At our October 21, 2024 Rotary Meeting, Dennis, highlighted October as Economic and Community Development month. He emphasized the importance of Rotary contributions, and shared a story about a Nigerian project that teaches basic skills to students in impoverished areas.
 
Connie introduced our guests, including Lee Sherman, who will speak about the flag, and Walt and Susan Guterbock, Fidalgo Island Rotary, the Assistant Area H Governor.
 
Don Wick introduced our first speaker. Lee Sherman is a Skagit County native. He graduated from Sedro-Wolley High school in 1964, and served 6 years in the Marine Corps Reserve from 1965 to 1971. Lee is active in many organizations, including Masons, American Legion, Eagles, and the Marine Corps League of Skagit County.  He and his wife have been married 53 years today, their anniversary. They have 2 daughters and 2 grandchildren.

Lee presented: The Flag

It is summarized here, see Read More for full text.
The flag, symbolizing unity and purpose, has witnessed significant moments in American history. During WWII, it hung in recruiting offices, inspiring men and women to defend the nation. The flag has seen sacrifices, with many giving their lives for freedom. It has been present at key historical events, from the Revolutionary War to modern conflicts, and remains a symbol of liberty and justice. The flag’s history includes moments such as Paul Revere’s ride, the battles of WWII, and 9/11. It represents the sacrifices of countless Americans and stands as a beacon of hope and freedom.
 
Lee described the symbolism and significance of the American and Canadian flags. It highlights the sacrifices made by military, law enforcement, and firefighters, emphasizing that the flags fly on the breath of those who have died protecting them. The American flag’s colors represent courage, purity, and loyalty, while the Canadian flag’s maple leaf symbolizes unity and sovereignty. The text honors the historical and ongoing contributions of individuals who have defended these symbols of freedom and patriotism.  Click READ MORE at the end for the full text.
 
Lee discussed a WWI hat he inherited from a grandfather.
The Rotary Club of La Conner acknowledged guest speaker Lee Sherman, who, along with other members of the Marine Corps League, participates in Memorial Day ceremonies, including flag presentations, and storytelling at various locations.  Lee shared his passion for history, particularly World War II, and mentioned a memorable encounter with a veteran who was a tail gunner on a B-17 during the war. This veteran had vivid memories and photographs from his missions, illustrating the personal connections and historical significance of their experiences.

PolioPlus

Susan Guterbock spoke briefly about polio, emphasizing the importance of Rotary’s annual campaign, which includes the Annual Fund, the Endowment Fund, and PolioPlus.
She highlighted that World Polio Day is approaching on Thursday, 10/24, making it a timely topic.
Susan shared three key points from a recent meeting:
  1. There are currently 28 cases of wild polio in Pakistan and 22 in Afghanistan.
  2. Over 400 cases of vaccine-derived polio have been reported worldwide, with a notable instance of vaccine-derived polio found in the sewage system in Barcelona, Spain.
  3. Despite these challenges, Rotary remains committed to raising $50 million annually for polio eradication, with contributions matched 2-to-1 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
She encouraged members to continue donating to PolioPlus, emphasizing the significant impact of their contributions in the fight against polio.
 

IPA update

Marty provided an overview of the International Project Alliance (IPA), a collaboration of Rotary clubs in Skagit County and surrounding areas working with the Rotary Club in western Honduras. The IPA focuses on supporting poor Mayan villages, primarily through education and economic development, but also undertakes various other projects such as water, health, and infrastructure improvements.
Key points included:
  • History and Structure: The IPA was founded in 2014 with five clubs and has since expanded. It celebrated its 10th anniversary in September.
  • Projects and Impact: The IPA is active in at least 37 villages, supporting around 2,500 children. Key initiatives include the “Adopt a School” program, which supports kindergartens and elementary schools, and the “Adopt the Dream” program, which provides scholarships and medical care for students.
  • Local Support: The club supports three schools, and has members actively involved in various projects.
  • Contractors and Coordination: The IPA employs two contractors in Honduras, Cynthia Santos and Mauricio Alvarez, who oversee educational and construction projects, respectively.
  • Disaster Response: The IPA has responded to several disasters, including COVID-19 and hurricanes, providing essential support to affected communities.
  • Recognition: Peter Martin, the founder of the IPA, was awarded the Rotary International Service Above Self award in 2022, highlighting the program’s significant impact and recognition at the international level.
Walt Guterbock is very crucial in the administration of the IPA, and has a huge role in overseeing all the construction projects, the rapid development. Marty emphasized the versatility and effectiveness of the IPA in meeting the diverse needs of the villages it supports.
 
