2020-12 December

Telehealth: The doctor will see you now page 14 Elaine Hernandez: The heart of Texas page 30 December 2020 A little help here? The sad truth about altruism is that there aren’t enough altruists page 44

ROTARY RESPONDS Now is the time to share our stories as people of action. Let’s show the world that no matter the circumstances, Rotary clubs are connecting to make a difference. Visit rotary.org/brandcenter to download and share Rotary’s latest PSA video today.

A s i look back on 2020, I reflect on how I was president of my club when COVID-19 hit, and PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE our lives have changed. The global many members didn’t yet have Zoom. Only 10 of our 53 COVID-19 pandemic brought pain and members participated in the first Zoom meeting during loss to many of us. And for almost all of the pandemic. I thought that reaching out and getting guest speakers from around the world to engage our us, our daily lives, family time, and work members would help. Many Rotary leaders, a Rotary Peace Fellow, and even RI President Holger Knaack vis- also changed this year. But we’ve made it to the end of ited virtually and spoke to our club. Meeting attendance improved, while we reduced running costs by cutting out this difficult year, not on our own but by reaching out meals. Some members who worked outside our city and had missed our meetings even rejoined us. Registering to one another, as we always do in Rotary. With each our online meetings on My Rotary enhanced contacts with clubs across the world, and the joint meeting ad- passing year, I become prouder of our organization. dressed by Holger attracted more than 300 visitors. We also raised more funds as members and visitors contrib- I will choose to remember 2020 as a year of great uted to our projects. To continue being flexible for all, we are now offering hybrid meetings. For me, 2020 has change and strength for us; Rotary didn’t stop, de- been the best year in Rotary as I’ve made many new friends. — Blessing Michael, Rotary Club of Port Har- spite the pandemic. We removed obstacles, found new court North, Nigeria ways to connect, and embraced new approaches to These stories should give us all reasons to be opti- mistic about Rotary in the year ahead. We are not just service, such as online projects and virtual fundrais- surviving; we are gaining strength. We are discovering how resilient our organization truly is. We are seeing ing. I have invited two Rotarians to share their stories for ourselves how Rotary Opens Opportunities — even during pandemics — to grow, connect, and engage our about how Rotary grew stronger this year. members and the communities we serve. Samuel Zuder When the pandemic shut everything down, our emerg- From our home in Ratzeburg to yours, Susanne and Liza Larson ing e-club was already providing digital service, including I would like to bid you and your family the warmest of Rotary E-Club Engage internationally. Fourteen U.S. women and I, members of season’s greetings. We can’t wait to see the good things and Rotary Club of multiple Rotary clubs, were using WhatsApp to mentor that 2021 will bring. Plano East, Texas women entrepreneurs in rural Costa Rica, helping them to grow their ecotourism business, RETUS Tours [the subject HOLGER KNAACK Blessing Michael of the magazine’s May cover story, “Nature & Nurture”]. Rotary Club of Port The project has grown, with 30 Rotarians now providing President, Rotary International Harcourt North, Nigeria consulting and help with the RETUS website and social media. Most importantly,  we continue building relation- ships and empowering these women to transform their own lives, and we are doing it online. I’ve even helped one of the women, Rosa, prepare a presentation in English for an on- line international conference. While our engagement with the Costa Rican women still requires some hands-on activ- ity, the most transformative impacts haven’t had to be in person. — Liza Larson, Rotary E-Club Engage and Rotary Club of Plano East, Texas DECEMBER 2020  ROTARY  1

2  ROTARY  DECEMBER 2020

WELCOME YOU ARE HERE: Columbia, Tennessee THE CITY: Forty-five miles south of Nashville, the city of Columbia prides itself on its historic downtown, which boasts restaurants, shops, art galleries, and a lively music scene. THE CLUBS: Columbia is home to the Rotary Club of Columbia, which meets at noon Thursdays, and the Rotary Club of Columbia Breakfast, which meets Friday mornings at 7. THE TREE: For years, the Rotary Club of Columbia Breakfast put up a 12- or 15-foot Christmas tree at the county courthouse, but members eventually decided that wasn’t impressive enough. In recent years, the club, working with local businesses, has raised money to install big, dramatic trees, like this specimen from 2019. THE PHOTOGRAPHER: Ross Jaynes, Rotary Club of Columbia Breakfast DECEMBER 2020  ROTARY  3

ROTARY GENERAL OFFICERS OF ROTARY TRUSTEES OF THE ROTARY INTERNATIONAL, 2020–21 FOUNDATION, 2020–21 December 2020 PRESIDENT CHAIR EDITOR IN CHIEF COPY EDITOR Holger Knaack K.R. Ravindran John Rezek Nancy Watkins Herzogtum Lauenburg- Colombo, Sri Lanka Mölln, Germany ART DIRECTOR CONTRIBUTING EDITOR CHAIR-ELECT Jennifer Moody Vanessa Glavinskas PRESIDENT-ELECT John F. Germ Shekhar Mehta Chattanooga, MANAGING EDITOR PRODUCTION MANAGER Calcutta-Mahanagar, India Tennessee, USA Jenny Llakmani Marc Dukes VICE PRESIDENT VICE CHAIR SENIOR EDITOR DESIGN AND PRODUCTION Johrita Solari Michael F. Webb Geoffrey Johnson ASSISTANT Anaheim, California, USA Mendip, England Joe Cane SENIOR EDITOR TREASURER TRUSTEES Hank Sartin SENIOR EDITORIAL Bharat S. Pandya Jorge Aufranc COORDINATOR Borivli, India Guatemala Sur, Guatemala SENIOR STAFF WRITER Cynthia Edbrooke Diana Schoberg DIRECTORS Brenda Cressey CIRCULATION MANAGER Tony (James Paso Robles, ASSOCIATE EDITOR Katie McCoy Anthony) Black California, USA John M. Cunningham Dunoon, Scotland Hipólito Sérgio Ferreira Send ad inquiries and materials to: Marc Dukes, Mário César Martins de Contagem-Cidade Rotary magazine, One Rotary Center, 1560 Sherman Camargo Industrial, Brazil Ave., 14th floor, Evanston, IL 60201; phone 847-866- Santo André, Brazil 3092; email [email protected] Per Høyen Virpi Honkala Aarup, Denmark Media kit: rotary.org/mediakit Raahe, Finland Jennifer E. Jones To contact us: Rotary magazine, One Rotary Suzi (Susan C.) Howe Windsor-Roseland, Center, 1560 Sherman Ave., Evanston, IL 60201; Space Center (Houston), Ontario, Canada phone 847-866-3206; email [email protected] Texas, USA Hsiu-Ming Lin Website: rotary.org/magazines Jan Lucas Ket Taipei Tungteh, Taiwan Purmerend, The Netherlands To submit an article: Send stories, queries, tips, and Geeta K. Manek photographs by mail or email (high-resolution digital Kyun Kim Muthaiga, Kenya images only). We assume no responsibility Busan-Dongrae, Korea for unsolicited materials. Aziz Memon Aikaterini Kotsali- Karachi, Pakistan To subscribe: Twelve issues at US$12 a year (USA, Papadimitriou Puerto Rico, and U.S. Virgin Islands); $16 a year Pendeli, Greece Barry Rassin (Canada); $24 a year (elsewhere). Contact the East Nassau, Bahamas Circulation Department (phone 847-424-5217 or -5216; Peter R. Kyle email [email protected]) for details and for airmail Capitol Hill (Washington, Ian H.S. Riseley rates. Gift subscriptions available at the same rates. D.C.), District of Columbia, Sandringham, Australia USA To send an address change: Enclose old address Gulam A. Vahanvaty label, postal code, and Rotary club, and send to the Floyd A. Lancia Bombay, India Circulation Department or email [email protected]. Anthony Wayne (Fort Postmaster: Send all address changes to Circulation Wayne), Indiana, USA Sangkoo Yun Department, Rotary magazine, One Rotary Center, Sae Hanyang, Korea 1560 Sherman Ave., Evanston, IL 60201. Roger Lhors Pont-Audemer, France GENERAL SECRETARY Call the Contact Center: USA, Canada, and John P. Hewko Virgin Islands (toll-free) 866-976-8279. Elsewhere: Chi-Tien Liu Kyiv, Ukraine 847-866-3000, ext. 8999. Yangmei, Taiwan Unless otherwise noted: All images are Kamal Sanghvi copyright ©2020 by Rotary International or are used Dhanbad, India with permission. Katsuhiko Tatsuno Published monthly by Rotary International, 1560 Sherman Ave., Evanston, Tokyo-West, Japan IL 60201. Rotary® is a registered trademark of Rotary International. Copyright ©2020 by Rotary International. All rights reserved. Periodicals Stephanie A. Urchick postage paid at Evanston, Illinois, USA, and additional mailing offices. McMurray, Canada Publications Mail Agreement No. 1381644. Canadian return ad- Pennsylvania, USA dress: MSI, PO Box 2600, Mississauga, ON L4T 0A8. This is the December 2020 issue, volume 199, number 6, of Rotary. Publication number: Valarie K. Wafer USPS 548-810. ISSN 2694-443X (print); ISSN 2694-4448 (online). Collingwood-South Georgian Bay, Ontario, Canada GENERAL SECRETARY John P. Hewko Kyiv, Ukraine 4  ROTARY  DECEMBER 2020

GIVE US YOUR BEST SHOT The Rotary magazine photo awards let you share your vision with Rotary members around the world. Enter for the chance to see your work published: The 2021 photo awards are open for submissions through 15 December 2020. For details go to on.rotary.org/photo2021. magazine 2020 submissions, from top: EUNJU YANG / ANTHONY RIGGIO / MAUREEN McGETTIGAN

CONTENT December 2020 Vol. 199, No. 6 Cover John Davidson FEATURES 1  President’s message illustration 2 Welcome by Sébastien 30 Network anchor Thibault CONNECT Texas’ Elaine Hernandez is no lone 6  ROTARY  DECEMBER 2020 star; she works her deep community 8  Editor’s note/Letters to the editor connections to tackle tough problems 11  The specialist By Vanessa Glavinskas Champion weightlifter Márcia Menezes Photography by John Davidson 12  What would you do? 38 Words to live by OUR WORLD We’ve put together a selection of recently published books on everything 14 Remote possibilities from the joys of swimming to the model societies of naked mole rats Telemedicine is expanding the reach of health care By Frank Bures 17 Profile 44 Wanted: Good Samaritans One week of volunteering led Robert The sad truth about altruism is that there Miller to a new family and a new career aren’t enough altruists 18 Rotary projects around the globe By Joe Queenan 20 Heavy rotation Illustrations by Sébastien Thibault If you think metal music and Rotary 30 don’t mix, think again 23 Good, and good for you The built-in bonus that comes with helping others 24 Essay If at first you don’t succeed, you’re just like Kurt Vonnegut and Jeff Bezos OUR CLUBS 52 Virtual visit Rotary Club of Barrow (Nuvuk), Alaska 54 Four questions The importance of Rotary’s brand 55 A tribute to Past RI President Mateo A.T. Caparas 57 Calendar 58 Handbook How to organize a food drive 60 Trustee chair’s message 61 Taipei convention/Crossword 62 In brief/In memoriam 64 Found Club members bond over scotch

