I am forwarding an email received this morning from Randy Feldman. In it is a chain of emails in-cluding one from Elizabeth Van Sant. Her email details the cooperation among service minded Rotarians to make available water- a very precious necessity - to the gulf coast, specifically Baldwin County Ala-bama.
Even though most of the Rotarians involved have never met and unfortunately may never meet in person, it depicts clearly the Service above Self done daily by this Rotary Family. I am so grateful to Randy, and all those involved up to Randy, for getting us involved. I also want to rec-ognize Bruce McNeal and Linda Mong for making it happen in our District. If possible, I request that a Thank You be written by our District to the Project originating club with copies to those involved between them and us.
Our Governor, Kay Ivey, visited the affected area recently. After viewing, firsthand, the severe devastation from the storm, she had a difficult time in describing the damage done to that part of our state. This water could not have come at a better time. I am so very grateful to all the Rotarians involved.
In Rotary Service, Barry Cavan, PDG Rotary District 6880
Elizabeth, I certainly will do that. After the Marietta Rotary Club made me aware of their project, I sent an email to all the Club Presidents asking them to contribute to this wonderful cause. Thanks for all you are doing by keeping your Zone classmates informed of so many things, and for District 6840 and all those who are served by your District membership, Steve Heiser Dear All:
Here's a Rotary story someone should submit to the Rotarian Magazine. My classmate, DG Yvonne Normand of D6200, in the throes of Hurricane Laura response, called
me over here in D6840 in advance of Hurricane Sally to see if we could use any bottled water -- that the Rotarian mayor of "somewhere in Tennessee, maybe" had just sent down, among other supplies, a semi full of bottled water when she got news there was another truck from "somewhere up north" with 40 pal-lets on its way. All I needed, she assured me, was a destination, a forklift, and in the name of Rotary she would divert it to where it would be most needed so we wouldn't be caught back-footed.
By the time we were off the phone, Hurricane Sally took a turn further East so I reached out to our club presidents along the MS/AL border and made a call to DG Jerry in 6880 (South AL -- where it was now heading -- hurricane prep is all-consuming and I didn't really expect to get through) ... the next morn-ing I called our PDG Randy Feldman who held his district conference in Mobile a few years ago to see who he knew...so he called his DG classmate, 6880 PDG Barry Cavan.
In the meantime, DG Yvonne turned responsibility for the 40 pallets of water over to Jake Cavanaugh of the Sulphur Rotary Club. And PDG Randy got back to me with word that DGE Bruce McNeal was the right guy in D6880 and then I put Bruce in touch with Jake and got out of the way.
This all happened between 7pm Sept 14 and 3pm Sept 15 ... Hurricane Sally came on shore and did damage to D6880 Sept 16 and 17. This morning, Sept 19, I received word via our PDG Randy from PDG Barry (are you keeping
track of the cast of characters?) that the water was making an important difference in the relief efforts in Spanish Fort and Dothan, AL and they wanted to know who to thank. Continued on next page. . .
So...back to Jake Cavanaugh of D6200 for the answer! Turns out, DG Steve Heiser of 6690, and the Noon Rotary Club of Marietta, OH! And, since I'm not in the middle of hurricane relief or mitigation, I went to the Noon Rotary
Club of Marietta's website to find contact information and see that they haven't met recently...so this pro-ject in service to others obviously rallied them to their Rotary roots. Please, Steve, make it known how much Rotary Goodwill their action occasioned. Not only was the donation needed and making a differ-ence...but the fact of the donation fostered goodwill and better friendships between people who had been strangers and who, in fact, may never meet face to face -- COVID or not. A Rotarian in Marietta, Ohio, another in Sulphur, Louisiana, and yet a third in Dothan, Alabama. I don't know and may never meet Bar-ry Cavan or Bruce McNeal...and yet we were united in the same purpose and will remember that our connection was forged by Rotarians in Ohio when we try to explain "why Rotary."
Rotary, and the individual Rotarians in this story being People of Action, in a span of 4 days have made the world a better place, renewed our faith in strangers, in the importance of asking for help, in the importance of being of assistance, and in the possibilities for impact that membership in Rotary allows.
I don't have all of the people on this e-mail who ought to be here; I trust that those of you who know will extend my personal gratitude to each of them for having joined Rotary and for being People of Action and in reaffirming what I already know: that individual Rotarians Do Good in the World.