The IPA decided to have a mini sort of Paul Harris award among the IPA based on criteria.  They all have supported the IPA either by long-term support of adopted students or by contributing a certain amount of money. Walt and a committee put books together, and Richard Sentner, of the Boundary Club, bought pins with the Honduran and American flags.
La Conner Rotary is probably number one or two in the number of Rotarians who contribute as individuals, in addition to what our club contributes.
 
Several honorees were absent:
Karen Ryan is on her way to Italy.  Christy King is already in Hawaii.   Martin who just had his Oct. 19 birthday, had surgery on his back.  Patsy was not present.
Audrey, Pam, Connie, Connie and Dennis, and Jerry came up.
Marty continued with:
The International Project Alliance (IPA) has grown to include 14 clubs, with Bellingham Bay being the most recent addition. The IPA operates in several counties surrounding Skagit, focusing on economic development through its Rapid Development Program, which has been implemented in 11 villages.
Rapid Development Program:
  • Healthcare Training: Two healthcare practitioners were trained in each village to provide accessible and affordable healthcare.
  • Village Savings and Loans: Villagers were trained in managing savings and loans, which has been highly successful with no defaults on loans.
  • Agricultural Training: Villagers received training on soil preparation and crop diversity, leading to successful home gardens and micro-businesses.
  • Challenges in Business Development: While small stores have thrived, other ventures like chicken and pig farming faced challenges due to disease and financial management issues.
  • Trade School Initiative: Villagers requested trade school training for adults, leading to a pilot program funded by a district grant. Forty-seven adults are being sent to a well-equipped trade school in Santa Rosa, with plans to potentially open a satellite school in Santa Rita.
  • Educational Handbook: In response to villagers’ requests for guidance on education and career planning, Peter and Cynthia wrote a handbook titled “The Root of Life.” This guide helps students navigate educational and career decisions, providing information on scholarships, healthcare, and career planning. Nine hundred copies were distributed in August, with plans for further distribution.
The IPA continues to adapt and meet the needs of the communities it serves, demonstrating its versatility and commitment to impactful development.
 
Adopt a Dream Program: The program currently supports 525 students, but is 78 sponsors short. Members are encouraged to find more sponsors to meet the needs.
  • Sponsorship Options: Individuals can sponsor a student for $200 a year or contribute to the general fund. Some prefer knowing their sponsored student, while others do not.
  • Impact of Visits: Personal visits to Honduras are emphasized as transformative, providing a deeper understanding of the program’s impact.
  • Community Ingenuity: Local women in Honduras create and sell silk flower arrangements, showcasing their resourcefulness and the economic impact of remittances from family members in the U.S.
Very enlightening and educational programs!  Everyone was very engaged.
 
Susan gave us a pitch to tell us that it's important that we donate toward PolioPlus, and there was a note sent to Audrey as the president of the club. How successful has the effort been to eradicate polio because of Rotary support? Nearly 3 billion children have been immunized against polio and are protected for life against this crippling disease. Rotary and our partners reduced the number of wild polio cases from 350,000 in 1988 to 30 in 2022, and 20 million cases of paralysis have been averted through this global effort. The wild polio virus is now endemic in just 2 countries, and we won't stop our effort until we're able to give children a polio-free world.
Learn more and help the Rotary Foundation at endpolio.org.  .
 
