“Be thankful for what you have. Your life, no matter how bad you think it is, is someone else's fairy tale.”
– Wayne Ayeni
So, how big is Rotary? Yes, we all know that there are 35,000 clubs and 1.2 million members worldwide, but, so what…how does that help me as a member in Emmaus, PA? Well, here are two examples – a few years ago I was on a quest to finally sort out the Waddell family genealogy which is strongly Scots-Irish. We had a trip planned to Ireland and County Down was where I believed Waddell ancestors had lived so I used the Club Locator function, found clubs in the County Down area, emailed all the club presidents with Waddell related questions and got several nice emails back and lots of invitations to join them for their meetings if the timing worked [unfortunately, it didn’t] but no related Waddells.
The other example is a bit more personal. As you know our daughter, Jennifer, lives in Barcelona, Spain. She owns a very nice apartment but decided she wanted a “side hustle” so she bought a 4 bedroom apartment about 2 hours north of Barcelona and close to the French border. She wants to rent it out to local hikers because of trails in the area but it needs some work. When we talked, I suggested finding a Rotarian in the area. So, once again I went onto the Club Locator, found the club President closest to her property, emailed him [Josep Navio ] and got a very nice response that led to them meeting last week and his very gracious offer to help her. It was just dumb luck that he is in the contracting business and knows all the contractors in the area! However, what impressed Jen and me most was that there was no hesitation about helping a Rotarian’s child even though we have never met even though I will certainly make that happen when we visit in the future.
This true, unconditional Service Above Self is something special that not everyone can embrace which is why it is so important to bring those people into Rotary when we do find them at work, school, church, or in other organizations. Remember, we are all Finders so keep looking and Finding those good people who will help our Club and Rotary worldwide.