Welcome to the half-way point in our 2023-24 Rotary Year ‘CREATE HOPE IN THE WORLD’! I celebrate all you are doing to advance the goodness and SPARKLE of Rotary in the World! You are making a valuable difference – Thank You!!

January is also Vocational Service Month in Rotary! Vocational service can mean many things to many people. It is a great time to examine the ethical standards we practice while engaging with the world of business, education, community, political, religious, arts, personal and international relationships. Do we bring our most respectful, impeccable, and integrity-filled words, thoughts, and actions to every encounter?

Vocational service also means appreciating and celebrating the diversity of trades and professions in our modern world and recognizing how each contributes to making our communities stronger. How are we, as Rotarians, leveraging the gifts we possess in our vocations to help our students, young professionals, and local economies flourish? Are we including and inspiring our young leaders? Are we mentoring the next generation? Are we also building hope in jails, institutions, refugee centers, and with the underserved among us? Kids and those reimagining a more radiant future also thrive (and ultimately contribute) from a hand-up! Appreciating the different vocations not only makes our service and fundraising projects richer but we also model possible career choices for our youth. Rotarians started out as networkers. The need for models and mentors is more important than ever today!

Clubs are encouraged to expand their ideal of who the perfect Rotarian is! In my travels I always suggest inviting the CREATIVE CLASS. My work as an artist has found me among these most dynamic innovators. My therapist work with our diverse Veteran population affords deep respect for everyone’s unique take. Artists, musicians, boutique and specialty shop owners, hair stylists, designers of all types, food entrepreneurs, builders, developers, and all the newly emerging industries are today’s MOVERS & SHAKERS! They push the edges of change. The fastest growing Rotary Clubs are attracting bold and brave thinkers and leaders. As Clubs rejuvenate their practices – the how, when, and where they gather, and the projects and passions they pursue, they naturally attract more diverse members. Justice, equity, and opportunity are becoming mainstream ideals describing the desire for selecting causes that lift-up society. Using the unique skills and aptitudes we each possess serves to enrich our communities!

February 4-11, 2024, I’ll be joining one of the world’s largest grassroots, multi-club, multi-district literacy projects in Guatemala! More than 800 Rotary Clubs, and 90 Districts have been working together since 1997 to improve education for underserved students in Guatemala. In that time, more than 278,000 students have been served through four sustainable programs that are tested and proven to work. Past RI President Ian Riseley called the GLP ‘the gold standard’ of Rotary projects for its sustainability and impact. Rotary affords lots of opportunities to observe, learn, and hopefully replicate projects like this back home! Literacy obliterates poverty and generates economic prosperity faster than anything else.

Thank you for sharing your gifts, talents, treasures, and unstoppable belief in up-lifting the world through Rotary!

Sharalyn Davis

District Governor ’23-24

Union City Rotary

sharalyndavis@gmail.com

616-719-7286

Live the Heart of Rotary through the ARTS!

Until 1989, the Constitution and Bylaws of Rotary International stated that Rotary club membership was for males only. In 1978 the Rotary Club of Duarte, California, invited three women to become members. The RI board withdrew the charter of that club for violation of the RI Constitution. The club brought suit against RI claiming a violation of a state civil rights law which prevents discrimination of any form in business establishments or public accommodations. The appeals court and the California Supreme Court supported the Duarte position that Rotary could not remove the club's charter merely for inducting women into the club. The United States Supreme Court upheld the California court indicating that Rotary clubs do have a "business purpose" and are in some ways public-type organizations. This action in 1987 allowed women to become Rotarians in any jurisdiction having similar "public accommodation" statutes. 

The RI constitutional change was made at the 1989 Council on Legislation, with a vote to eliminate the "male only" provision for all of Rotary.  

Every year, the Rotary District Foundation Conducts a Raffle to help fund its core objectives. This year, our District Rotarians really stepped up with record sales for these tickets! The raffle drawing happened on October 24 at the Annual District Foundation Recognition Dinner. The grand prize winner received $1,000. Charles Solano (photo, center), is a newer member of the Cereal City Rotary Club. He is the owner of 5 Biggby franchises in the greater Battle Creek area. He is a very generous Rotarian and furnishes Biggby Coffee for each week’s meeting; guest speakers receive a Biggby gift card. As soon as Charles received his check, he said that he would donate half of the check, $500, back to the Club for their fundraisers!

Pictured, from left, are Jacque Jennings-Carter, Rotary Club of Battle Creek, presenting the check on behalf of the District 6360 Rotary Foundation and the Foundation’s Raffle Committee; Raffle Grand Prize Winner and Cereal City Club Member, Charles Solano; and The Honorable John A. Hallacy, R-85, and current Cereal City Club President.

Congratulations Charles! And many thanks to all of the clubs who worked hard to sell raffle tickets this year!

