This week at Rotary
Thursday, September 5, 2024
IN PERSON & ZOOM
For Those Attending in Person
Lunch Buffet
11:30AM START
(Zoom Meeting Opens at 11:45)
(Link Sent Thursday Morning)
At
Kitchi Gammi Club
Jeff Corey
Executive Director of One Roof Community Housing
Jeff will talk about the mission and work done by
One Roof Community Housing. It is impressive and important to note that since Jeff joined the organization in 1998 One Roof has developed and sold more than 350 Community Land Trust (CLT) homes and managed the resale of more than 220 CLT homes. He has also led the development of over 300 affordable apartments. Join us for a more in depth presentation about the work at One Roof and how they are changing Duluth for the better.
Highlights from Last Week’s Meeting
By Renee Burns
Rotarians gathered the West Dining Room at the Kitchi Gammi Club and were called to order by President Elizabeth Simonson who led us in the Pledge of Allegiance and Four Way Test. Jerry Thoreson gave us a meaningful and historical Reflection, which is our Golden Nugget of Club 25 History at the end of this Gimlet.
Guests for the meeting included our speakers, Past District Governor Gary Nolte and Cindy Nolte and Allen Anway’s new bride, Judy Sage, all of whom received a warm Rotary welcome and rousing applause.
Allen Anway and Judy Sage
Allen Anway was first up to kick the Golden Can with the announcement that he was just out of the hospital for two days following the removal of his appendix and he and Judy were celebrating their 32nd day of marriage! President Elizabeth Simonson was moved to Kick the Golden Can with the good news of his speedy recovery and to welcome back Jim Landwehr after his recent surgery. Welcome back, Jim!
Dodie Brown announced new
True North Goodwill retail stores coming soon to Hermantown and Virginia and a new Resource Training Center coming to the Atlas Industrial Park.
Dodie Brown with good news about True North Goodwill
Jerry Pelofske informed us that the Club 25 Rotary Foundation is awarding five scholarships to students at Lake Superior College in the amount of $1,250, HOWEVER, there is a shortfall of $1,250 and we could use generous Rotarians to help close that gap. Please contact Jerry ASAP if you can help. He also noted that Salvation Army bellringing is not far off, please hold December 13 and 20 for bellringing fellowship at the Super One stores, more reminders and location information will be announced throughout the fall.
Jerry Pelofske with a request for scholarship donations for which we are a bit short.
Past President Gary Melander bounded to the podium to let us know that the Annual Rotary Club #25 Rose Sale is fast approaching. We will begin selling rose coupons on September 19 with rose distribution occurring on October 25. This is a three week dash to success to make our rose sale goal. Remember, we are able to do good work making grants in the community through our collective efforts to sell, sell, sell roses!
Past President and Past Assistant District Governor and Chair of the Day Phil Strom stepped to the podium to introduce the speakers, and his friends, Past District Governor Gary and Cindy Nolte.
Chair of the Day Phil Strom
The Noltes both have a long history of service in Rotary and have worked tirelessly as End Polio Now ambassadors as well as boots on the ground polio eradication missions. Their many years of service in their community and in Rotary are notable and impressive. On a personal note, Gary and Cindy are his close friends of more than 30 years.
Speakers Past District Governor Gary and Cindy Nolte
Gary opened their presentation by noting that as polio ambassadors they pay their own expenses to travel on missions of polio eradication across the globe. Every cent donated to Rotary International for Polio Plus goes to the vaccination efforts, not the expenses of the Rotarians doing the work. While the travel has been interesting, it also comes with the logistical challenges of getting from site to site and simply working in countries that lack adequate sanitation and infrastructure. Cindy once traveled to a site via camel, which was not as fun as portrayed in movies and Gary had to bail out a boat on a river in Niger to keep from sinking.
Rotary has surveillance clinics across the world that observe children to see if they have wasted leg syndrome, a sign of polio, and obtain a stool sample to determine if it is present. If so, they vaccinate the child immediately. They use these same surveillance teams to observe other diseases and vaccinate for those as well, hence the term “Polio Plus”.
