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Rotary Club of Westchester
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Rotary Club of Westchester
Welcome! By Edgar Saenz
FELLOWSHIP AND SERVICE. I belong to a group that betters communities and lives. I belong to a worldwide peace organization. I belong to Rotary. I probably joined Rotary for the wrong reason. I was new to Westchester and wanted to network. I joined and — believe me — I networked. But I stayed in Rotary for the camaraderie, the jocularity. Wednesday is the highlight of my week. Our Westchester Rotary Club lunch program is a chance to get together with my friends and learn from a stimulating program. (Sadly, though, we don’t have secret handshakes or wear funny hats.) During my eight years in the club, I’ve made many dear friends, treasured relationships that would not have happened but for the club. And I am committed to Rotary for the service. Service is at the heart of Rotary and is crystalized in Rotary International’s concise motto: Service Above Self. Our little 63-year-old club makes a difference in our community and in other countries. Members of the Rotary Club of Westchester serve free meals to seniors. We cook and serve dinner to homeless youth in Venice. We read to elementary school children. We tutor inner city school children in math. We award scholarships to high school students.
We host art, music, speech, and dance contests for young people. We fix up a battered woman shelter with needed plumbing and repairs. We help repair the “Westchester, Home to LAX” sign. We clean up Dockweiler Beach. We bring some of the Halloween festivity to children in hospitals and shelters. We paint and clean up a South Central Park. We provide Home Boy Industries with a new pastry machine to help them be self-sufficient. Partnering with Vision to Learn, we provide eye screenings and glasses to underprivileged children in Los Angeles, including the West Side. Overseas, our little club makes potable water available with the creation of water wells in Bangladesh, India, Thailand, and Sri Lanka. We make sure a high school in a poor community of Puerto Rico has a new science lab. We donate soccer balls and sporting equipment to an orphanage in Mexico. BOOK SALE AND HOME MAKEOVER. During the next two weeks, we’re rolling up our sleeves with the book sale and the home makeover. The annual book sale – our 58th — which starts Friday, May 24, offers tens of thousands of used books in good and new condition. The gentle reader will find popular authors such as Robert Ludlum, John Le Carre, and a shadowy writer by the name of Shakespeare. (Please see the info box on the next page.) We’ve got cook books, biographies, children’s books, histories, humor, just about
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any topic to whet and sate your curiosity. All proceeds support our community service projects, including the home makeover. This year we celebrate “Peace through Service.” We believe that peace can be achieved through disease prevention. Rotary had the vision and provides the leadership to end polio. In 1988, there were 125 Polio endemic countries. Today, polio is nearly extinct. In 2012, India experienced the year without a recorded case of polio and was taken off the polio endemic list. Today, there are only three countries. This is one of the most important achievements in history. We also believe that peace comes from clean water and sanitation, maternal and child health, basic education and literacy, and from economic development. Rotary actively supports these areas.
A WORLD-WIDE UNDERTAKING. My chapter, the Westchester Club, is one of 34, 297 clubs. I am one of 1,212,000 members across the globe. I will shortly travel to the annual convention in Lisbon to represent our corner of the earth. As Rotary International President Sakuji Tanaka puts it, when we come together for a Rotary convention, “we see, for a few days, the world as it could be. We see people of all colors and cultures come together. We work to build a better world.” I remain in touch with a Rotarian from Nepal who, along with his wife, stayed at our home during the international convention held in Los Angeles a few years ago. I consider this one of the privileges of membership. Maybe you’ve seen a need in our community and wondered how you could help. Maybe you want to use your professional skills to help others — or even learn new skills. Maybe you’re seeking connections with other service-minded professionals here or abroad. I invite to you learn about our club and get involved. Join us at our book sale! Join us at our home makeover! Join us on a Wednesday! Join us in this happy mission!
Edgar Saenz is the president-elect of the Westchester Rotary Club. He can be reached at (310) 417-9900 or at Edgar.WRCPrez@gmail.com.
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John and Nancy Nugent congratulate
rotary club of westchester on 63 years of community service.
may 23, 2013 THE ARGONAUT Special Advertising Section PAGE 17