To Jim Sullivan, the Rotary Mission Statement is much more than something to memorize and recite at Rotary meetings. It is something you live. The mission statement reads:

Together, we see a world where people unite and take action to create lasting change across the globe in our communities and in ourselves.

Rotarian Sullivan did just that when he made a lasting change by donating a kidney to his lifelong friend Erin Dwyer. Sullivan’s actions literally saved Dwyer’s life. And, it was a life-changing experience for Sullivan, who had just lost his own son just weeks before the transplant surgery was to take place.

The surgury was delayed, but the desire to help remained. “As I began to put the pieces back together, I’m thinking of my friend, who is now indeterminately tied to dialysis,” Sullivan said. “I decided, I’m not going to let my friend die.”

Surgery was scheduled for May, 2022 but was delayed once again when Dwyer was diagnosed with a severe infection, which he fought for nearly eight months. The surgery was pushed back again, this time for a year.

Meanwhile, Rotarian Sullivan persevered. He worked to prepare himself for the transplant surgery by losing weight, quitting drinking, and making adjustments to his medications. And yet, in March, he was told he was no longer eligible. “I turned to my wife and said, ‘I don’t give a crap, I’m going to get eligible someplace else.”

Finally, on August 2, Sullivan — then 68 years old — had his kidney removed. It was then airlifted to Tampa, Florida where it was inserted into Dwyer. The transplant was successful and was functioning normally — a godsend for Dwyer.

In Rotary, we often recite our motto, Service Above Self, but Rotarian Jim Sullivan did so much more by putting it into practice with his selfless action to save a friend’s life.

Jill Anderson is a very outgoing and social person — excellent qualities for the Battle Creek Rotary Club’s President. And that’s just what Anderson was in May of 2023 when she struck up a conversation with Jennifer Nkansah at a party and learned that Jennifer’s husband, Maxwell was in desperate need of a kidney transplant. While most people would have found that to be interesting and moved on, to Anderson it was much more. It was an opportunity to demonstrate that you not only believed in, but lived the Rotary International motto, “Service Above Self”.

Anderson grew up in a Rotary family at a time when she says she benefited from significant white privilege. Her father Larry Anderson, was a long-time Rotarian who instilled in her an ethos to help others whenever she could. He was a frequent blood donor and encouraged Jill to sign on to be an organ donor. She designated her organs for donation on her driver’s license. Something that would happen when she passed away. She thought.

Anderson’s chance meeting with Jennifer Nkansah changed everything. “I have always been concerned about those who don’t have the many opportunities I had while growing up. This looked like a chance to help,” says Anderson. Nkansah said that her doctor told her to start talking about her husband’s situation everywhere she went if she had any hope of finding a donor. She got lucky when she found Jill — a person who was willing to at least to be tested for compatibility.

It turns out that Jill and Maxwell were the same blood type, and were, in fact compatible.This led to initial meetings with Maxwell Nkansah’s surgical team, which included a surgeon, a nephrologist, and a social worker. Next came a series of tests to determine if Jill would be a good match. It turns out they were. 

And so the testing began “It was easy at first, but then became increasingly challenging,” explained Anderson. All testing took place at the University of Michigan Medical Center, which was about a two hour drive for Anderson. There were four series of tests done over a period of four months. “During that time I was off work and we did not get support for travel and expenses from any organization, but I must say the members of my Rotary Club had my back and supported me in so many ways. Since I was club president at the time, they had to jump in and help with our regular club meetings to make sure things ran smoothly. They even kept our club on track as we went through the Visioning process with District 6360.

After the surgery, I was unable to go to work or drive for eight weeks, which was obviously difficult for us. Four weeks after the operation I am still experiencing some dizziness and incision pain.

Maxwell is doing well following the surgery. Many people would be surprised to learn that although Jill and Maxwell were compatible, Maxwell was black and Jill was white. “I had very little exposure to people of color growing up, however, my work for the Kellogg Foundation on Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation changed the way I think about community.” A lot of her grant-writing work is based on equity and inclusion — bringing funds to people who are disadvantaged. “It changed where I spend my money. For example, when possible I try to patronize BIPOC^[1] businesses.

While Jill’s experience was trying at times due to the inability to work and resulting loss of income — she is extremely happy she made the decision to give one of her kidneys to help Maxwell. She not only saved his life, but made life better for his whole family. The stress of wondering if a kidney donor would be found in time was over, and they are now able to resume a normal life. 

To Jill, it’s not only an example of how she lives the Rotary motto of Service Above Self, but demonstrates how she shares Rotary International’s vision: Together we see a world where people unite and take action to create lasting change — in our communities, across the globe and in ourselves. Jill is an inspiration to everyone who knows her and her story.

^[1] Black indigenous people of color.

District Foundation Corner

For general questions about your District 6360 Foundation and how it can help your Club, please contact Foundation President

 Gary Campbell, campbellgary929@gmail.com

Any correspondence should be sent c/o Rotary District 6360

to 741 Wolverine Road, Mason, MI, 48854

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