“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
– Abraham Lincoln
Over the many years that I’ve been a member of the ERC I’ve probably heard several hundred presentations at our weekly meetings: local organizations doing good, great projects in other countries, being made aware of issues that face us as Rotarians, requests for help, etc. My guess is that each of us has one or more that struck a chord with us and from which we actually took some action. My actionable presentation was the Stove Team presentation maybe a year ago. It was a remote presentation by a Rotarian talking about seeing villagers in South America in dwellings where the cooking was done inside and everyone in the family inhaled the smoke literally during their entire lifetime 24/7 every day. The incidence of cancer is obviously higher with all people in this situation, but the spinoffs were also bad…deforestation of the area around the village to supply the wood for the cooking fires and by some estimates a 20-40% effect on the current global warming that I’ve never heard mentioned as a variable.
From this presentation Linda and I made the $100 investment in a cooking stove for someone somewhere in the world. Yes, it’s just a drop in a very large bucket [4 BILLION cooking fires in the world every day!] but hopefully it's been a blessing for that one family that received that stove. Each month I get an email from Stove Team International about this amazing initiative that came about because of one Rotarian’s caring attitude and her passion to help very needy people. It’s also been interesting seeing how the original stove has been refined to be more efficient and people are paid to install them in the villages which is truly a win-win.
So, what meeting program struck a chord with you and what are you going to do about it?
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