Board Spotlight - Community Service
Posted by Julie Rinaldi (Erwin)
on Dec 11, 2011
Reaching Within to Embrace Humanity
Dublin AM Rotary Community Service
“When we forget ourselves, we usually do something that everyone else remembers.”
-Anonymous
The above quote fits perfectly with the spirit of the community services initiatives the Dublin AM Rotary currently has in place and nicely mirrors this year’s Rotary International theme of “Reach Within to Embrace Humanity.” The goal of the theme of reaching within is to “look within your selves to understand that all of humanity has the same dreams, similar hopes, the same aspirations and similar problems.”
The current projects under our community services umbrella are the following:
Veterans Honor Flight
Literacy
Miracle League
Dublin Food Pantry Toiletries and Taxes
Salvation Army Mobile Canteen/Red Kettle/Adopt-a-Family
Parade Marshaling
All of these projects reach out to members of our community and beyond in some unique way to embrace our collective humanity. “Veterans Flight” honors veterans of foreign conflicts to remind them that their sacrifices for us have not been forgotten. Our literacy efforts reach out to children and adults in a variety of ways to send the consistent message that literacy is a means to improved educational outcomes and lower poverty rates. Miracle League provides an opportunity for children with disabilities to play baseball like their non-disabled peers.
The “Toiletries and Taxes” initiative reaches out to individuals and families in our community who are hungry and hurting by helping the Dublin Food Pantry keep its shelves filled. Our Salvation Army efforts focus on individuals and families in our community who are homeless, hungry and struggling economically. Our parade marshaling efforts are a nice way to honor members of the community for their community service and sacrifices in a fun way.
The following Rotarians are heading up these initiatives on behalf of the Club:
Veterans Flight - Dave Williamson
Literacy - Julie Erwin Rinaldi
Miracle League - Julie Erwin Rinaldi
Dublin Food Pantry Toiletries and Taxes - Sharon Custer
Salvation Army Mobile Canteen/Red Kettle/Adopt-a-Family - Bruce Andrews
Parade Marshaling - Dwight Seeley
All of the efforts noted above require a tremendous amount of volunteer effort from our membership. We would like to take this time to thank all of you who have volunteered throughout the years to ensure that these initiatives are successful. Many times your volunteer efforts are behind the scenes. You have fully and completely accepted the charge to embrace humanity and we could not do any of these things without you.