Rotary members in many places hold collection drives to help people, particularly families with children, get the food they need. 58 The doctor on call I n rural nepal, it can take a day’s walk to reach a medical provider. That limited access to doctors inspired Prakash Paudyal, a pul- monologist in Kathmandu, to offer teleconsultations so he could assist more patients. “You can have a hospital in a rural area, but who is going to treat the patient?” he wonders, citing the lack of critical care doctors and other specialists in those remote regions. With support from his club — the Rotary Club of Jawalakhel — Paudyal started a hotline that offers free medical advice for people seeking basic care. It has proven invaluable during the pandemic, which has taxed Nepal’s health system. “At the COVID-19 hos- pitals, the ICUs are almost full,” Paudyal says. He also helped found the newly chartered Rotary Club of Kathmandu Health Profession- als; his wife, Kavita, who works for Nepal’s Ministry of Finance, is its first president. — vanessa glavinskas Turn to page 14 to learn how Rotarians are bringing telemedicine to remote communities around the world. DECEMBER 2020  ROTARY  7 Alyce Henson/Rotary International Illustration by Viktor Miller Gausa

EDITOR’S NOT S enior editor geoff johnson is the Letters unofficial historian on the magazine to the editor staff. On occasion he will, apparently ap- ropos of nothing, tell us about something REFRESHING that ran in the magazine years ago. More Kudos to all who contributed to making the new Rotary magazine often than not, his finds become the breadcrumbs an outstanding piece of work. I have been a Rotarian for 44 years, he’s picking up that will culminate in a fleshed-out, and when I received my copy of Rotary today, it blew me away. The beautifully annotated piece of Rotary history. format is great, the design is terrific, and the contents were outstand- A few days ago, he discovered this unlikely item ing. What a treat! I look forward to the next issue. — John Yacavone, in the February 1980 issue of The Rotarian: “Televi- Plainfield, New Hampshire sion history was made on the evening of December The September issue was the best 8, 1939, when the New York (U.S.A.) Rotary clubs ever! Usually I read the articles one at a time, in between family of Albany, Troy, and Schenectady held a joint meet- activities, work, Rotary business, and household chores. But today I ing by means of miniature screens in each location. decided to take a little time to sit outside in the shade, and I grabbed Founder Paul Harris was there as was R.I. President the newly arrived magazine as I headed out the door. The next Walter D. Head, who said: ‘Let us hope that, together, thing I knew, the entire afternoon was gone, I was turning the last Rotary and radio and television may help to develop page of the magazine, and I had marked and tagged several articles this world neighborhood into a world brotherhood.’ ” and websites to share or follow up on later. Now I have to wait a whole It sounds eerily close to a Zoom meeting tak- month for the next one! Thank you and congratulations on an excel- ing place 81 years ago, except there was no internet lent job. — Mary Beth Seiser, West and no personal computers. It does underscore the Bend, Wisconsin fact that innovation has always been part of how Congratulations on the new look to the magazine. Well done! — Jonah Rotarians do business, and the desire to build “this Triebwasser, Red Hook, New York world neighborhood into a world brotherhood” is Changing the title and format to be still a working belief, even — especially — in these more inclusive of younger Rotary members is a good thing. But one trying times. big failing is that the Rotary guid- A week before Rotary shut its headquarters last March, I had a longish phone conversation with an old friend, the writer Joe Queenan. I was walking down the steps of the main Evanston post office when I got the call. I sat in my parked car as Joe and I tried to get our bearings on the consequences of the pandemic that was going to alter the way we live. We went down the list of economic impacts: businesses shuttering, layoffs, unemployment; the breakdown of supply chains for goods and services; food scarcity. We speculated on the overwhelming of our health care apparatus, people falling ill without hope of help. Then we started talking about who might be the most vulnerable among the people we know. There’s the neighbor living three doors down who can no longer walk her dog, so she lets him out her front door and he runs around and comes right back. How can she get groceries? And dog food? Let’s ask, we told ourselves. Or the recent widower who walks slowly to the mailbox at the corner once every two weeks. Can he get by living alone? Who would he call if he got sick? Let’s ask — and let’s offer to help. And so was born the idea for one of this month’s features, “Wanted: Good Samaritans,” Joe’s thoughtful essay about that world brother- and sisterhood of which we must all strive to be a part. It’s easy to see what needs to be done when you bother to notice. And if no one is available to lend a We started hand? You know what to do: You’re with Rotary. talking about who might JOHN REZEK be the most vulnerable Editor in chief among the people we know. 8  ROTARY  DECEMBER 2020

ing principles are on page 57, in community who are not familiar Overheard on CONNECT small print and easy to overlook. with the organization think the social media It is as if to say they are no longer word “Rotarian” implies elitism. important. Bring them back to the I’m a member of Rotary! — Greg In our August front, please. Give them their right- issue, we wrote ful place of honor. Make them bold Penno, Bendigo, Australia about clubs and bright. If we forget our guid- keeping things ing principles amid all the good we I don’t know whom to congratu- fresh with new accomplish, then we have lost the late except the entire family that ideas and new heart and soul of Rotary. — Carole created and produced my issue of members. On Rotary. The new name doesn’t do it Instagram, we Adams, Arvada, Colorado justice. It’s a new treat, a new vital- polled you about ity, and new visual entertainment. your membership I was delighted to see the rede- experience. sign in the September issue. How- For 32 years I received The Ro- ever, relegating Rotary’s guiding tarian and generally perused each principles from the traditional issue. I knew what to expect each page 8 to page 57 was misguided. month. No more. The use of type Yes, while the goal of “growing styles, sizes, and colors jumped awareness of Rotary” globally is out and beckoned me to come fur- noble and correct, as Rotarians we ther into the content. must maintain primary awareness of our guiding principles. Page 2 Follow us to get updates, would be a more dignified posi- share stories with your tion for the Service Above Self networks, and tell us what principles. — Carl Kruse, Poway, you think. California  Rotary.org I appreciate your efforts to update  [email protected] the look of your magazine, but I found the new format to be overly  @rotary bold and the layout too geomet- ric. I actually found the magazine  /rotary distressing to read. I kept shifting to the next article before finishing  @rotaryinternational the current one because I hoped it would be more pleasant. Maybe  Rotary magazine you need to look at it again and One Rotary Center modify some of the layout and 1560 Sherman Ave. fonts. — Karin Mattern, Nanaimo, Evanston, IL 60201 British Columbia The editors welcome comments on items published in the magazine but It’s great to see the magazine’s I’m not a birder, but the use of In three words, reserve the right to edit for style name change from The Rotarian graphics in “Flocking Together” describe why and length. Published letters do to just Rotary. I’m a member of the and the storytelling about the Ro- you’re a member: not necessarily reflect the views of Rotary Club of Melbourne Pass- tary Youth Exchange program in the editors or Rotary International port in Australia, where we have “Passport to Adventure” suggest Service Above leadership, nor do the editors take our own regional magazine, Rotary that Rotary is moving into the 21st Self responsibility for errors of fact that Down Under (or RDU as we know century and might be a place for may be expressed by the writers. it). I’ve been in and associated with younger people. Passion, Rotary since 1994, and I have never commitment, DECEMBER 2020  ROTARY  9 spoken of myself or others as Ro- Thank you for breathing new opportunities tarians. I suspect that many in the life into our magazine. — Larry Fun, leadership, Granat, Seattle service Kudos on the new style. What re- Action, friendship, ally delighted me was, in one issue, memories all the articles and information that a young person from 18 to 40-plus Four-Way Test would need to see in order to know what Rotary offers. I’m committed to Check out Rotary bringing in new young career mem- International’s bers, and this issue covered so many Instagram story on 16 December for an interactive poll about food drives.

CONNECT Find out how your club or district can get involved in Rotary Youth Exchange at rotary.org/our programs/youth exchanges /details. Advertise Melody St. John (top center) and her husband, Paul, have hosted more in Rotary than 20 Rotary Youth Exchange students in their home in Los Angeles, an magazine experience that has given them “family all over the world.” [email protected] things about Rotary: why it’s an im- learned is that the most important CORRECTION %&& %2+(0 , $ 7 (( portant consideration to join, “birds thing about being a Rotarian is that In the October of a feather,” networking, creating you have to find your niche. Not issue, the “Time $$+ , 5( / $1' $6$ a positive tribe of instant kindred long after I joined, I learned about Out” essay was peers, and the global aspect of con- the work that Rotarians in Australia illustrated by %5($.*5281' / $6 necting committed young people. were doing with mental health re- Renaud Vigourt. Bravo! — Belinda Kaylani, Houston search. Having suffered from mental We credited the $7$5 , , 9( 6. , 7 illness, I realized this was an area I wrong illustrator. PULLED BY PASSION wanted to support. I have followed We regret the my passion, and I now chair the error. “Clubs Made to Order” [August] mental health initiative’s work in my was so true. When I joined Rotary district. I have developed a mental 14 years ago, I really knew nothing health project that is involving Rotary about the organization. Looking clubs across Australia. — Catherine back now, one of the things I have Eagleson, Portarlington, Australia 5( 7 , 1$ / (5525 6 , =(' (1$&7 Reprinting articles: Rotary magazine frequently receives requests to reprint its articles. In the interest of raising awareness about what Rotary does, we encourage readers to share our articles / 2: ( 8 1 , & ( ) ' 2 ( in this way. Any article, in its entirety, may be reprinted in a Rotary-denominated publication such as Courtesy of Melody St. John a club or district newsletter. For other publications, both consumer and nonprofit, reprints require 22+ 7 5<28 7 6 , '$ the expressed prior permission of the magazine. 8= , +($57+ 62$. In all reprints, author, photographer, and illustrator credits must appear with the article, along with the following: Reprinted by permission from Rotary magazine, [month/year]. Copyright © 7(56( 6 , (*( [year of publication] Rotary International. All rights reserved. / $036 75 , 721( If you wish to reprint an article from the magazine, contact us at [email protected]. After pub- lication of the reprint, please mail a copy to: Rotary magazine, 1560 Sherman Ave., Evanston, IL 60201. 5$ 3 7 / 22 9$/ , ' See also myrotary.org/en/terms-using-rotary-international-trademarks-and-copyrights. $12 &$ / /:$ , 7 , 1* * ( 2 2 1 ( ' 2:1 9 ( ( $: / 6 $ ' 6 21* $ 5 6

THE SPECIALIST Márcia Menezes decided to participate in sports. I started with swim- Rotary Club ming, and later I trained in shot put, discus, and javelin. Worth of Londrina- In 2005, I took part in a competition in São Paulo. The the weight Paradesporto, day after my events, there was a weightlifting event. At Brazil that time, things were a bit disorganized, and you could Polio survivor and world-class athlete register for competitions right before they happened. picked up her sport at 38 Champion My team encouraged me, and I decided to participate. weightlifter I was 15 months old when I contracted Like many physically disabled people whose legs polio. When I was an infant, they wouldn’t are affected, my arms are very strong. In that first give you the vaccine if you had the flu or a weightlifting competition, I won a gold medal. I fell fever. Every time there was a vaccination in love with weightlifting. campaign, I had a fever and so I was not vaccinated. I contracted the virus for lack of My Rotary club was founded to support para- prevention. For me, prevention, vaccination, and polio athletes and improve conditions for people with eradication are very important. disabilities. I am proud to be the first president. The virus affected the right side of my body, from I have a very demanding training schedule. the waist down, and I have little movement in my right leg. I use a wheelchair and crutches. I’ve been doing weightlifting for 12 years. From Monday to Friday, I usually train three to four I started competing late in life. After I had my son, hours a day, specifically weight training. I was overweight. Over time, the aftereffects of polio made it more and more difficult to walk. I joined Age doesn’t matter when you love what you do. the Associação dos Deficientes Físicos de Londrina That is my message when I give presentations at (Association of the Physically Disabled in Londrina) and companies and schools. I started in sports at 32, with swimming. Then I got into weightlifting at 38. At 44, I won my first international medal, and at 46 I was a world medalist. At 52, I am still active, and I haven’t stopped to count how many Brazilian titles I have. — as told to aurea dos santos Photography by Fábio Seixo DECEMBER 2020  ROTARY  11

