Rotary International Celebrates 100th Anniversary

Rotary International, the world’s first service organization, celebrated its 100th anniversary in February. Newtown Rotary held a special 100th Anniversary affair and guests included members’ spouses, previous members and club presidents, wives of deceased members, nonmember awardees of Rotary’s Paul Harris Award for outstanding community service, and leaders of community organizations to which the Newtown Rotary contributes.

Keynote speaker was Rotary Past District Governor Jim Lang, a professional magician, who entertained the audience with a few magic tricks a Rotary Quiz and a short talk. He was representing the district’s current governor, Pam Akins, who was unable to attend.

During the course of the evening, Newtown President Larry Nkabinde presented contribution checks to Don Studley for the Newtown Heritage Trust, George Coleman for the Hord Foundation, Jim Zorifis for Relay For Life, Ellen Parrella for Literacy Volunteers, Paul Hines for Dorothy Day House, and Larry Gardner for St Rose Scout Troop 570.

Newtown Rotary is a service organization dedicated to helping make this a better world, locally and worldwide. A few of the club projects have included setting up the Newtown Heritage Trust to save and preserve The Meeting House; holding the rotary Pancake Day in December, collecting used school text books and sending a 40-foot steamer container full of books to South Africa to reduce the very high illiteracy rate caused during Apartheid; arranging to help a Rotary Club in India to restore eyesight to more than 500 people who lost their eyesight due to cataracts; and sent more than 150 water purifying systems to many places in the world where people have never had a source of safe drinking water.

Rotary International made a commitment in 1985 to eradicate polio from the face of the earth by the year 2005, the 100th anniversary of the Rotary organization. Rotary was immediately joined by such prestigious health organizations as World Health Organization, the Atlanta Office for Disease Control, UNICEF, and Pan American Health Agency in accomplishing this goal.

Tens of thousands of Rotary volunteers have been involved in giving the immunizations to children; an outstanding example has been in India. A few years ago 140 million children were immunized in India in one day. The completion of the final few countries is now being accomplished. The number of cases of reported polio worldwide per year exceeded 300,000 in 1985 and last year the number was only a few hundred.

The formal ceremonies was followed by much enjoyable dancing to the delightful music provided by The Bob Mel Show.