Wow, the 1st month of 2013 went by so quickly! It is February already. February is World Understanding Month for Rotary International. What does that mean? It is our opportunity to help promote peace and understanding throughout the world. Many of your Matching Grants are coming back approved by RI and your projects are getting underway. Through these projects, you are helping to encourage peace and understanding in the world.
Through you and the clubs in District 5000, we are making a huge difference in our local and global communities. I have been fortunate to be able to see all the wonderful Matching Grant applications and am able to visualize what types of projects our clubs are involved in. We promote health and wellness, provide clean water, immunize children, and promote literacy and much more. We each make a difference and through the Rotary Foundation we can leverage our contributions to achieve even more. Your contributions to the Annual Programs Fund help make these projects possible.
We have had a lot happening this month in the district. We chartered a new ROTORACT Club at Brigham Young University-Hawaii (BYU). The charter president is Aaron Ngambi. The sponsoring club is Rotary Club of Honolulu.
We have chartered the 49th club in District 5000 and the first E-Club in Hawaii. (The Rotary E-Club of Hawaii). The web site is http://www.rotaryeclubhawaii.org/ . Please visit the site and congratulate the first club president Russ Sumida. The Rotary club of Honolulu Sunset sponsored this club.
We had our district wide project to collect rice for the food bank and thanks to Dexter Yee we collected 8.1 tons of rice and $6,461 dollars to donate to the different food banks on all islands. We have done well and have not even had all the clubs report back yet.
We ended the month with an unbelievable peace conference in Honolulu. Our key note speaker was Nobel Peace Prize Winner Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. She helped make the Rotary Global Peace Forum in Honolulu a great success. Two other great speakers where Nainoa Thompson who spoke about peace, the Hokule’a and the trip it will take around the world and Amanda El-Dakhakhni (daughter of PDG Ayman) who talked about Jews and Muslims finding common ground. We need to thank the hundreds of Rotarians that helped to put this successful peace forum together.
This month we celebrate Rotary’s 108th year. Since 1905 Rotary has been the premiere organization for business, community leaders and professionals. You each do so much to make this world a better place so let’s share this great opportunity with others and invite them to join you at your next community service project or social event. Many of our clubs have grown over the last 6 months and I am so proud of the efforts being made.
Mark your calendar for May 17th, 18th and 19th for our District Conference and Awards & Installation gathering at the lovely Turtle Bay Resort. We have 3 great speakers, a play by Linda Coble and lots of surprises.