Audrey’s closing remarks 
    I have always wondered why somebody didn't do something about that.
   Then I realized I was somebody. - Lily Tomlin.
 
 

 

Full Reading of The Flag

This flag, which we honor, and under which we serve, is an emblem of our unity, our power, our thoughts, and our purpose as a nation.
 
In the early 1940s, as the United States, along with the other Allied nations of the world, was drawn into the Second World War on 2 different fronts, this flag hung in recruiting offices all over our nation. Men and women from all walks of life flocked to it, regardless of which branch of the service they joined. Each and every one of them took an oath to protect and defend it against all enemies foreign or domestic. At that time, these people signed a check - a blank check. It was made out to you, each and every one of you, the citizens of the United States of America, in the amount of their life.
 
If this pike could talk, it would tell you it has seen that check cashed more times than it cares to remember. It has seen the incoming tides in both the Atlantic and the Pacific run red with the blood of our fallen youth. If you're able to read, your thanks and your gratitude, by all means, should go to your teachers. But if you can read English, you might consider thanking a veteran, for you do not salute the ancestry of the Third Reich, nor do you bow to the Rising Sun. Many have given up all of their tomorrows that we could have ours here this evening.
 
31 words.
We all learned them as small children. You've all memorized them to be said at school every day. The question is, how does this piece of cloth come to hold such power? The answer is, the sun never shined on anything more beautiful or of greater worth. It is truly the symbol of our freedom.
 
If it could speak, it would tell you a great deal of its history. It would tell you:
 