CONNECT WHAT WOULD YOU DO? Next question visit or just send the funds to al- low the local Rotarians to purchase Project calls for Your club has what we had all agreed was needed. distance learning been engaging young profes- — Joseph Zanga, Rotary Club of San- Y our club wants to do You need to make the trip to the sionals through an international proj- potential site to really know what mentorship ford, North Carolina ect. A Rotarian who is is needed. I did this with my former initiatives and involved with health club, the Rotary Club of Columbus, career counsel- I would find someone to travel with Georgia. I’m a primary care pedia- ing projects. me to the project site and meet all care projects in anoth- trician, but for our project, meeting Everyone would the Rotary members involved. To me, with general and medical staff, see- like them to join, that is required by the fourth object er country invites you to visit. You ing the facilities and existing equip- but you have of Rotary: the advancement of inter- ment, and discussing needs were heard that many national understanding, goodwill, feel it’s important to see the needs still critical to developing a list of of the younger and peace through a world fellowship appropriate supplies. people either of business and professional persons firsthand, but your club members are cannot afford united in the ideal of service. I have Back home, we found a com- the cost or find done more than 100 international not interested in making the trip. In- munity hospital that was generous that your club projects and have visited all but one. in gathering new and no-longer- meets at an It’s amazing how many friends you stead, some suggest donating surplus needed items from our list. A par- inconvenient can acquire this way. — Dick Strayer, cel company was engaged, and for time. You have medical equipment, which they think $1,000, we shipped a box of medi- suggested that Rotary E-Club of North Texas cal equipment to our Rotarian col- your club start any health care project could use. leagues. Unfortunately, the box got meeting at a It is important to do your due dili- stuck in their country’s customs local bar and gence regarding the needs of the What would you do? office, requiring the people with make drinks and community. Do not feel you are truly whom we were working to pay a siz- food optional helping them by simply sending them I would encourage the club to con- able fee. We decided we would each so it is more surplus medical equipment from duct a needs assessment virtu- carry what we could on our next affordable for your source. You do not know the ally. Club members can collect data the prospective circumstances at the receiving facil- through Zoom and Teams calls, members. Your ity. Will licensed medical personnel emails, photos, or video sharing. We club leaders be in charge of the equipment? Will should not assume that our surplus oppose this the equipment be compatible with medical equipment will benefit any idea, which they their system? Do they have a great community or address their priori- believe will drive need for the equipment you would ties without first having a conversa- away current like to send? Will they be able to ser- tion. — Nesta Hatendi, Rotary Club members. vice this equipment when it needs maintenance? — Barbara Groner, of Highlands, Zimbabwe What would you do? Tell us Rotary Club of Dowagiac, Michigan at magazine @rotary.org. Illustration by Ben Wiseman

PROTECTING THE ENVIRONMENT AN OFFICIAL CAUSE OF ROTARY Rotary’s new cause focuses on comprehensively solving specific issues that have a detrimental effect on the environment. As people of action, let’s take on projects that can make a positive, measurable, and sustainable impact on the one place we all call home. Learn more about Rotary’s new cause at rotary.org/environment

OUR WORL FIGHTING DISEASE Remote possibilities Telemedicine is expanding the reach of health care 17 R ight now, i can see all Telemedicine, typically defined Learn more Family man my patients through as a virtual exam with a physician, about Global my mobile phone,” says requires access to the internet, OffSite Care’s 20 Prakash Paudyal, a pul- which about 40 percent of the global Rotary- Headbangers monologist and member population still lacks. But with the supported work of the Rotary Club of Jawalakhel, proliferation of smartphones, that’s in Nigeria at have a ball Nepal. Paudyal uses a Kubi device becoming less of a barrier. Barbara rotary.org to turn a tablet into a “mini-robot” Kiernan, a member of the Rotary /technology 23 for remote monitoring of his Club of Catalina (Tucson), Arizona, -brings Doing good, COVID-19 patients who are in iso- has been working on a global grant -improved feeling good lation at Nepal National Hospital. project to bridge the distance be- -medicine Paudyal learned about the Kubi and tween doctors and underserved -nigeria. 24 other telehealth practices during a patients in Sonora, Mexico, by sup- Failing to succeed vocational training team trip to the plying the equipment and technol- San Francisco area last year. “I do ogy needed for telemedicine, includ- 14  ROTARY  DECEMBER 2020 one round with all my [protective] ing solar power and internet access. gear on, and then I see all my patients They found that once community through this mini-robot,” he says, health care providers received the thankful that the Kubi helps protect equipment and training, they were him from exposure to the virus. able to work with doctors located in bigger villages, allowing them The use of telehealth has surged to treat patients remotely. “Before, worldwide during the COVID-19 pan- [rural villagers] really only got medi- demic. In the United States, a study cal care during a crisis,” Kiernan by McKinsey found that 46 percent of says. With telemedicine available, consumers are now using telehealth, “it’s shifted to preventive care.” up from 11 percent in 2019. Broadly defined, telehealth includes every- James Gude, a California physi- thing from virtual visits with a doc- cian who founded a telemedicine tor to remote monitoring of a patient’s practice called OffSite Care, says vitals to mobile health technologies. that when a doctor conducts a video consultation with the assistance of The rapid increase in examining an on-site nurse and with access to a and treating patients remotely be- patient’s records and diagnostic test cause of stay-at-home orders has not results, it can be nearly as effective as only helped in the fight against the seeing a patient in person. “With a coronavirus; it has also prompted a nurse there to help me examine you, conversation about what the future I can order and look at everything I will look like. What are the benefits need,” he says. There are also sophis- of telehealth, and what controls ticated “robots” that allow a doctor for safety and privacy should be to see a patient via videoconference in place? One clear benefit is mak- and even send instrument readings, ing health care more accessible to allowing the doctor to listen to a pa- more people. For patients who lack tient’s heart through a stethoscope, transportation options or who live for example. (A Canadian TV show in remote areas, a virtual visit can once followed Gude around as he mean the difference between being conducted virtual rounds via a robot able to consult a doctor and going he controlled remotely.) without care.

Khaula Jamil / Rotary International Gude started OffSite Care in 2007 bring together Dr. Gude’s medical In Nowshera, a polio-free world. Mobile phones to help rural U.S. hospitals improve expertise with financing, steward- Pakistan, have been used to track the number their quality of care by providing ship, and advocacy among Rotar- health care of polio vaccine doses children have virtual access to specialists, who are ians.” Cook says Rotary clubs have workers use received, and geographic information often concentrated in bigger urban sponsored the equipment needed mobile phones systems have helped health workers hospitals. He expanded his vision of to get a hospital started conducting to report polio create detailed maps of their immu- dismantling the geographical barri- telemedicine, which includes a tab- immunization nization activities. ers to quality care when he teamed let and a Kubi device that transforms data directly up with members of the Rotary Club the tablet into a web-controlled mini- to Pakistan’s When the World Health Organi- of Sebastopol Sunrise, California, to robot that can pan and tilt, allowing National zation’s African region was certified create Global OffSite Care — a non- the user to look around the room. Emergency free of wild poliovirus in August, profit that provides educational and Local doctors are trained on the Operations Christopher Elias, president of the consultative services to hospitals equipment and can then partici- Center, saving global development division at around the world. pate in weekly online “Global Grand precious time. the Bill & Melinda Gates Founda- Rounds” with Gude’s team to contin- tion, said technology was a con- “We started by contacting Rotary ue their education. They can also con- tributing factor. One example is clubs where Dr. Gude thought there sult with experts on difficult cases. how surveillance improved when might be an opportunity [to im- community health workers were prove a hospital],” says Mikel Cook, The Global Polio Eradication Ini- trained to use a mobile app called a member of the Sebastopol Sunrise tiative (GPEI) uses another aspect of Avadar (Auto-Visual AFP Detection club. “The mission of Global OffSite telehealth: mobile health, or health and Reporting) to report possible Care is to promote Rotary club- care supported by mobile electronic polio cases through their phones. sponsored telemedicine projects. We devices, to make progress toward Sharing this information electroni- DECEMBER 2020  ROTARY  15

OUR WORLD For patients who lack transportation options or who live in remote areas, a virtual visit can mean the difference between being able to consult a doctor and going without care. cally allows for quick intervention, tient time and lessens their exposure Telemedicine Examples of preventing outbreaks. to others, so patients are more likely is direct health telehealth to make appointments.” care services to Patricia Merryweather-Arges, a a patient, often 1 member of the Rotary Club of Naper- A survey of patients in Asia, Eu- over video. ville, Illinois, predicts that telehealth rope, and the United States by the Live video will continue to expand. “There are consulting firm Accenture seems to Telehealth A two-way audiovisual lessons we can learn from this,” says back up her prediction: 60 percent is broader link between a patient Merryweather-Arges, who runs an of patients said they wanted to use and covers organization called Project Patient technology more for communicat- education, and a care provider Care and recently secured a Rotary ing with health care providers and public health, Foundation global grant to distribute managing their conditions. and provider- 2 more than 200 tablets to residents to-provider of Chicago-area nursing homes. The Gude thinks this presents an op- interactions Store and forward  tablets will allow physicians to as- portunity to increase the capacity of as well as Transmission of sess patients via telemedicine, and underresourced hospitals around the telemedicine. health records to families to visit with their loved ones world: “I want Rotary clubs to know via videoconferencing. that wherever they are, if they want a health practitioner, to help a local hospital, if they have usually a specialist “There will have to be some qual- $5,000 or if we can raise it from else- ity assessment, and feedback from where, it’s done. We are at a point in 3 patients,” she says. “But the benefits the curve where we can go straight up.” are that telemedicine saves the pa- Remote patient monitoring  — vanessa glavinskas Continuous monitoring of a patient’s condition Ferheen Abbasi From his workstation, from a distance, in real time James Gude or not in real time can review data and offer 4 medical advice to health care Mobile health (mHealth)  professionals Health care and public around the world. health information provided through mobile devices Short In July, The Rotary Foundation According to LinkedIn data takes approved its largest-ever global grant: from January to August, Rotary $1.1 million to train health care workers is among the 10 organizations in Liberia and provide equipment to a with the highest average number hospital ship that will serve the region. of monthly U.S. volunteers. 16  ROTARY  DECEMBER 2020 Illustrations by Miguel Porlan

