Club Meeting Program: November 6th, 2012 - Rotary Foundation

Our speaker today was Billi Black from Franklin Daybreak discussing the Foundation.

The Rotary Foundation is the #1 charity in the world.  It is a 4 star charity.  100% of the money that is donated goes to doing good work in the world, not to any salaries.  The Foundation mission is to enable Rotarians to advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through the improvement of health, the support of education, and the alleviation of poverty.

We as Rotarians support our Foundation by becoming Paul Harris Fellows by donating $1000 or donating $1000 in the name of someone else.  This may be achieved all at once or over a cumulative timeframe.  If we pledge $1000 per year for our lives we become a Paul Harris Society member.  A Major Donor is one that gives $10,000 at once or over a 10 year period.  A Bequest member is one that leaves their estate to the Rotary Foundation, which goes into the Permanent Fund.

Our donations go to such programs as:

• Ambassadorial scholars- each cost $26,000
• Group Study Exchange ( Vocational training teams). Consist of 1 Rotarian and 4 non-          Rotarians that will travel for several weeks exchanging ideas and skills with other countries that they travel to. 
• District Simplified Grants ( District Grants). These are small and used locally in our communities.
• Matching Grants ( Global Grants) These are on a much larger scale and go internationally

These are several examples of what all our Foundation does along with the eradication. Of Polio.  There are many more things that are funded by our Foundation.

There are several Rotary Peace centers.  We have one locally that is shared by Duke and UNC.  This is a post graduate Peace scholarship that requires experience in peace conflict resolution.  There are other peace centers in Australia, France, Thailand and a few others.

The money that we give this year, 50% will return to our district in 3 years to be spent using District Designated Funds( DDF).  These funds will be used for District Simplified Grants, Group Study Exchange, Ambassadorial Scholars, and Matching Grants.  The other 50% will go into the World Fund which will match DDF's and 1/2 of what the local clubs donate to fund bigger international efforts.

This all sounds confusing, but is very well laid out in order to do good throughout the world.

Our District 7670 is #5 in wheelchair donations. Rotarians on the ground find the recipients to guarantee the chairs will be used and not sold.  The chairs are marked with the Rotary districts that supply them.

Our current DIstrict Governor, Frank Dean, would like to ask each Rotarian in our district this year to give $144.  This could be accomplished by $12 per month with direct giving.

The Foundation also has a Disaster Contingency Fund that is sent to the districts from the World fund.  Shelter Boxes are part of this also.  On a more personal note, District to District, DG Frank Dean has asked that each Rotarian in District 7670 give $25 to aid the Hurricane Sandy victims by sending checks to Rotary District 7260 Foundation, Inc. at P.O. Box 1552, Smithtown, NY, 11970. Or to DGN Calisto Bertin c/o Bertin Engineering,  66 Glen Avenue, Glen Rock, NJ 97452.