November was Rotary Foundation month, and District 6040 sure knows how to celebrate, appreciate, and give service through our Rotary Foundation.

 

285 Rotarians and their guests gathered on November 9 at the Argosy for a celebration of The Rotary Foundation. Due to the immense generosity of our clubs and members, we raised nearly $90,000 for The Rotary Foundation at this year’s dinner. Everyone’s support is meaningful, not just to me personally or to the district, but towards achieving the mission of the Rotary Foundation to promote world understanding, goodwill, and peace by improving health, supporting education, alleviating poverty, and improving the environment. Thank you all for making this possible.

 

Another great report came in from Kent Shelman, who chaired District 6040’s PolioPlus campaign last month. We have raised nearly $67,000 towards PolioPlus (before all of the matches that will greatly expand our impact beyond what we raised). That’s over 20,000 children who will be able to receive a polio immunization and other vital health care, just from the contribution of our district alone.

One of the unique characteristics of the Rotary Foundation is that the funds are available to support local community projects (such as the butterfly pollinator garden at Michael Gunn Park that KCI is installing), funds are available to support disasters in the USA and beyond (our district recently contributed $2,500 towards the Disaster Response Fund due to the unfortunate swell of disasters recently), funds are available to support disease eradication such as PolioPlus, funds area available to support international projects (such as the large Lusaka, Zambia medical supplies grant sponsored by the Lee’s Summit Club), and a lot more. Being a primarily volunteer organization allows the Rotary Foundation to have low overhead, but having a small staff allows us to have quality stewardship and expertise to make sure we are being smart with our funding priorities.

If you have not yet had a chance to contribute to the Rotary Foundation in 2024, I’d ask you to consider making a contribution before the end of the year. Whether to the Annual Fund-SHARE (which allows our district to have district grants and global grants sponsored by our clubs), PolioPlus, Disaster Response, or the Endowment Fund, an investment into our Rotary Foundation will ensure that we can do even more great work for years to come. Giving online is an easy option through https://my.rotary.org/, or it is possible to send in a check directly or through your club.

 

It was an honor to get to visit several of the clubs in the Northeast part of the district in November, including Kirksville, Kirksville Thousand Hills, Knox County, and Schuyler County. The amount of Rotary energy and the projects they all take on are impressive. The flags were flying in Kirksville as part of their Veterans Day flag fundraiser, and Baltimore Street just had a different air about it than it otherwise would. I also got to visit Lawson, which recently completed a fire pit in a local park, and Lathrop, which is hosting a community Christmas party to celebrate 82 years of Rotary in Lathrop in December.

I hope that everyone in the District 6040 Rotary family has a happy holiday season, and is able to gather with friends and loved ones to celebrate old traditions and to start new ones.

Erik McGuire
District 6040 Governor 2024-2025
Rotary Club of St. Joseph East