The vaccination work means sometimes having the support of village elders who ensure the entire village of children are in line for vaccinations, and sometimes means going door to door and asking the parents to allow them to vaccinate. In Afghanistan the Taliban has recently agreed to allow the army to go house to house to vaccinate, Rotarians do not work in Afghanistan or Pakistan as it’s too dangerous, but Rotarians are vaccinating in other countries.
Gary stated some sobering statistics that we should all take seriously. Last year there were 27 cases of polio reported, which is up from the year before. We have not eradicated polio from two countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Also, there were, at one time, 11 different strains of polio, that dropped to two strains and now we are likely down to just one.
The sudden prominence of
“anti-vaxxers” during and after COVID has led to an alarming resistance to vaccinations for many diseases, measles for one and heartbreakingly polio as well in some communities. Scientists know the DNA of the polio virus and can accurately track where the virus originated. In 2006 there were 12 cases of polio reported in Long Prairie, Minnesota. Only one person got sick fortunately, and they were able to determine where the virus originated and how it arrived in that town.
In the United States we use an oral vaccine, but the vaccination efforts in Polio Plus countries use a live vaccine, which requires generators to run freezers and adds another element of logistics to deal with.
On the good news front, at one time there were 122 countries with the polio virus, there are now only two, the aforementioned Afghanistan and Pakistan. Still, we have to remember that last year there were 27 cases reported and the work is not yet complete.
What we can do is offer our sincere thanks to volunteers like the Noltes who go to extraordinary effort to work on polio eradication and other vaccinations for the benefit of humanity!
Past President Dean Casperson, President Elizabeth Simonson and Cindy and Gary Nolte working to resolve technical issues.
Golden Nuggets of Club 25 History
Rotary Club of Duluth – Chartered July 17, 1911
By Rachael Martin and Jerry Thoreson
“An Explanation of Rotary Purposes and Principles” was published in the July 23, 1914, Club 25 newsletter. Below are selections from the article by Charles H. Mackintosh
When President Simonsen gave her inaugural address, she stated that one goal this club year was to celebrate Club 25’s rich history.
Thanks to former Club member and historian Rachael Martin and an office filled with Club 25 memorabilia, we have more than enough to write about this year.
Currently we are focusing on providing some context around Rotary Club of Duluth’s July 17, 1911 charter, with 16 charter members.
A year later, in 1912 Rotary Club of Duluth hosted the first international convention and helped launch Superior Rotary (which is Club 40)
In 1912, Woodrow Willson was elected to his first term as president, and the country’s currency was on the gold standard.
In 1913, the 100th Club was chartered in Phoenix, Arizona.
By July 1914, Club 25 had grown to 130 members, and according to our July 23, 1914 club newsletter, “There were now Rotary Clubs in every English-speaking nation in the world.”
But a month earlier, on June 28, 1914, a sweltering pot of tension led to a diplomatic explosion following the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand. June 28, 1914 is now marked as the date The Great War began.
How did our club respond to the war brewing in Europe? Here's are excerpts from the newsletter written 110 years ago on
“An Explanation of Rotary Purposes and Principles.”
by Charles H. Mackintosh
In Rotary Club of Duluth’s newsletter “The Spokesman” July 23, 1914. Some excerpts from a lengthy article include;
The Duluth Rotary Club is starting its new civilization in Duluth, where it will create the greatest good for a greater number.
This "new civilization" of ours has taken itself the Golden Rule as a guiding principle.
It is incorporated as a Society for Social Service.
Starting with the truism that "he profits most who serves best" it goes on to guide members to the splendid heights of unselfish Service.
Each week, its many-faceted membership gets together to consider ways in which it can benefit individuals, industries, cities, states, and even nations, as there are now Rotary Clubs in every English-speaking nation in the world.
Rotary Club of Duluth benefits the individual by helping him serve better; keeping ever before him the Rotary standard of unselfish service to society.
Eventually, it aims to bind the whole human brood in the unbreakable bonds of brotherhood; vanquishing War with the force of its loving labor.
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Read the entire article by Charles H Mackintosh at https://duluthrotary.org/SitePage/ww-i-and-club-25
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