I n 1992, management train- ing consultant Robert Miller, midcareer and recently di- vorced, spent a week in Gua- dalajara, Mexico, volunteer- ing at an orphanage. “That week hit me like an emo- tional brick,” Miller says. He had seen poverty before, but now he was see- ing its impact on children. “They had to send the kids out with cardboard boxes to collect food so they would have enough to eat that day.” Miller made Guadalajara his home base in order to volunteer at the orphanage when he wasn’t travel- ing. One day about two years later, he returned from a business trip to find Arturo, 13, and his brother Eduardo, 11, in his home. They told him that the orphanage had closed after the death of one of the operators and that they were getting food from a nearby restaurant by telling the pro- prietors that their “father” would pay for it. Miller decided to make this a reality by adopting the boys. Miller refocused his career on ending poverty and keeping kids from ending up in orphanages in the first place. Five years later, Miller and his sons moved to Colorado, where he has since started his own nonprofit, Sustainable Family Com- munities, which starts with a job cre- ation project such as a greenhouse, then adds housing and more busi- nesses and services. The aim is to re- duce the extreme poverty that leads families to give up their children. After Miller was invited to speak PROFILE at the Rotary Club of Mountain Father figure Foothills of Evergreen, Colorado, he One week of volunteering led to a new family decided to join. Now a member of and a new career E-Club One, he’s finding a global network of volunteers in Rotary. “There are many people who want Robert Miller to volunteer and help,” he says. “This Rotary E-Club One is everybody’s project.” — nikki kallio of District 5450 In September, the Surfers Unite Sushil Gupta, past RI director and After a successful pilot year, Rotarian Fellowship hosted a a member of the Rotary Club of Rotary renewed for three Zoom presentation by world Delhi Midwest, India, received years its partnership with champion surfer and motivational Rotary’s highest recognition, the social entrepreneurship speaker Shaun Tomson. Award of Honor, earlier this year. organization Ashoka. Photography by Sean Boggs DECEMBER 2020  ROTARY  17

OUR WORLD Rotary projects around the globe United States Ecuador A Wisconsin club is employing an More than four years after a all-natural method of removing deadly magnitude 7.8 earthquake invasive shrubs in the municipal devastated communities along park it helps maintain: goats. In the Ecuadorian coast, the Rotary June, the Rotary Club of Mequon- Club of Quito Occidente remains Thiensville Sunrise, in north committed to assisting residents suburban Milwaukee, transported of the fishing village of Don some 40 goats to the park for Juan, near the quake’s epicenter. the environmentally friendly In 2016, the Quito Occidente defoliation. Procured by contract Rotarians mobilized to help the with a herder, the goats chomped fishermen transition toward a through common buckthorn and sustainable operation, joining honeysuckle, grazing densely other clubs and nongovernmental overgrown areas barely accessible organizations to contribute to Rotarians during their $24,000 toward the construction semiannual clearings, which draw of a fish-processing center. as many as 100 volunteers. In July 2020, as the fishing community suffered the “We could not have had economic impact of COVID-19, as significant an impact on club members also provided food buckthorn removal if we had kits to 80 of the area’s roughly tried to remove it by manual 300 families in collaboration with labor,” says Connie Pukaite, a the Don Juan Artisan Fishing club member. “Rotarians installed Production Association, an the electric fencing for the organization formed in the wake paddocks for the goats, worked of the disaster. in shifts to monitor and water the goats, and inspected the fencing $4.7 twice daily. We have received a BILLION number of inquiries from local property owners and one other ECUADOR’S municipality seeking information FISH EXPORTS IN 2017 about using goats to chew down buckthorn on their properties.” 18 ROTARY DECEMBER 2020

Moldova and Romania extra, so you can buy the cups A Rotaractor-driven project full or empty.” (At press time, called “A Cup of Happiness” — in plans for 2020 had not been set.) which club members dispense Through the project, the Rotaract tea, mulled wine, and other Club of Sibiu, Romania, raised seasonal beverages at Christmas nearly $7,000 to buy equipment markets across the two-nation for the cardiology department District 2241 — has warded off the of a county hospital, and four chill for festivalgoers for over a Rotaract clubs in Cluj-Napoca, decade. “The members sell hot Romania (Cluj-Napoca, Cluj- drinks in custom cups bearing Napoca Cetăţuie, Cluj-Napoca the logos of the project and the SAMVS, and Visio Cluj-Napoca), district,” says Dan Zagnat of raised nearly $6,000 to help fund the Rotaract Club of Chişinău, a new outpatient department at Moldova. “The main objective is to the Dominic Stanca obstetrics sell the cups; the drinks inside are and gynecology clinic in their city. Mongolia The Rotary Club of Ulaanbaatar Peace Avenue expanded its Let’s Read initiative, which began as a way to improve literacy, by helping install a library in the Ger Innovation Hub. The local gathering spot serves an area with a population of about 6,000, about a third of which is under age 18. The Let’s Read program fills libraries with reading materials, including books for people with disabilities. “There are picture CLUBS PARTICIPATEDINTHE2019 books, audiobooks, Braille books, CUP OF HAPPINESS FUNDRAISER and sign language videos. We also furnish special-needs educational facilities,” says club member Suvd Nergui. The endeavor, inspired by an initiative of the Rotary Club of Narlag Ulaanbaatar, proves the power of cooperation at home and abroad, she notes: “The Let’s Read program, including training sessions for parents, teachers, and librarians, happened thanks Malawi to collaborations from many The members of the Rotary to adults and children alike, Rotary clubs, sponsors, and Club of Lilongwe pledged to skip who previously had to walk long individual Rotarians in Mongolia, a Rotary lunch and donate the distances and wait in lines to Hong Kong, Japan, and the USA.” cost (many gave more) toward the get water from borehole wells. — BRAD WEBBER installation of two water kiosks in the village of Chiweza. Rotarians collected $2,400 for the structures, one to serve the 6,500-pupil Chimwala Primary School and a second to provide water for the 5.6 MILLION town, reports club member Norah Chavula-Chirwa. Students “did not have a source of potable water for drinking and sanitation,” Chavula- Chirwa says, noting that residents’ fees for using the town’s kiosk MALAWIANS LACK ACCESS TO will subsidize the school’s kiosk. Both were functioning by May, SAFE WATER SOURCES bringing a life-changing benefit DECEMBER 2020 ROTARY 19

OUR WORLD Black Sabbath at the Hammersmith Odeon in METALLIC MEMORIES London, 1989: The music was so powerful that you FELLOWSHIP In high school, the dance listened to it through your DJs were all metalheads, so chest, not your ears. Heavy they would insert a metal — Lee Martin, Rotary E-Club rotation set and we would have the of Innovation (East Anglia), dance floor to ourselves. For England If you think metal music a short time, nobody cared and Rotary don’t mix, about being judged. It just EMI think again felt free. Now I relive that by rocking out in the car. Rotary pin that we wear to show — Martine Babineau that we are Rotarians. — Anthony Wadell M is a huge Headbanging When I was 10, a friend To me, metal is the modern part of my life, and humanitarians showed me an Iron equivalent of classical music. so is Rotary,” says Maiden record on vinyl. Most metal musicians play Felix Heintz. “Now At Wacken Open “Hallowed Be Thy Name” technically at a top level that I’ve combined these Air 2019, a big opened up new possibilities requires hours of daily practice two worlds.” Not long ago, Heintz, a heavy metal in music for me. to maintain. I’m sure if Mozart member of the Rotary E-Club of Ba- festival held in — Dênis Gerbassi de Oliveira, or Paganini were around varia International, Germany, didn’t Germany, the Rotary Club of Agudo, Brazil nowadays, they would play metal! think such a fusion was possible. fellowship got — Matthias Kirchgessner But today, he and 165 others from a booth and SHREDDING STEREOTYPES 13 countries are rocking together raised more Illustration by StoryTK in the Rotarian Metalhead Fellow- than $3,000 for Metal fans are the most helpful, ship, which celebrates the thunder- polio eradication. socially engaged, nonaggressive, ous style of rock typified by bands A river cruise positive thinking, peaceful, such as Metallica and Iron Maiden. during the balanced, and often well- “There are more metalheads in Ro- 2019 Rotary educated people that I know! tary than you think,” says Heintz. International — Matthias Kirchgessner Convention I don’t see the “horns up” Ranging in age from 16 to their in Hamburg gesture as a sign of the devil. mid-70s, members include Rotar- collected funds It is a way to recognize fellow ians, Rotaractors, Rotary Youth for the Wacken metalheads, similar to the Exchange students, and RYLA par- Foundation, a ticipants, as well as people from nonprofit that outside the family of Rotary. The supports metal fellowship helps show a di erent musicians. And side of Rotary from what many in response to people expect, says Martine Babi- the COVID-19 neau, a member of the Rotary Club pandemic, the of Atlantic International Passport, fellowship created Canada. “We owe it to ourselves as face masks with an organization to stop judging oth- its logo. To learn ers based on what we think a Rotar- more, visit metal ian should look like.”  headfellowship .org. The fellowship fills a void that Manouchehr Shamsrizi, who co- founded the group in 2018, had long felt. “Paul Harris once said, ‘Friend- ship was the foundation rock on which Rotary was built,’” says Sham- srizi, a member of the Rotary E-Club of Silicon Valley. “We believe he was right, but we turn it around: By rock- ing together, we build friendship.” — 20 ROTARY DECEMBER 2020

I was very fortunate to get a1 ROTARY ANTHEMS backstage pass for Wacken Open Air. Your favorite metal “Wherever I May Roam” by bands are 9 yards away Metallica The lyric goes, from you, and beyond them, “Anywhere I roam, where I lay you see 80,000 people. It my head is home,” and that is was incredible. how Rotary makes me feel. — Felix Heintz — Martine Babineau At Felix Heintz's wedding, “The Answer Lies Within” by he declared to his wife how Dream Theater I think it has to much he loved her because do with the search for truth and of her choice of the wedding empathy, fundamental to our waltz. It was Metallica’s volunteering: “Try to give, don’t “Nothing Else Matters.” keep it all inside.” — Heidrun Rosendorn, — Dênis Gerbassi de Oliveira Rotary Club of Frankfurt Airport, Germany “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’ ” by Judas Priest I was working as an archae- The lyrics say, “One life, I’m gonna ologist at an excavation site live it up!” That’s my philosophy. near Amman, Jordan, when I try to live my life the best way I picked up a cassette tape possible and make it better for of Metallica’s Master of others while having fun at the Puppets. Two months of same time. I think a lot of other sifting through ancient cul- Rotarians think the same way. tural remains while listening — Annika Blanke, Rotary E-Club to Metallica gave me a deep of D-1850, Germany appreciation for the musi- cianship. The impact of that “Revolution Is My Name” album at that time of my life by Pantera It is all about was profound. recognizing that today we need — Anthony Waddell, Rotary to embrace change. I think that Club of Atlantic International is where Rotary is right now: We Passport, Canada need to make some changes to keep this organization relevant. “Rotary is family, Maybe some metal at the next and heavy metal is home.” convention will get Rotarians fired up to make that leap. – Matthias Kirchgessner — Anthony Waddell “In Silence” by Sons of Eternity We recorded the official Rotarian Metalhead Fellowship anthem as part of our soon-to-be-released debut album [with Sascha Paeth, one of metal’s top producers]. The song deals with many of the problems we have in the world today: terror, social injustice, hate, racism, violence, hunger, war. In the bridge, we incorporate The Four-Way Test. — Sons of Eternity guitarist Matthias “Church” Kirchgessner, Rotary Club of Neustadt/Aisch, Germany DECEMBER 2020 ROTARY 21