Yours in Rotary Service, Elizabeth Van Sant D6840 DG 2020-2021 ROTEX, Host Mom, Mother of ROTEX cell: 985 705 9885
Baldwin County was hit hard by Hurricane Sally. Although she was a low Cat 2 storm, she moved at 2 to 5 mph. I've heard estimates of sustained hurricane force winds for 8, 10 and even 12 hours.
17 pallets of water were delivered to Prodisee Pantry in Spanish Fort last Friday. On Saturday morning, Pantry volunteers provided emergency food and "Rotary" water to 925 families in Baldwin County.
A huge THANK YOU to everyone who played a part! This is truly a Rotary story showing that we live our motto, SERVICE ABOVE SELF!
Linda Mong, PDG 2014-15 Rotary District 6880
It is truly amazing what the network of Rotary can accomplish! Thanks to everyone involved. Thanks especially to all Rotarians working at ground zero. Bruce McNeal
Rotary, Polio and You By PDG Skip Dotherow,
Montgomery Sunrise Rotary Club. If you are like me, you came into Rotary and one of the first things you were asked “will you contribute to our End Polio program?” I suspect most of us did not know much about this program. Here is brief history of that ef-fort: John Sever, head of the infectious disease branch at the US National Institutes of Health and a Rotary member, in 1979 proposed the idea to the group’s president, who wanted to develop a new project for Rotary that would in-volve the entire organization. He had recently traveled to the Philippines and found Polio was widespread among the children. In 1979 RI President Bomar and Enrique M. Garcia, the country’s minister of health, had earlier signed an agreement committing Rotary International and the government of the Philippines to a joint mul-tiyear effort to immunize about 6 million children against polio, at a cost of about $760,000. On 29 Sep-tember 1979, volunteers administered drops of oral polio vaccine to children at a health center in Guada-lupe Viejo, Makati, Philippines. The event in metropolitan Manila was arranged and attended by Rotarians and delegates from the Philippine Ministry of Health. Bomar recalled how the brother of one of the chil-dren he had immunized tugged on his pant leg to get his attention and said, “Thank you, thank you, Rota-
ry.” The project’s success led Rotary to make polio eradication a top priority. Ro-tary launched PolioPlus in 1985 and was a founding member of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 1988. Soon, the virus had been eradicated across the Ameri-cas – a remarkable feat that led Rotary International and the World Health Organiza-tion to announce the goal of worldwide Polio eradication in 1988. Through decades of commit-ment and work by Rotary and our partners, more than 2.5 billion children have received the oral polio vaccine.
Of the $1.9 billion Rotary has raised and funded since the mid-1980s, $885 million has come from the Gates Foundation in the form of matching grants. For the past, several years and for the foresee-able future, the Gates Foundation matches donations raised through Rotary on a two to one basis, such that a $1 donation becomes $3 to fight polio. This year my club took on a project to in-crease our giving to Polio Plus. “Bear Huggs for Polio”. So far, we have raised more than $1500.00 to be matched by the Gates Foundation to $4500.00! The Bears are being distributed to several local agencies that deal with small children in crisis, such as Child Protect.
IT’S TIME TO PLAN YOUR TRIP TO TAIPEI
https://registration.experientevent.com/ShowROT211/
riconvention.org.
Rotary International organizes a “Rotary International Convention” every year. The goal of the conference is to bring together members of the Rotary International family from around the world and give them a platform to exchange ideas and come together in friendship. The conference takes place in a different coun-try every year. In 2021, 12 districts in Taiwan have the unique opportunity to host the Convention in Taipei!
HONOR A FELLOW ROTARIAN OR SOMEONE SPECIAL IN YOUR
COMMUNITY WITH A PAUL HARRIS FELLOW AWARD
The Paul Harris Fellow program recognizes
individuals who contribute, or who have had
contributions made in their name, of $1,000 to
The Rotary Foundation of Rotary International.
The honor was established in 1957 to show
appreciation for con tributions that support our
Annual Fund, Polio Plus, or an approved Founda
tion grant.
Our own PDG Bob Kelley was recognized
this month for his 30 plus years as a chef
and restaurateur. In the August/September
issue of Garden and Gun magazine,
the Talley Ho restaurant in Selma was
highlighted as one of Alabama's Culinary Heritage spots. This is a much deserved honor for
Bob. Hey Bob, your Rotary Family is hungry!!!!!!
Mark your Calendar
Thursday, March 4 – Sunday, March 7, 2021
Watch for Details!
Questions?
