Rotary helps others, promotes goodwill

SERVICE CLUB SALUTE––At a recent Rotary Club of Conejo Valley Centennial celebration, president Noosheen Yazdi, right, accepts the Paul Harris Award from Samuel Greene, Rotary International membership and development vice chair. What is Rotary and what do Rotarians do?

According to Manny Fernandez, president of the Calabasas/Agoura Hills Rotary club, the organization helps people in need, promotes goodwill and fellowship, and tries to make the world a better place in which to live.

About 1.2 million Rotarians belong to more than 31,000 clubs in 166 countries.

The Rotary motto is “Service above self.”

“We focus on the Calabasas area, as we are a smaller club,” Fernandez said. “Our main services are to youth and elderly.”

For Halloween, Fernandez’s club supplied 150 pumpkins to poor families so their children could carve pumpkins. For Thanksgiving, the club served 450 seniors a holiday luncheon at the Sagebrush Cantina.

“We offer scholarships to students attending the West Valley Occupational Center and we also help support an orphanage in Tecate, Mexico,” said Fernandez, a dentist. “Every 18 months or so we arrange a mobile dental clinic to visit the kids.”

The world’s Rotary clubs meet weekly and are nonpolitical, nonreligious and open to all cultures, races and creeds. Both men and women are members.

Rotarians develop community service projects that address many of today’s most critical issues, such as children at risk, poverty and hunger, the environment, illiteracy and violence. Rotarians also support programs for youth, educational opportunities and international exchanges for students, teachers and other professionals, and vocational and career development.

Proud past

Since 1947, the Rotary Foundation has awarded more than $1.1 billion in humanitarian and educational grants, which are initiated and administered by local Rotary clubs and districts.

The Rotary Club of Chicago, Ill. was the world’s first service club, according to Rotary International. Paul P. Harris, an attorney, formed the club on Feb. 23, 1905 in the hope of recapturing the same friendly spirit he had felt in the small towns of his youth. The name “Rotary” derives from the early practice of rotating meetings among members’ offices.

Rotary’s popularity spread throughout the U.S. between 1910 and 1920. By 1921, Rotary clubs had been formed on six continents, and the organization adopted the name Rotary International a year later.

During and after World War II, Rotarians became increasingly involved in promoting international understanding. In 1945, 49 Rotary members served in 29 delegations to the United Nations Charter Conference. Rotary still actively participates in United Nations conferences by sending observers to major meetings and promoting the United Nations in Rotary publications.

Rotary International’s relationship with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) dates back to a 1943 London Rotary conference that promoted international, cultural and educational exchanges. Attended by ministers of education and observers from around the world and chaired by a past president of Rotary International, the conference was an impetus to the establishment of UNESCO in 1946. In 1985, Rotary made a historic commitment to immunize all of the world’s children against polio. Rotary is the largest private-sector contributor to the global polio eradication campaign. Rotarians have mobilized hundreds of thousands of PolioPlus volunteers and have immunized more than 1 billion children worldwide.

Rotary International admitted women for the first time in 1989 and today claims more than 145,000 females among its ranks. Although some allmale groups don’t respond well to the idea of allowing women to join, the Calabasas/ Agoura Hills club, according to Fernandez, had no problem with the change.

Fernandez said Rotarian dues vary from club to club. He said weekly meetings at his club are about an hour and a half during lunch, and that members spend several more hours each month working on special projects.

Reaching out

The Rotary Club of Moorpark’s major efforts include the production of one of the largest annual Civil War reenactments in California and an invitational golf tournament. According to the club, one of the most interesting and unusual past projects was the construction and operation of an outdoor, over twoacre Monster Maze, which members built mostly from used garage doors.

The maze amused and astonished thousands of people from Moorpark and the surrounding communities who came to explore it during the 1998 and 1999 Halloween seasons. The events raised funds to benefit the Moorpark Boys & Girls Club, Moorpark Unified School District programs and other worthy causes.

The Rotary Club of Simi Valley was chartered on Halloween, 1962. The Rotary Club of Moorpark sponsored the Simi chapter. Simi in turn sponsored two other clubs: the Rotary Club of Rancho Simi (no longer in existence) and the Rotary Club of Simi Sunrise, now one of the strongest and most active clubs in its district.

The Rotary Club of Simi Valley has been ranked No. 2 in its district (a district of 71 clubs) during the past five years.

The club has also been recognized numerous times with district and international awards for distinguished achievements in service.

The Rotary Club of Conejo Valley was established over 25 years ago. The club provides a wide scope of communityand international-based services and welcomes all visiting Rotarians and interested guests. The club and the Centennial Car Show recently made a $7,300 donation to the Westminster Free Clinic, which is a grassroots healthcare provider that serves East Ventura County.

The Rotary Club of Conejo Valley Centennial is the newest Rotary club in the area. It was founded in September and consists of 22 Iranian-American members, according to club secretary Faye Miran. It’s the second of two Iranian-American Rotary clubs in Rotary International, Miran said.