HELPING WITH FLAGS 200 FLAG LEASE Paid MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE Flags Get your Club’s Flag Lease program into the 21st century 12 Customer Ready Payment Page Easy Assign Full Subscriber Management Migration Routes Smart Route Lists Customer Invoicing 88 Money Tracking and Analysis Flags For Clubs of ALL Sizes Pending Payments www.HelpingWithFlags.com 214-383-8012 Simple and Intuitive | Helping Non-Profits all across the US. Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation (required by 39 USC Do you need Rotary-branded 3685) 1. Publication title: ROTARY. 2. Publication no. 548-810. 3. Filing date: 28 merchandise? September 2020. 4. Issue frequency: monthly. 5. No. of issues published annually: 12. 6. Annual subscription price: US$12 domestic, US$16 Canada, US$24 foreign. Then shop with Rotary-licensed 7. Complete mailing address of known office of publication: One Rotary Center, vendors, many of which are local 1560 Sherman Ave., Evanston, IL 60201-3698. 8. Complete mailing address of head- Rotarian-owned businesses. quarters or general business office of publisher: One Rotary Center, 1560 Sherman Ave., Evanston, IL 60201-3698. 9. Full names and complete mailing addresses of Shop now at publisher, editor, and managing editor: publisher: Rotary International, One Rotary on.rotary.org/shop Center, 1560 Sherman Ave., Evanston, IL 60201-3698; editor: John Rezek, Rotary International, One Rotary Center, 1560 Sherman Ave., Evanston, IL 60201-3698; managing editor: Jenny Llakmani, Rotary International, One Rotary Center, 1560 Sherman Ave., Evanston, IL 60201-3698. 10. Owner: Rotary International, an Illinois corporation not organized for pecuniary profit; Holger Knaack, president, Möllner Str. 13 A, 23909 Ratzeburg, Germany; John Hewko, general secretary, 1560 Sher- man Ave., 18th Floor, Evanston, IL, USA; Bharat S. Pandya, treasurer, Rama Nivas, Pandya Hosp., Sodawala Ln., Borivali (West) Mumbai, 400093 Maharashtra, India. 11. Known bondholders, mortgagees, and other security holders: none. 12. Tax status: has not changed during preceding 12 months. 13. Publication title: ROTARY. 14. Issue date for circulation data below: September 2020. 15. Extent and nature of circulation (average no. copies each issue during preceding 12 months; actual no. copies of single issue published nearest to filing date): a. Total no. copies (net press run): 375,473; 363,778. b. (1) Paid/requested outside-county mail subscrip- tions: 364,200; 351,682. (2) Paid/requested in-county mail subscriptions: 0, 0. (3) Sales through dealers and carriers, street vendors, counter sales, and other non- USPS paid/requested distribution: 0, 0. (4) Requested copies distributed by other mail classes through the USPS: 0, 0. c. Total paid/requested distribution [sum of 15b(1), (2), (3), and (4)]: 364,200; 351,682. d. (1) Nonrequested outside-county copies: 2,600; 2,742. (2) Nonrequested in-county copies: 0, 0. (3) Nonrequested mailed through other classes through the USPS: 0, 0. (4) Nonrequested distribu- tion outside the mail (pickup stands, trade shows, showrooms and other sources): 1,369; 1,305. e. Total nonrequested distribution [sum of 15d (1), (2), (3), and (4)]: 3,969; 4,047. f. Total distribution (sum of 15c and 15e): 368,169; 355,729. g. Copies not distributed: 7,304; 8,049. h. Total (sum of 15f and 15g): 375,473; 363,778. i. Percent paid circulation (15c/15f x 100): 98.1; 97.8. 16. Electronic copy circulation: a. Paid electronic copies: 24,544; 36,405. b. Total paid print + electronic copies (sum of 15c and 16a): 388,774; 388,087. c. Total print distribution + paid electronic copies (sum of 15f and 16a): 392,713; 392,134. d. Percent paid (print & electronic) (16b divided by 16c x 100): 99.0; 99.0. 50% of copies paid above nominal price. John Rezek, editor in chief

OUR WORLD GOODWILL Many Rotary, Rotaract, and In- teract clubs are doing just that and Good, and finding creative ways to be kind to good for you their neighbors. The built-in bonus The Rotary clubs of Almere and that comes with helping others Almere Weerwater, The Nether- lands, purchased 2,559 bouquets totaling more than 50,000 tulips to give to health care workers at 77 loca- tions in Almere. W hen we do good, have been volunteers report greater Many studies The Rotary Club of Downtown it doesn’t only ben- well-being than people who have not. have established Los Angeles, California, built and efit other people. It a connection stocked a dozen public bookcases helps us, too. Studies And in a 2013 Canadian study in between around the city so children and show that helping JAMA Pediatrics, researchers looked volunteering and adults would have better access to others boosts oxytocin, serotonin, at adolescents who do volunteer improved health. books. People use them to both take and dopamine, neurotransmitters work to see the effect it had on their In the brain, and give books. The libraries reach that make us feel satisfied. And as cardiovascular health. The study acts of kindness areas without many sources of we face the challenges created by the found that volunteers reduced their release powerful books, especially when public librar- COVID-19 pandemic, which have left body mass index and lowered other chemicals ies are closed. many of us feeling anxious about our cardiovascular risk factors. like oxytocin, health, our families, our jobs, and our serotonin, and The Rotary Club of Bensheim- futures, another benefit to that feeling Rotary member Jenny Stotts, a dopamine, Heppenheim, Germany, organized of being rewarded when we do good social worker, child advocate, and elevating our concerts for residents and caregivers — lower stress levels — might be just trauma specialist, has studied how mood, increasing in senior living homes. Musicians, what the doctor ordered. we can increase our resiliency, adapt reward stimuli, including club members Bruno Weis to adversity during the pandemic, and reducing and Berthold Mäurer, performed “There has been a lot of research and emerge stronger. “When we en- stress. from areas outside the facilities while that when we are helping others, or gage in planned acts of kindness, we Compassion residents listened from their balco- when we are doing something for experience the benefits of serotonin lowers heart nies or nearby park benches. someone else, our reward centers and dopamine, which are two neuro- rates and light up in the brain and our stress transmitters that contribute to our reduces the The Interact Club of Kayhi, levels go down,” says psychologist feelings of pleasure or joy,” says risk of coronary Alaska, held a virtual high school Mary Berge, a member of the Ro- Stotts, a member of the Rotary Club distress. prom for more than 500 students tary Club of Johnstown, Pennsylva- of Athens Sunrise, Ohio. with help from a radio station man- nia, who has led discussions with aged by a Rotary member. The club many Rotary clubs about coping Especially when we do acts of paid for a band, and there were dance during the pandemic. good repeatedly, Stotts says, some- and trivia contests with prizes from thing interesting happens in our local businesses. In a 2016 study, researchers asked brains: “If we engage in a regular participants about scenarios in daily practice of kindness and grati- The Rotary Club of Molina de which they either gave or received tude, we are essentially carving out Segura, Spain, which holds an an- support. According to the study, pub- pathways within our brain that make nual art contest for young people, lished in Psychosomatic Medicine: us healthier and a little more emo- extended the age range to allow en- Journal of Biobehavioral Medicine, tionally stable.” tries from children and young people MRI tests showed that only the in- ages three to 18 and invited students stances of giving correlated to re- She also notes that Rotary mem- throughout the country to submit duced stress and enhanced activity bers can play a significant role in artwork that expressed why it is im- in the brain’s reward centers — which changing how people think. “When portant to stay home during the pan- suggests that giving support ulti- we, as leaders in our community, demic. The club’s objective was to mately brought greater mental ben- adopt a way of thinking — that give students something creative to efits than receiving it. level of intentional gratitude and do while social distancing and to al- intentional kindness — we have a low them to convey how they were Researchers at Oslo Metropolitan way of setting a really good exam- feeling about the pandemic. University in Norway and the Techni- ple,” she says. “I think it is a calming cal University of Dortmund in Ger- and stabilizing force. We can set that — arnold r. grahl many found that people who are or tone for our entire club and for our communities.” DECEMBER 2020  ROTARY  23

ESSAY Loss leaders failure as a potent motivational tool. In high school, he was If at first you don’t succeed, relegated to the junior varsity team, you’re just like Kurt Vonnegut and Jeff Bezos a slight he never forgot. By Steve Almond “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career,” he intoned in Y ears ago, I traveled to Indiana University a famous Nike ad. “I’ve lost almost in Bloomington to examine the archives 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve of my literary hero, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. I was been trusted to take the game- planning to write a book about Vonnegut winning shot and missed. I’ve failed and hoped that his papers would afford over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” me a glimpse into his genius. What they Abraham Lincoln would appear revealed was something I would have to have little in common (aside from extraordinary height) with never expected: Vonnegut was an abject failure. I don’t mean Michael Jordan. But he, too, was driven by a series of early setbacks Kurt Vonnegut the celebrity author, who wrote a trove of that included failing in business, suffering a nervous breakdown, bestsellers that made him a household name. I mean Kurt and losing his initial campaigns for the Illinois legislature and U.S. Vonnegut the failed writer and failed car salesman and failed Congress. “My great concern is not whether you have failed,” he inventor, a man who spent the first half of his life in a desperate observed, “but whether you are content with your failure.” struggle to support his wife and kids. Bill Gates dropped out of It was all there: his purchase Then I remembered a second Steve Almond Harvard and bankrupted a of a Saab car dealership (which passage, this one from Vonnegut’s is the author of business before going on to found went bankrupt), the ornate 1990 novel Hocus Pocus: “I am not 11 books of fiction Microsoft, which made him at 31 schematic drawings for the board writing this book for people below and nonfiction, the world’s youngest self-made game he sent to toy companies the age of 18, but I see no harm in including the billionaire at the time. Gates (which was rejected), the dozens telling young people to prepare New York Times believes that it’s fine to celebrate of unpublished short stories he for failure rather than success, bestsellers success, but “more important to penned during those years. The since failure is the main thing that Candyfreak and heed the lessons of failure.” stories were the most illuminating. is going to happen to them.” Against Football. They were competently written but His latest book Tick down a list of the world’s lifeless, nothing like the wise and Both quotes have haunted me is William Stoner most successful moguls and witty tales that he would produce ever since. Because like most peo- and the Battle you’ll find that they all stress the later in his career. ple, most Americans in particular, for the Inner Life. importance of failure. Jack Ma, the I’ve spent much of my life regard- Chinese tech billionaire, bragged at As I pored over these relics, my ing failure as a kind of scourge, the the 2016 World Economic Forum mind drifted back to the opening ultimate humiliation. Only recently that he had applied to Harvard 10 pages of Vonnegut’s most famous have I come to see failure as an times and been rejected each time. novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, in which inevitable part of ambition — (Take that, Gates!) He also recalled he discusses the biblical story of not the opposite of success, but a applying for a job at Kentucky Lot. “And Lot’s wife was told not necessary prelude to it. Fried Chicken in his youth. Of the to look back where all those people 24 applicants in his pool, 23 were and their homes had been,” he YOU DON’T HAVE TO TAKE hired. Guess who got the boot? wrote. “But she did look back, and my word for it, though. Most of I love her for that, because it was the folks we consider monumental It’s not just that successful so human. So she was turned into a successes say the same thing. people use failure as a motivational pillar of salt.” Toward the end of his Michael Jordan, for instance. The tool. They also accept failure as an introduction, Vonnegut confesses popular mythology around Jordan inherent part of their process. Jeff that the book we’re about to read is that he became the ultimate Bezos, CEO of Amazon, insists that “is a failure, and had to be, since it winner because he couldn’t stand tolerance of failure is baked into his was written by a pillar of salt.” losing. But Jordan understood company’s culture. “Failure comes part and parcel with invention,” he says. “It’s not optional. We understand that and believe in failing early and iterating until we get it right.” 24  ROTARY  DECEMBER 2020

