Patients in acute care beds, outpatients, residents in long term care residents, staff, auxiliary volunteers and visitors in the "community" of the Delta Hospital and Mountain View Manor and those at Irene Thomas Hospice next door are getting a lift from the Christmas lights and decorations now brightening up the main entrance, in the Healing Garden at the hospital's central courtyard and inside and outside the extended care residence. Thanks to a team of 16 Rotary Club of Ladner members, including a team from Pure Sunfarms, took the morning of November 23 for this community service project. -- photos by Chris Offer and Peter Roaf
A convoy of nearly 40 ambulances wound its way from Slovakia, around mountains and through roadblocks, military checkpoints, and torrential rain to arrive in Kyiv, bringing the critically needed vehicles to Ukrainian government officials.
Rotary is responding to the crisis in Ukraine.
The US$600,000 initiative was the first joint project between Rotary and Ukraine Friends, which agreed in July to collaborate to provide resources, organize logistics, and distribute funds for high-impact projects that help Ukrainians affected by the war with Russia. Each organization donated US$300,000 to get the ambulances, and Rotary districts in Ukraine and Slovakia coordinated the delivery. Rotary's funding came from a Rotary Foundation disaster response grant. Read More
The 22 polio cases reported in the world so far this year in only two remaining countries signals that the end of the lifetime debilitating and sometimes fatal disease is approaching. That is a huge global achievement over the past 36 years. When Rotary International launched the campaign to rid the world of polio in 1986 in The Philippines there were 300,000 or more cases in 120 countries. Since then health authorities, foundations and governments have joined Rotary in this massive effort to rid the world of polio with medical and scientific knowledge, billions of dollars and millions of paid and volunteer workers such as Rotarians.
Part of that effort now, estimated to require another US$5 billion, is not only to make the two remaining countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan, polio free, but ensure it does not return. Ensuring children under 5 years receive the vaccine in remote communities is still a big challenge, but so is the process of validating that results being reported are accurate and precautions are taken. Ridding the world is within reach after decades of effort, but it is still a complex and expensive challenge which Rotarians are encouraged to support.
Canada flags to honour Remembrance Day for a week have gone up around the Ladner community thanks to 10 Rotarians who erected them. The project jointly administered with Tsawwassen Rotary in that community, provides homeowners and business owners the opportunity to recognize around Remembrance Day on November 11th the past sacrifices of those killed and wounded in world wars. Revenue from the flags rented now and around Canada Day will go towards community service projects such as a hand up with food for those families in need and planting of trees in the Ladner area.
After two years of suspension due to the pandemic, the Ladner Remembrance Day parade and cenotaph ceremony happened on November 11, 2022 to honour those who lost life and limb for the liberty and sense of freedom we enjoy today, over 100 years and more later, still under threat today -- Lest We Forget. Rotarians in Ladner and Tsawwassen participated in the ceremony.
Among the 600,000 who served in the Canadian military during World War I, several thousand were Ukranian immigrants or of Ukrainian heritage. Among those were the grandfather of Wayne Gretzky and grandfather of Delta military historian Peter Broznitsky, seen here at the war memorial cenotaph in Ladner. At the outset of war in August 1914, however, the Canadian government quickly enacted the federal War Measures Act (WMA). The Act’s sweeping powers permitted the government to suspend or limit civil liberties in the interest of Canada’s protection, including the right to incarcerate “enemy aliens” including many Ukrainian immigrants and those of Ukrainian heritage.
BC and Alberta Guide Dogs is a non-profit charitable society, based in Ladner, which breeds, raises and professionally trains Guide Dogs for individuals who are blind or visually impaired, Autism Support Dogs, for children 3 to 10 years and their families, and Service Dogs for veterans, first responders and RCMP members suffering from Operational Stress Injury or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, all at no cost to the client. Each fully trained guide dog or service dog enables each client to live a fulfilling and productive life.
Recruiting & retaining appropriately skilled workers is the top concern of businesses in Delta, according to Jill McKnight, Executive Director of the Delta Chamber of Commerce. Speaking at Ladner Rotary on November 22, 2022, Jill also advised: for every $10 you spend locally $6.10 recirculates in our community. For instance, Delta's 730+ retail businesses employ more than 18,300 people, and businesses pay 46% of the property taxes that fund services in our city.
What injustice keeps you awake at night? What really bothers you and makes you say, "I want to do something about that"? What wrong do you see in society that you want to make right? Is it in your local community? Is it elsewhere in the world? What is the cause that you care deeply about? Connect your cash to a cause, your money to a movement, your profits to a purpose. That is what changes everything. That is the Generosity Purpose.
What’s your Generosity Purpose? Is it helping abolish sex trafficking? Helping your city’s homeless population? Or is it more personal, like funding your children’s college tuition or paying for the piano lessons your granddaughter has always wanted to take? It’s not about you, but about someone or something that you believe can do more good and leave an impact on the world. After all, the Me Show will one day get canceled. The We Show always gets high ratings and airs longer.
-- excerpt from "Good Money Revolution: How to Make More Money to Do More Good," by Derrick Kinney, Rotary Club of Arlington, Texas
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