DGs Monthly Message

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March 2010

It’s so heartening to see the outpouring of literacy projects, both large and small, that are originating in this district. There’s rather more illiteracy in my original district (4160 in Central Mexico) than there is here, and consequently I suppose I am more sensitive to anything improving literacy. Any action is noticed and appreciated immediately.

Libraries in our district gain ever y time a book is donated in a speaker’s name; children in Title I schools gain ever y time a Rotarian takes an hour out of his/ her time to read to them. The entire Third Grade of a recipient school benef its when a Rotarian shows up to distribute bilingual dictionaries that can change the outlook for an entire gaggle of nine-year-olds doing their best to lear n to read English amid the cur rent atmosphere of budget cutting and program cancellations.

The outf itting of small, forgotten public libraries in small towns of Honduras and Nicaragua, and the provision of English books to Bhutan, Punaka in the Himalayas raises the literacy rates and presages the times in the future when world leaders will originate where we have sewn our books.

If you have never been on the site of one of these magic tricks (tur ning future-less people into producing, valuable citizens), see if you can make a contact among the members of those clubs that are exper t in these sor ts of lifetime improvement skills. Make up your mind you’ll visit a place just emerging from the black ness of illiteracy. You’ll f ind, as so many already have, that your new hobby is the encouragement of others to have what we have all taken for granted – the ability to read.

Don’t forget that the week of March 12 – 18 is Rotaract Week. We’re for tunate in this district. We have two of the greatest Rotaract Clubs in the world inside our borders – "active, committed, imaginative" are but three of the traits common to both the Santa Barbara and the Thousand Oaks Rotaract Clubs. A third club (Channel Islands) shows promise, and I will char ter a four th club in San Luis Obispo on March 13, sponsored by the seven local Rotar y Clubs.

I think I can say without fear of being over whelmed with negative thoughts that if your Rotar y Club is unconnected with a Rotaract Club, no matter your physical location, you are missing out on a lot of action, a lot of potential suppor t for your local projects, and even some potential members down the road.