Illustrations by Jason Ford DECEMBER 2020  ROTARY  25

ESSAY This notion of innovation as apartment one summer. She was decidedly unliterary: my lifelong a function of failure dates back shocked at the number of rejections obsession with candy. This pas- to America’s most famous and I received in three months. “It must sion got me out of bed and into prolific inventor, Thomas Edison. have been more than 100,” she the world — specifically, into the He understood that the greatest told me years later. “It was such a mesmerizing realm of candy facto- obstacle to success wasn’t the lesson for me, because I thought of ries. This, in turn, led me to write a psychic sting of failure, but the you as ahead of the rest of us since book called Candyfreak: A Journey inhibitions caused by a fear of you’d published a few stories. What Through the Chocolate Underbelly of failure. When asked about one I hadn’t seen was all the rejection America, which wound up being a invention, Edison felt no shame at you’d absorbed. It was like you’d New York Times bestseller. having logged thousands of failed figured out how to become kind of attempts. In fact, he refused to view impervious to it.” Over the past decade and a those attempts as failures at all. half, my career has followed the The truth was more compli- same trajectory. I routinely fail at “I have gotten a lot of results,” cated. I hated those rejections. But writing novels and write my way he said. “I know several thousand I was stubborn enough, or perhaps out of my slump by focusing on a things that won’t work.” arrogant enough, to see them as nonfiction book on a subject that both an affront and a challenge. enthralls me. I do hope to publish This sentiment echoes the They made me frantic to prove my a novel someday. But I’ve accepted motto of another famous thinker, doubters wrong. In a sense, the that my failure to achieve that goal Albert Einstein, who believed that failure was my fuel. isn’t the end of my writing career. failure was nothing more than It’s merely an indication that I “success in progress.” The man It would take me another should pursue other projects. who came up with the theory of decade to see that failure can serve relativity never applied to Harvard, an even more profound role: as Even now, after 25 years as a by the way — but on his first teacher. By then, I had managed to writer, I fail all the time. Mostly, attempt he failed the admission publish a book of short stories. As this failure takes the form of getting test to the Zurich polytechnic. a follow-up act, I spent two years distracted. Just now, in the midst working on a hugely ambitious of writing this very paragraph, I WHAT ALL OF THESE ICONIC novel. The novel was truly awful, as went on the internet and found a figures exhibit is an essential my agent eventually informed me. video of a cat attempting to leap capacity to accept failure without I was used to rejection by then, of onto a nearby roof. The maker of internalizing it, to see failure as a course. But the realization that I’d this video had cleverly drawn all provisional state. In my own much wasted two years of my life sank these thought bubbles above the smaller way, I’ve sought to do the me into a depression. For months, cat’s head, so that he appeared to same thing. I felt like a failure. be doing the complicated math required to figure out his precise When I was in graduate To be clear: I would not acceleration and trajectory. Then school for creative writing, I was recommend this feeling to anyone. the cat jumped, missed the roof by determined to publish my short It’s almost impossible to do 5 feet, and plummeted out of the stories. Unfortunately, most of them meaningful work when you’re frame. I watched this video three weren’t very good. (They were a depressed. But there was one times. Then I returned to this essay, lot like Vonnegut’s apprentice work: crucial benefit to those doldrums: strangely refreshed. dull and mannered.) Nonetheless, I abandoned the idea that I was I submitted to literary magazines destined to write the great American As a writer, I feel exactly relentlessly. This was in the days novel. Instead, I was forced to like that cat all the time. I’m before the internet, so I did a lot of confront a simpler question: What continually hoping that my prose stuffing envelopes and licking stamps. subject truly excited me? will have the precision and power to reach the reader. I do the math My friend Camille, another The answer, it turned out, was in my head. Then I fall short and writer in the program, sublet my something deeply personal and plummet out of the frame. Like most people, I’ve spent much The same is true of every of my life regarding failure as a kind of celebrated artist or scientist or entrepreneur. Whatever magical scourge, the ultimate humiliation. talent they seem to possess, you’re seeing only their triumphs. You’re not seeing the mountain of failures they had to amass on the way to those triumphs. That, in fact, is how they reached the roof. They leaped from atop a mountain of failures. 26  ROTARY  DECEMBER 2020

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NETWORK ANCHOR Texas’ Elaine Hernandez is no lone star; she works her deep community connections to tackle tough problems 30  ROTARY  DECEMBER 2020

By Vanessa Glavinskas Photography by John Davidson T he “hunger lady” — that’s schools closed in March, Hernandez, a what people in South Texas member of the Rotary Club of Mission, call Elaine Hernandez. If you helped promote a project led by Baylor want to get food to a family University’s Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty called Emergency Meals-to-You, who needs it in Hidalgo County, Hernan- which worked with partners to send 10 days’ worth of meals directly to students’ dez is the person you call. The poverty homes through the mail. “No child should go hungry in the United States,” Hernan- rates in the counties of this region, along dez says. “There are enough resources out there to find local solutions.” the Mexican border, are among the The program, which began as a pilot in 2019, was so successful that the fed- highest in Texas — averaging about 30 eral government expanded it across the United States. percent, according to recent census data — and hunger has long been a problem. But with the coronavirus pandemic exac- erbating food insecurity, her role is vital. She combats hunger by connecting people with resources. Shortly after DECEMBER 2020  ROTARY  31

“We serve the most difficult areas to THROUGH THE YEARS reach, and we’re able to do that because people like Elaine have a deep knowl- Hernandez in 1970 edge of these communities and are able as a Rotary Youth to adapt programs,” says Jeremy Everett, Exchange student in executive director of the Baylor Collab- Hermosillo, Mexico. orative on Hunger and Poverty, where Hernandez works as regional director As a Red Cross for South Texas. “No one sector can delegate, solve hunger and poverty by itself. That’s Hernandez worked why we focus on building coalitions.” in both Mexico Hernandez gets to know key people in and Honduras. communities, learns about what they need, and builds partnerships among In 2002, Hernandez nonprofits, faith organizations, busi- led a Group Study nesses, government leaders, and academic Exchange team institutions to meet those needs. In May to India. 2019, she connected Rotarians with 65 other community organizations and food Hernandez banks as part of an event to address local completed a PhD hunger called the Hunger Summit. at age 66. She wrote her dissertation on “Elaine has a passion for volunteer- authentic leadership ing,” says Hernandez’s friend Andy in Rotary members. Hagan, a member of the Rotary Club of Brownsville Sunrise. “But she doesn’t Hernandez in 2019 at just think about how one club can help. a Rotary-sponsored It’s ‘let’s bring together the academics exhibit featuring with Rotary with the health department.’ art from students in She connects people.” India; Texas students also sent artwork to India for display. Photos courtesy of Elaine Hernandez H ernandez spent most oF PARTNERS IN SERVICE her career in education, first as a public school teacher and Hernandez with later working with adult stu- Mission Rotary dents as director of continuing educa- club member Sonia tion at South Texas Community College. Quintero (left), Her career in humanitarian work came District Governor about only after her position at the col- Eddie Bartnesky Jr., lege was eliminated and her marriage and Past District fell apart. “At the same time I learned Governor Andy Hagan. I would lose my job, my husband of 23 years asked for a divorce,” Hernandez pyramid. Breathless, she reached the top says. Then her two youngest children and found herself asking God, “What am left home for college. Within one week I going to do with my life?” “I thought in 1999, everything she had defined there’d be a thunderbolt,” she says. “But herself by was gone. suddenly a quiet little voice in me said, ‘You can do anything you want to do.’ ” “I lost the titles of mom, Mrs., and director all at once,” Hernandez says. Hernandez had been thinking about pursuing a career in humanitarian So when she received an unexpected development since the late 1970s, when invitation to go to Guatemala for six she moved from her native Canada to weeks on a Fulbright-Hays scholarship, Mexico to marry her husband, Raul; she felt she had nothing to lose. “You the couple had met when both were know what they say: When three doors students at the University of Guelph in close, another one opens,” she says Ontario. In 1976, they married and then wryly. “They were looking for someone spent four years living with Raul’s fam- with an education background who ily on their dairy farm in Ojocaliente, spoke Spanish, and someone recom- Mexico. Unable to work there under mended me.” She packed her bags. immigration laws, Hernandez had time to get to know everyone on the farm One afternoon, while touring Tikal, and soon found that the children of the an archaeological site in northern Guate- mala, Hernandez climbed a Mayan 32 ROTARY DECEMBER 2020

workers who lived with their families in After four years on the farm and the where he was a member, stepped up to adobe huts on the farm weren’t going to births of a daughter, Margaret, and a son, help. “We did not have a car and we did school. She found a teacher and started Eric, Elaine and Raul moved the family not have health insurance,” Hernandez a school for them. back to Canada, where their third child, recalls. “A member of the Rotary club Hernandez, whose undergraduate Leila, was born. “After I left, the farm drove my mother and baby sister to the degree is in Spanish, had no teaching school closed down,” Hernandez says. hospital, and the club paid for the opera- experience and no budget, but she was “But by then, the families were used tion.” Years later, the same Rotary club determined. She cleared out a shed to to sending their kids to school, so they lent her father the money to pay for her serve as a one-room schoolhouse for 28 started driving them to a local school. sister’s braces. “Rotary gave my mother children, repurposed an old door into a They saw the value of education.” hope, my father dignity, and my baby blackboard, and arranged empty produce sister a beautiful smile,” she says. “That’s crates to serve as desks. “Sometimes H ernandez grew up in Brant- when I fell in love with Rotary.” the goats would get in there and eat the ford, Ontario, the middle child The next time Hernandez heard the paper off the walls,” she recalls, laugh- of a plumber and a stay-at- word Rotary, she was in high school. ing and noting that much of what she home mom. Rotary plays a part There was an announcement that the learned was through trial and error. Still, in one of her earliest memories: When Brantford club would be holding a she says, “That experience taught me her younger sister was born with a cleft meeting after school for prospective a lot about international development. lip and palate, the doctor who delivered Rotary Youth Exchange students. “That I learned later that some of those kids her and the Rotary Club of Brantford, announcement set off something warm went on to graduate from high school.” in my body, a physical and emotional DECEMBER 2020  ROTARY  33

