It’s been a whirlwind trip for Tim Schilds and it isn’t over yet.
The governor of Rotary District 5370 and his wife Sally have been travelling to the 60 clubs under his leadership – from North Battleford, Sask., to Fort Nelson, B.C., and from Wetaskiwin to Yellowknife – stopping in to meet with members of six clubs this week alone.
That included the two clubs in this city: the Saint City Rotary Club and the Rotary Club of St. Albert. During the visits, he has been learning about and offering his support to each club and all of the good community work that they do, trumpeting the call for the upcoming four-day district conference in Dawson Creek, B.C., and promoting Rotary International’s worldwide projects.
One such project is the Stop Hunger Now movement to end poverty in our lifetime.
“It’s a way to get communities and Rotary Clubs involved internationally,” he said.
Their work with that effort will be one of the highlights of that conference. He and many of the 500-plus attendees will collaborate on a major food preparation event to put together packages of rice, soybeans, lentils, dried vegetables, and vitamins to be distributed to people in more than 60 countries.
The goal is to compile more than 285,000 meals, which will likely be delivered next month. Each 385g package is food enough for six people.
“The bulk of the meals are distributed through schools. For those schoolchildren, it’s probably the only meal they will get that day, and the only reason that they’re at school.”
That’s the perfect place, he continued. “The only way we really get rid of poverty is by education.”
A future food preparation event is being planned for St. Albert in the spring.
District 5370’s goal is to put together one million such meal packages over the course of the year.
He, like so many other Rotarians, doesn’t balk at the notion of such colossal projects. For 30 years, Rotary International has been involved in the extended effort to eradicate polio. Back in 1985, he noted, the disease had more than 350,000 new cases but now there are less than 40. Polio Type II has been eradicated thanks to the clubs’ help.
To accomplish that, the international organization had to fundraise $1.3 billion and offer up an unimaginable number of volunteer hours to vaccinate more than 2.5 billion children across 122 countries. It has also advocated the cause, prompting world governments to contribute a further $9 billion.
The work never stops, Schilds said, especially since a resurgence is “only a plane ride away,” Sally said, since someone on holidays could contract the disease and bring it back with them. This still poses a threat, as many people don’t get reimmunized before they catch their flights out.
Not all of that work is as daunting or as impersonal as fundraising billions of dollars though. The couple has also hosted 14 exchange students, some of whom have since gone on to be productive members of society. “We now have four exchange grandchildren … and we’ve been to four weddings in four different countries.”
He said that there is no end to the ways that Rotarians can offer themselves to improve the world. It’s almost a guilty pleasure, he confessed, because of what you get out of giving. He takes pride in all of Rotary’s good work from local parks and playgrounds to projects like the Atsikana Pa Ulendo School for Girls in Malawi with its 100 per cent pass rate, an unheard of accomplishment in that country.
“I think you’ll find with Rotary that we tend to take on a lot of things. Stop Hunger Now was just one more way to allow communities to be involved at a higher level and allow Rotary clubs to have a project that brings the communities together to make a difference.”
