I spent this last weekend at the Rotary District 5030 (http://www.rotary5030.org/) annual conference in Victoria, B.C. Canada. Many of the 55 clubs were represented. Having been in Rotary in the same Bellevue Club for almost 33 years, this was only my 2nd district conference. The last one I went to was in the first year I joined Rotary. I was asked to speak to the attendees as I was the youngest member in the district.

On Friday my father-in-law, Don Kraft, spoke about the first 100 years of Seattle #4 Rotary Centennial, (http://www.seattlerotary.org/) which he was chairman of. It was a proud moment for Karen and I to be there to hear his presentation. The motto of Rotary International (http://www.rotary.org/) is Service Above Self. Don pointed out that it was Seattle Rotary that was responsible for the motto to be changed to the current motto. He talked about how Seattle #4 established the Seattle Central Area Boys & Girls Club, Medic One, and for their centennial project, raised over $4 million for the Family Services Rotary Support Center for Families (http://www.family-services.org/), to name a few.

There were many inspirational presentations including the Rotary Polio Plus effort to eradicate polio from the planet, Rotary First Harvest (http://www.firstharvest.org/), the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club’s Foster Kid program (http://www.bbrc.net/ and http://www.adoptionawareness.org/), and many others.

Special to me was the presentation my friend Rob Rose made. Rob has spent endless hours since 1997 working on kid’s projects in Nepal with his wife Gina, and now with son Carey’s involvement, Rob has leveraged hundreds of thousand of Rotary Foundation dollars to help orphans and kids that are, as Rob puts it “Differently-Abled”. The Rose’s have done amazing things to help kids in Nepal. And I am so proud of Rob for what he’s done from his home based Bellevue Rotary Club. Visit his website at http://www.trifc.org/ to learn more and support his work. And, he was awarded the Rotary District 5030 Rotarian of the Year. So, yes, I'm very proud of the role model Rob provides.



In my last blog I mentioned my involvement in the Rotary summer youth exchange program. At the conference there were 11 students from various countries who talked about their experience in the yearlong exchange www.rotary.org/en/StudentsAndYouth/YouthPrograms/RotaryYouthExchange program. It's always great to see how they grow and gain confidence in themselves when the speak. Besides the foreign students there were Group Study Exchange www.rotary.org/en/serviceandfellowship/Fellowship/GroupStudyexchange/ members from India and France who talked about their experiences and countries. What a great way to learn about the world!

There’s a lot more I could talk about, but enough for now. For you who want to learn more about how you can give back through Rotary, feel free to contact me.

Until next time,

Stu