Donna Kelley
334-327-9939
Facebook is an important avenue for prospective mem-bers to use to check out your Rotary Club. Seeing the pro-jects, activities and good work you do may encourage someone to visit. It is vital to keep your club’s Face-book Page up to date. (I often use these pages for Club News in the Rotary Review). I have been tasked with keeping the District’s Facebook Page current and interest-ing and I need your help. I want to showcase a different Rotary Club on the district Facebook Page every month. All you have to do is send a few pictures (and an explanation) of what your club is doing and I will “spotlight” your club on the District 6880 Facebook Page. Send information to khugs67@gmail.
What is a 'Purple Pinkie’ donut? In countries where the threat of polio remains high, every child under 5yrs.
receives polio vaccine by mouth twice per year during events called “National Immunization Days.” To doc-
ument which child has received vaccine, every vaccinated child has the pinkie nail of their left hand painted
with an indelible purple marker. Local communities recognize that children with “purple pinkies” will never
get polio which is cause for great celebration. Over time the “Purple Pinkie” has become the international
symbRotary District 6880 Leadership
Rotary Club Lead- ership
Rotary Members
Septem- ber 10,
2020
Rotary has released some great news recently that Africa (Nigeria) has been certified wild Polio virus-free. We now are down to only TWO remaining countries where the wild Polio virus remains. So far this year there have been under 100 cases in Pakistan and Afghanistan. We are getting very close to eliminating this awful disease from the world. World Polio Day will be celebrated October 24th and our District wants to do its part to help contribute to the cause. We have a unique opportunity for some of you to participate in an unbelievable fundraiser. It is the Purple Pinky Project which will be held on Tuesday, October 20th. It works like this. Dunkin’ Donuts has agreed to donate Donut “fingers” that we can pre-sell ($20 donation each box) and get matched by the District ($20), Rotary Foundation ($20) and 2:1 matched by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. So, for each box sold for a $20 donation to the Polio Plus campaign the
CANCELLED
Congressman Bradley Byrne presented President Tony Gasbarro, left, and the Point Clear Rotary Club Oct. 8th with a flag that has flown over the U.S. Capitol. Byrne was hosted by Vice President Bill Booher. The club presently meets every Thursday morning at Provision Restaurant in downtown Fairhope.
The Point Clear Rotary Club speaker Oct. 1, was Robbie McGhee, Vice President, Poarch Creek Indian Tribal Council. The Council provides thousands of dollars each year to non-profits in the State of Alabama. His host was Rotarian Clay Swanzy.
The Point Clear Rotary Disaster Relief Team served 3,500 meals throughout Baldwin County and more than 100 lunches to first responder workers in the Fairhope area. Pic-tured are Point Clear Rotarians, Rick Kingrea, Tom Burkett, Tony Gasbar-ro, Joe Strange and John Matus. Be-low is a personal account written by Tom Burkett.
•Shortly after Sally blew through some members of the Fairhope Rotary club came out with about a half dozen chainsaws and helped clear a narrow path down to the barn where I had some of the DRT gear stored. Several hours, two tractors, and some neighborhood later help we were able to at least get to the needed equipment.
•Friday, we began cooking and serving meals down-
town on Section St. next to Regions Bank. We did that for three days, Fri, Sat, and Sun.
•Monday, we packed up and moved the trailer to an ar-
ea behind the Venue. •Tuesday, we prepared meals using the Venue kitchen
and delivered to the City of Bay Minette. VOAD was directing us to go to where there was the great-est need.
•Wednesday we stood down (I had to teach a zoom
class and thanks to Rick Miller from Hatch loaning me a place to conduct it).
•Thursday we were back at the Venue. This time we took the meals to Gulf Shores. •Friday we prepared, delivered, set up, and served meals at the Marlowe UMC.
Continued on next page ...
All total we put out somewhere in the neighborhood of 3500 meals to folks around the area who really needed one. Our volunteer response was amazing. I'm going to hold off naming names right now because I'm sure I'll forget someone. John and I will put our heads together later to get that list together. I know it was folks from our club, Fairhope club, and even the District Governor was behind a chainsaw down at my place. There were several spouses and some random strangers showed up during these events to offer assistance. The outpouring of help was amazing. The gratitude was overwhelming. Point Clear Rotary Club did good! Everyone can be
The Demopolis Rotary Club held its 47th An-nual Golf Tour-nament on Fri-day, October 2. Proceeds will benefit Camp ASCCA and other local char-ities.
The Jackson Area Rotary Club welcomed new mem-ber, Mrs. Pamela Scott.