week that her marriage unraveled and her youngest children left for college, she realized she was at a crossroads. “That whole experience made me reflect deeply,” she says. Her next steps became clear when she read about a new master’s degree program in public health being offered at a Texas A&M University satellite institution in McAllen, just minutes from her home. She enrolled in 2001. “I came to realize that one period of my life was at an end,” she says, “and I had the power to determine what came next.” reaction, and I knew intuitively that south. Elaine, who by then had a mas- W hen she completed the this was going to be my opportunity,” ter’s degree in adult education, learned public health program in she says. Her intuition turned out to be that the region had a particularly dire 2003, Hernandez was 51. correct. Hernandez was selected as the need for bilingual teachers, and she “I got a cold call at my first outbound Rotary Youth Exchange began teaching in public schools. “My office one day,” says Lance Leverenz, student from Brantford, and in October mom drove more than an hour to teach who worked for the American Red Cross 1970, she left to spend a year in Her- in a rural community,” Leila Hernandez at the time. Hernandez wanted to talk mosillo, Mexico. “Going to Mexico was remembers. “She was teaching students about doing some public health work the first time I was ever on a plane,” she who lived in homes without electricity along the U.S.-Mexico border. “Eventu- says. “Within six months I was bilingual, or running water.” Leila says her mother ally, she brought to the table a possible and after nine months I was dreaming in would often buy school supplies for partnership between the U.S. and Mexi- Spanish. I fell in love with the language students who couldn’t afford them. “She can Red Cross with Rotary support,” and culture.” was driven, and she loved her students.” Leverenz recalls. “We ended up hiring Elaine and Raul eventually decided Elaine, by now a member of the her to run a cross-border tuberculosis to leave Canada again, this time for Rotary Club of McAllen North, took a control project.” McAllen, Texas, where Elaine planned job as director of continuing education to earn a bilingual teaching certificate. for South Texas Community College, From 2005 until 2008, Hernandez Raul was happy to move closer to his but when she learned that her posi- cultivated a network of people in com- native Mexico, so the family headed tion would be eliminated the very same munities along the U.S.-Mexico border as a Red Cross delegate. From health HERNANDEZ GETS TO KNOW KEY PEOPLE authorities to chambers of commerce, IN COMMUNITIES, LEARNS ABOUT WHAT she asked every sector to come to- THEY NEED, AND BUILDS PARTNERSHIPS gether for a common good: stopping the IN ORDER TO MEET THOSE NEEDS. spread of tuberculosis. “She checked every single box for someone you’d want to run that type of activity,” says Leverenz. “She’s bicultural, bilingual, and has a dedication and passion for improving people’s lives.” But tuberculosis was a stubborn problem. “It’s one thing to treat a pa- tient who has access to a doctor, who will adhere to their treatment,” explains Leverenz. For very poor people without access to medical care, however, com- pliance was often low, frustrating efforts to mitigate the spread of the disease. So Hernandez’s team came up with an idea to ensure that the most vulnerable patients took their medication: Health workers would check in with them in person every day throughout their treat- ment. The Mexican Red Cross offered to help the Ministry of Health in the Mexi- can state of Tamaulipas work with 50 tuberculosis patients who had stopped taking their medication. Some were 34  ROTARY  DECEMBER 2020

DAILY BREAD Opposite: Mission Mayor Armando O’Caña and Hernandez at a local food pantry. Since the onset of the pandemic, an estimated one in five U.S. households have experienced food insecurity. DECEMBER 2020  ROTARY  35

“SHE’S BICULTURAL, BILINGUAL, RELENTLESS RESOLVE AND HAS A DEDICATION AND PASSION FOR IMPROVING PEOPLE’S LIVES.” Hernandez is known for her ability to 36  ROTARY  DECEMBER 2020 connect people across sectors to combat hunger. “It’s hard to say no to Elaine,” remarks her friend Andy Hagan.

homeless, others transient. “We’d scour I n july, hernandez took on INTERNATIONAL all the neighborhoods and shelters,” a new role: president of the IMPACT Hernandez says. Once a patient was lo- Rotary Club of Mission, Texas, cated, a Red Cross worker would check having transferred from the Elaine Hernandez in every day and administer medication. Rotary Club of McAllen Evening earlier is the recipient of in 2020 to help revitalize the 100-year- the 2020 Rotary “We took a delegation once to see the old Mission club, which was considering Alumni Global project,” Leverenz remembers. “It was shutting down. “The club got down to Service Award, inspiring and scary and very important. three active members” who were ready which each year We went to abandoned buildings where to turn in their charter, she says. “Now recognizes one homeless drug users would sleep, and we’re up to 17.” At first, Hernandez used outstanding the Mexican Red Cross would go in and her own contact list to grow the club, alumnus whose deliver their medicine.” But it worked. and now those members have begun career, activities, to invite others. and service to “We cured 49 out of the 50 patients “When Elaine reached out, we dis- humanity show assigned to us by the ministry,” Hernan- cussed what my time in Rotary would the reach and dez says. look like,” says Ricky Rendon, 28, a impact of Rotary’s new member recruited by Hernandez. programs. In 2013, In 2008, Hernandez helped secure “We talked about how I could practice she was honored $300,000 in grant funding from The my talents in Rotary. That’s one of her for her work in Rotary Foundation to equip a treatment strategies that I think is brilliant — Honduras with center for tuberculosis patients that Elaine ensures that she captures your the first Kroum the Tamaulipas Ministry of Health was passion and that it’s highlighted in the Pindoff Award building in Reynosa. It was certified mission of the club.” from the Canadian by the World Health Organization in Rendon, who works with young Red Cross. 2013 and is still in operation. The grant people with disabilities, is leading the provided equipment and training for the Mission Rotary club’s effort to form DECEMBER 2020  ROTARY  37 health workers employed by the center, a community-based Rotaract club for along with funds for community educa- young adults with disabilities. “The tion about tuberculosis in the lower Rio goal is to help them gain job and life Grande Valley. “It started as a vision or skills,” Hernandez says. a dream, and it ended in a million-dollar Hernandez is also her district’s inter- center,” she says. “That’s when I learned national service chair, a member of The the power of vision.” Rotary Foundation Cadre of Technical Advisers, and a member of the board of Hernandez continued to work for the a proposed Rotary fellowship focused on Red Cross until 2012. Her second project global development that’s getting under- was a joint effort with the Canadian and way — and she has joined a new Rotary Honduran Red Cross that focused in part Action Group on migrants and refugees. on the role of men in maternal and child It sounds like a lot to take on at once, but health in rural Honduras. By the time she the 69-year-old says, “I still feel like I’m returned to McAllen, she was 61 years 24 years old.” Her daughter Leila notes old — an age when many people are that it’s not in her mom’s nature to slow starting to think about retiring. Instead, down. “I think she’ll be doing projects she embarked on another life goal: get- until she’s 100,” she says. ting a PhD. “I started my doctoral studies Andy Hagan says he’s continually in leadership in 2013 and graduated in impressed by Hernandez’s ability to con- 2017 at age 66,” she says, adding: “You nect with people, and the growth of the can achieve all your dreams, but some Mission club is a testament to that. “It’s dreams take longer than others.” one of the first times that we’ve seen [a club have] an aggressive turnaround,” Hernandez’s next dream is a lofty says Hagan, a past governor of District one: to confront the reasons so many 5930. “Their club is now filled with people are leaving Central America. She young, enthusiastic professionals, and hopes to find funding for development it’s exciting. projects there. “I want to address hunger “Elaine is one in a million,” he adds. and poverty in Central America,” she “Actually, she’s one in 1.2 million.” says. “I want to create regional coun- cils to bring resources from Rotary and other organizations to help rebuild the economies of Honduras and Guatemala, so families don’t have to leave.”

by FRANK BURES Words to live by On the power of words, essayist Joseph Addison wrote: “Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.” A good book can open us up to new ideas and new ways of seeing the world. For Rotary members, who are dedicated to understanding the root causes of problems and to inding sustainable solutions, a good book can pose crucial questions, su gest possible courses of action, and present a fresh way of thinking about things. And sometimes it can simply offer an entertaining diversion. Going into 2021, when we’ll need all the solutions and diversions we can get, we’ve put together a selection of recently published books on everything from the joys of swimming to the model societies of naked mole rats. Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own by Eddie S. Glaude Jr. As Americans stru gle to address a legacy of slavery and racial inequality, Glaude offers a look back at the prescience and insight of James Baldwin, who more than half a century ago asked many of the hard questions we continue to face. This is a crucial biography of one of the country’s greatest artists and thinkers, as well as an examination of a troubled history that, it turns out, isn’t yet history at all. Three Tigers, One Mountain: A Journey Through the Bitter History and Current Conflicts of China, Korea, and Japan by Michael Booth The Korean peninsula is one of the most interesting and strategic parts of the world, subject to the close attention and often a gressive intervention of superpower nations. Booth journeys by car, boat, train, and foot to bring readers a irsthand view of the region’s people, its cultures, and the weight of its history. A Good Time to Be Born: How Science and Public Health Gave Children a Future by Perri Klass The headlines may be illed with gloom, but Klass reminds us that not long ago, the odds were much worse for children: Survival was far from guaranteed because of measles, diphtheria, scarlet fever, and other diseases. She weaves in the stories of pioneering female doctors such as Rebecca Lee Crumpler, Mary Putnam Jacobi, and Sara Josephine Baker, who were part of the transformation of public health that has made life better and safer. 38 ROTARY DECEMBER 2020

Optimal Outcomes: Carville’s Cure: Free Yourself From Conflict at Work, Leprosy, Stigma, and the Fight at Home, and in Life for Justice by Jennifer Goldman-Wetzler by Pam Fessler Lately, it can seem like conflict is For more than 100 years, America’s all around us. Goldman-Wetzler only leper colony existed just delves into what drives personal south of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. and professional conflicts, as well as NPR correspondent Fessler tells her strategies for working through the story of the colony and of the them, based on her two decades as a people who lived there. Pushed consultant to Fortune 500 companies. aside by the rest of society, the residents created a vibrant Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds: community for themselves, Ebola and the Ravages of History welcoming people of all faiths and by Paul Farmer backgrounds, even in the darkest Well known for his humanitarian work days of the Jim Crow South. in Haiti, Farmer here recounts the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which his Fathoms: organization, Partners in Health, helped to The World in the Whale contain. He lays out the historical context by Rebecca Gi gs for why the response was slower and less The oceans are illed with giants, and effective than it could have been. Gi gs takes us on a journey through their world. We learn about whale The End of the Ocean culture, about whales so rare their by Maja Lunde, translated by Diane Oatley subspecies have no name, and about This story by Norwegian author Lunde is how these creatures are dealing with set in 2041, when Europe has been stricken changes to their habitat. by drought. A father and daughter flee from its shores, eventually stumbling across an DECEMBER 2020 ROTARY 39 abandoned sailboat that had set sail in 2019 with a precious cargo. Soon the two journeys become intertwined. Family in Six Tones: A Refugee Mother, an American Daughter by Lan Cao and Harlan Margaret Van Cao Lan Cao was a 13-year-old girl when she boarded a plane in Vietnam in 1975 and started a new life in America, where she became a lawyer and novelist. In this joint memoir, she and her teenage daughter tell their story from different vantages, with each straddling two cultures in her own way.

