Club Meeting Recap--June 1, 2015

President Chuck Grodnik rang the bell calling to order the June 1st meeting of the Elkhart Rotary Club. Merritt Dilts offered the invocation and led in the pledge.  Tom Pletcher gave a very brief foundation minute deferring to the speaker of the day.

 Announcements:

 Next Monday at 11:00 there will be a "Taste of the Garden" committee meeting.

The Sergeant for the day was Jeff New, who exacted fines in part by quizzing new members about veteran Rotarians.

The featured speaker was the local Rotary district foundation chairman, Mike Crabill, who has been a Rotarian since 1999.  He shared some of the following points of interest:

The foundation is a 501C3 corporation.  It is "The Rotarian's Charity".  It has received many top awards for being good stewards of the foundation funds.  Only 2% of funds donated go to administration.  It's mission is "to do good in the world".

The foundation began in 1906.  It's first project was buying a horse for an itinerant pastor.  Since 1947, 2.3 billion in funds have been distributed.

Some of the projects the foundation has supported include prosthetics for people in Cambodia, feeding the hungry in Nigeria, a food bank and school in India, cataract surgery for people in Nicaragua, a security fence for Hannah's house locally, and clean water in Uganda.

The foundation's signature project for the last 30 years has been the "Polio Plus" program.  The goal of this project is to eradicate polio around the world.   This has been a huge success.  In 1985 there were 350,000 cases of polio worldwide, in 2015 there were 15 cases, 14 of those are in Pakistan which is a country that will not allow the vaccine. 

Funds that come in to the foundation are invested for 3 years and then spent, with half going to the district and half going to world funds.

Mike also talked about ways to leave a legacy by remembering the foundation in your estate planning and making them a beneficiary at your passing.

The goal is for every Rotarian to donate something.  

President Chuck Grodnik asked the trivia question then adjourned the meeting.