I was conceived in the dreams of liberty and the hopes of freedom, designed and made by the hands of Betsy Ross; and her sewing basket became my cradle.
Although I was never an orphan, I was adopted by the Continental Congress in 1777, and it's been with a tremendous amount of both pride and pleasure that I became the national envelope of a newly born nation on this continent desperately fighting for survival, and destined to bring to all of its people the new concept of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, in one form or another.
I have been many places and seen a great deal of our American history.
I saw the signal that started the midnight ride of Paul Revere, and I heard John Paul Jones state when he was asked to surrender: “I have not yet begun to fight”.
I saw Molly Pitcher take the cannon swab from her dead husband's hands, and carry on the fight for freedom.
I rode with Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys, and I was there when George Washington became commander-in-chief.
I felt the biting cold at Valley Forge and brought comfort to the tired and hungry troops of the Continental Army.
I was waiting for the masts of Old Ironsides, and above the decks of the Yankee and China Clippers.
I was there in the twilight at Port McHenry. It inspired Francis Scott Key to write The Star-Spangled Banner, which was to become our national Anthem.
I placed the trail west with Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, and Lewis and Clark.
I was carried through the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, charged up the slopes of San Juan Hill with Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders, and I stayed with the boys in World War I till it was over.
I was with them in the battlefields of France, and saw many of the youth and manhood of our nation fall and lie silent and dead. They had given their last full measure of devotion, and the war was over for them forever.
But I have kept a lonely watch over their graves and stayed to watch the poppies grow row on row between the crosses on Flanders fields.
I was at Pearl Harbor, Berlin, the Battle of the Bulge, the Ardennes, and on the beaches of Anzio, Guam, Guadalcanal, Belleau, the Philippines, Saipan, the Solomons, and Tarawa.
I have been through the Valley of Death on Okinawa, Midway, the Coral Sea.  I was raised by 6 brave men during the Battle of Iwo Jima.
I was on the French coast of Normandy on D-day. As the landing craft approached the beaches, I heard the squad leaders calling out to their troops “30 seconds to the beach. May your God be with you!”
When those ramps came down, they came face to face with a gauntlet of barbed wire, landmines, artillery, and mortar shells dropping everywhere. The German zipper ripped, and the bullets fell like raindrops.
No amount of medical training could have possibly prepared these young medics for the carnage that awaited them on the beaches.
Thousands met the Supreme Architect of their universe that morning without ever knowing the outcome of this war they had been drawn into, or the importance of the sacrifices they had just made.
The future of the free world was decided that day at great cost. Many of these young men had seen their last morning sunrise, and they were never to become grandfathers.
 I sank beneath the waves with poor heroic chaplains, who gave up their life and went down with their ship to honor glory.
I went gloriously above the decks on the battleship Missouri, in Tokyo Bay, on that victorious day, September 2nd, 1945.
I flew proudly over our troops as they fought at the Chosin Reservoir in the frozen mountains of Korea, the steaming jungles of Southeast Asia, where we fought an elusive enemy in an unforgiving terrain.
I was at the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington, DC., and a lonely field in Pennsylvania on that fateful day: 9/11/2001.
I have been to Bosnia, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan.
I am many things to many people. I am the inseparable link in the chain that binds the people of our country because I am the symbol of our great country.
Our enemies would choose to destroy me, but they dare not. I am protected by the mighty land armies of our nation, the powerful and deadly fleet of our navy, the flying fortresses and screaming eagles of our Air Force watching and waiting to swoop down on and destroy anything that might harm me throughout our short history. Whenever danger threatens, millions of Americans have left their homes and families to defend me and the nation for which I stand - many hundreds of thousands never to return.
Yet they are wrapped forever within my folds. Their purity is remembered in my stripes of white. Their blood has given me my stripes of red, their courage embedded in my blue, and their souls are safely cradled within my stars, for I will watch over them forever, for we are truly one nation, under whatever God you choose to believe in.
I drape the caskets of our nation's heroes, borne in their final resting place - the caskets of presidents, generals, admirals, and humble privates.
I proudly guard the tomb of the unknown soldier, and it is I who feel their tears when I am placed in the trembling arms of a grieving parent at the grave of their son or daughter who has made the ultimate sacrifice for your freedom.
Wherever free men gather, wherever there is justice, equality, faith, hope, charity, truth, and brotherly love, there, too, I am a symbol of liberty, the light of humanity, an emblem of man's faith, a beacon shining in the darkness.
May the pages of history never write my obituary, for I am the Stars and Stripes forever! I am Old Glory!
 
A toast to the colors!
Here's to the red of it! There's not a threat of it. No, not a shred of it in all of the spread of it from the foot to the head of it.
Arrows have bled for it, paid steel and lead for it, precious blood shed for it, bathing it red. Here's to the white of it, thrilled by the sight of it.
Who knows the right of it but builds a bite of it through day and night. Women who had cared for it, made manhood dare for it, parities prayer for it, keeps it so white.
Here's to the blue of it, beauteous view of it, Heavenly hue of it, star-spangled dew of it, constant and true.
My name's been blamed for it, state stands supreme for it, liberties being for brightness, the blue.
Hears to the whole of it, stars, stripes, and pole of it, body and soul of it! Oh, and the roll of it! Sun shining through hearts in accord for it, swear by the sword for it, thanking the Lord for it, red, white, and blue.
 
From the true north, strong and free, it is a symbol of unity and sovereignty. Between the bars of red on the field of white, it blazes forth in all of its illuminable glory.
The Canadian maple whose points represent the provinces and territories that comprise the great Dominion.
The red represents the dauntless courage of their forefathers, whom we strive to emulate; the white the blameless purity of life and rectitude upon the actions to which we all aspire.
The points also of the 11 knightly virtues of which the principle one of patriotism is the greatest.
It inspires us in reverence to whom? To all!   We pray God save the King and may the Supreme Architect of the universe shower his blessings upon the maple leaf forever.
 
These flags do not fly with the wind that blows by them.
They fly on the very last breath of every member of our military, law enforcement, and firemen who have died protecting them.