The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue This novel takes place in another pandemic in another time. Julia Power is a nurse working in the maternity ward of a Dublin hospital in 1918. Power and her fellow workers grow close as they work to save mothers and babies from a relentless virus. Walk Toward the Rising Sun: From Child Soldier to Ambassador of Peace by Ger Duany with Garen Thomas In the 1990s, Duany boarded a plane for the United States, where he hoped to get an education and leave his life as a child soldier in the Sudanese civil war far behind. But even as he found fame as an actor and model, he stru gled to move past the war. Cutting School: The Segrenomics of American Education by Noliwe Rooks The “achievement gap” between white and Black students is a persistent problem in schools across the United States. Rooks looks at one of the main, but little-discussed, causes: the privatization of public education. As funding is channeled to for-pro it schools, only students who can’t afford any alternative are left in public schools. Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism by Anne Case and Angus Deaton Since the early 1900s, Americans have been getting healthier and living longer. But a few years ago, for one segment of the population, that trend started to reverse: Across America, members of the white working class began dying from suicide, overdoses, and addiction at a rate so high it lowered overall U.S. life expectancy. Case and Deaton look at why, and at how to restore hope to those hit hard by global economic trends. Co eeland: One Man’s Dark Empire and the Making of Our Favorite Drug by Augustine Sedgewick In the late 1800s, a British man named James Hill arrived in the volcanic highlands of El Salvador and proceeded to turn the country into a giant coffee plantation. Hill created great wealth for himself — and was responsible for much of the poverty and hardship that people in El Salvador endure to this day. This compelling book examines the effects of a monoculture of this scale. 40 ROTARY DECEMBER 2020

Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World’s Largest Owl by Jonathan C. Slaght When Slaght set off for the Russian Far East to spend ive years studying the endangered Blakiston’s ish owl, he didn’t plan to write a book. But every day, after stru gling in Russian, he would sit down to write in English, and the result is this story of the effort to save a little-known bird in one of the most remote parts of the world. The New Map: The Chemical Age: Energy, Climate, and the How Chemists Fought Famine and Clash of Nations Disease, Killed Millions, and Changed Our Relationship With the Earth by Daniel Yergin by Frank A.von Hippel Electricity and petroleum have shaped the modern world: Without The modern era is de ined by the power reliable energy, our lives would of science to improve our lives. In this grind to a halt. The sources of that book, von Hippel explores the history energy — and who controls them — of chemicals used for agriculture and are continually shifting, and Yergin how some became chemical weapons argues that those shifts are changing or otherwise did more harm than good. the world balance of power that was laid down after World War I. Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck by William Souder When John Steinbeck was born in California in 1902, parts of the United States were still considered frontier. By the time he died in 1968, it had become the most powerful country in the world. Steinbeck’s lifetime fell within what some call the American Century, and he wrote some of the most acclaimed books of that century, winning the Nobel Prize in literature. This biography looks at the complicated man and the tumultuous life behind the stories. The Language of Butterflies: How Thieves, Hoarders, Scientists, and Other Obsessives Unlocked the Secrets of the World’s Favorite Insect by Wendy Williams Rotary members across North America and the world are working to save monarch butterfly habitat. Williams offers an in-depth history of butterflies across the globe and the story of people who have made these insects their life’s work. DECEMBER 2020 ROTARY 41

How to Feed a Dictator: Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin, Enver Hoxha, Fidel Castro, and Pol Pot Through the Eyes of Their Cooks by Witold Szablowski, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones Polish journalist Szablowski tracks down the unknown people who cooked the meals for ive of the 20th century’s worst tyrants. It’s an intimate look at some of the darkest chapters of recent history, told with humanity and pathos, using a window through which no one else thought to look. Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn The authors revisit Kristof’s hometown of Yamhill, Oregon, which has been hit hard by the opioid epidemic. They then travel across the country to tell the stories of people who are working to overcome problems unleashed by the wave of prescription drug addiction that has washed across rural America. Why We Swim by Bonnie Tsui One of the irst places that Tsui, a journalist and the daughter of Chinese immigrants, felt at home in America was in the pool. In this book, she examines our relationship with bodies of water, traveling around the world exploring swim cultures from Olympic athletes to modern Japanese samurai swimmers to those who’ve swum incredible distances to survive. The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again by Robert D. Putnam with Shaylyn Romney Garrett Putnam, a political scientist and the author of the landmark Bowling Alone, looks to America’s past and inds hope for its future. He explains how in the late 1800s, a dog-eat-dog culture was transformed into a more humane one, and an “I” society became a “we” society. One part of that transformation is the rise of organiza- tions, such as Rotary, dedicated to fellowship and good works. Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights by Gretchen Sorin The past year has forced the United States and many other countries to reckon with racism. It has also brought a reassessment of the past. Historian Sorin looks at the role the automobile played in helping African Americans escape travel restrictions, move to new parts of the country, and ind some freedom on the open road. 42 ROTARY DECEMBER 2020

Head, Hand, Heart: Why Intelligence Is Over-Rewarded, Manual Workers Matter, and Caregivers Deserve More Respect by David Goodhart If there’s one thing the COVID-19 pandemic has given us, it’s a greater appreciation for the essential workers on whom our lives depend. Goodhart considers the differing status of people who work with their heads (cognitive work), their hands (manual work), and their hearts (caring work) and calls for a reassessment of how society values each type. War: Genesis: How Conflict Shaped Us The Deep Origin of Societies by Margaret MacMillan by Edward O. Wilson MacMillan takes on a massive At irst glance, the African naked mole subject, looking at how war has rat may not seem like the best role shaped politics, technology, model for human society, but Wilson, ideologies, and every aspect of the eminent scientist and Pulitzer Prize- our lives and asking whether war winning writer, makes the case that we is ever within our control or is an can learn something from this and other inescapable part of our nature. animals that have founded societies based on altruism and cooperation. The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread — And Why They Stop by Adam Kucharski These days, we all have an interest in contagious things, be they a novel coronavirus, medical misinformation, or bizarre conspiracy theories. Kucharski, who works at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine as an analyst of disease outbreaks, looks at the common mechanisms for how things spread and what we can do to stop them. Superman’s Not Coming: Nerve: Our National Water Crisis and What Adventures in the Science of Fear We the People Can Do About It by Eva Holland by Erin Brockovich For many people, fear is a way of life. After living with a variety Water activist Brockovich may be best of phobias, Holland decided to known for her 1990s fight for clean both confront and understand her water in Hinkley, California (and for fears. This account is her journey the ilm about it starring Julia Roberts). through the fear of death, of heights, In this book, she looks at similar of driving, of loss — and into the stru gles in communities across the science of fear and how to manage it. country. Consider it a guidebook to the stru gle for clean water. DECEMBER 2020 ROTARY 43

By Joe Queenan Illustrations by Sébastien Thibault WANTED: good samaritans THE SAD TRUTH ABOUT ALTRUISM IS THAT THERE AREN’T ENOUGH ALTRUISTS F rom time to time, societies run low on the things — and the people — they really need. We wake up one day and realize that there are too few doctors. Or far, far, far too few nurses. Or it suddenly dawns on us that there aren’t enough teachers, engineers, or plumbers to go around. There are certainly never enough guys who work well with sheetrock. Other professionals we have in spades. There are always more than enough landscapers, baristas, actors, masseurs, personal trainers, hairdressers, IT guys, and chefs. Nor are we ever in any real danger of running out of hedge fund managers, ballerinas, real estate agents, claims adjusters, standup comics, bartenders, aspiring singer-songwriters, or car salesmen. But the people who fill the truly essential roles in society are often in short supply. Something like this may already be happening with Good Samaritans. From time to time, societies run desperately low on the kinds of devoted, implacable altruists who are always ready to pitch in and make the world a better place. 44 ROTARY DECEMBER 2020



Institutional altruism is rarely a a large number of indisputably saintly demonstrably a “good” person (or who at problem. Plenty of churches, founda- enterprises. In other words, to use a least had some sort of conjugal affiliation tions, and government agencies are reliable old phrase, I gave at the office. with one) to become an even better working night and day to help better Well, she did. person. My question — a pretty obvious society. These people do good for a one, I thought — was: Why couldn’t living. But institutional philanthropy The young man smiled amiably. somebody else carry the ball for a change? alone can’t handle a problem as large as He was not pushy. He was not the one created by the current pan- judgmental. He did not try to The young man patiently listened, demic. Societies always and everywhere embarrass me with that sneering then waved away my protests. “We ask rely on large numbers of those people “Have a nice day” that virtuous para- people who’ve already given to give again sometimes derisively referred to as professionals so often employ when because we know that those people are “do-gooders” to keep things running people start to drift away without generous,” he said. “Doesn’t it make smoothly. And right now there aren’t opening their wallets. He thanked me more sense to target people who already enough do-gooders to go around. It for my generosity, or, to be perfectly think like us than to go after strangers?” doesn’t help that a lot of do-gooders accurate, for my wife’s generosity. are stuck indoors because He said that regular contributions by The deceptively cunning logic of his of the pandemic. people like us were the very lifeblood argument floored me. My feeling had of the organization. But in this case, always been that if we — as a family — The vexing problem of Good he added, he was out raising money had already given to the Fresh Air Fund Samaritan Shortfall was driven home for a specific initiative. and the Sierra Club, then we didn’t have to me last February while I was visiting to give to the Red Cross or the Salvation Washington, D.C. Strolling down M I now tried to explain that asking Army. In my mind, I had conflated all Street, I was approached by a young me to give more to a cause I already the organizations that were trying to man in a red vest who was raising supported seemed like philanthropic make the world a better place into one money for a worthy cause. I told double dipping. It was like asking monolith of merit. My wife, Francesca, him that I already contributed to the someone who was already writing didn’t look at things that way. In her organization he represented, thanks checks to save endangered hippos view, just because you had already given to my wife, who regularly, reflexively, to write a second check to save to this didn’t mean you couldn’t give almost automatically sends checks to endangered rhinos. It was like to that. The way she sees it, there is no asking someone who was already ceiling for good works. 46  ROTARY  DECEMBER 2020

VIRTUOUS PEOPLE NEED HELP. VIRTUOUS PEOPLE NEED TO RECRUIT NEW TALENT. ALL THE TIME. THIS, IN FACT, IS WHY ROTARY CLUBS EXIST. I disagreed. I even wisecracked could benefit from this kind of system. Joe Queenan is a that we should adopt a simple ethical I’ve noticed that my wife, who runs a frequent contributor cap-and-trade policy, stipulating senior citizens center on a pro bono to the magazine. that if we helped clean up the rivers, basis, ceaselessly cultivates civic-minded Since March, he has we didn’t have to help clean up the individuals who are roughly a generation written four one-act lakes. At least not both of us. She was younger than us. It’s not enough to be plays (all of which having none of it. Who ever said that good. It really helps to also be young. will be performed on you were allowed to take a vacation Zoom), a screenplay, from virtue? Bad people didn’t take All of which suggests a rebuttal to and a rock opera. sabbaticals from wrongdoing, so why the seemingly impregnable argument should good people take a break from made by the young man in the red DECEMBER 2020  ROTARY  47 doing good? If you were altruistic, you vest that I encountered on the streets were required to be uninterruptedly of Washington. If you want to make altruistic. In the parlance of her native the world a better place, you cannot England, if you were in for a penny, keep raising money from the same you were in for a pound. people over and over, as he suggested, no matter how generous they are. This got me to thinking about Society cannot depend exclusively the Good Samaritans I knew upon the pathologically altruistic or personally. At some point I realized the congenitally compassionate to keep that the high-profile do-gooders in things going. There simply aren’t enough my community almost never limited of them. Virtuous people need help. their good-doing to a single activity. Virtuous people need to recruit new If you saw them volunteering at the talent. All the time. This, in fact, is why library book sale on Saturday, you Rotary clubs exist. would probably also see them at the Girl Scout bake sale on Sunday. If they At this point, it’s worth discussing were out brandishing petitions to save the difference between the Good Sa- a historic building, you would probably maritan and the Merely Adequate also see them fighting to save a historic Samaritan. Like most people, I am not mural. At first I thought that people like an inherently good person; goodness this practiced virtue on such a large is learned behavior. Left to my own scale mainly because it made them devices, I might eventually have feel better about themselves — which morphed into a halfway decent human it indisputably does. But over the being. But I don’t think I would ever have years I have come to realize that gotten much further than that. Never in these neighbors do not necessarily my wildest dreams did I think I would engage in so many virtuous activities ever flower into a paragon of virtue. The merely because they are good, caring closest I could come to that was being people. It’s because they know that married to a paragon of virtue. This is there aren’t enough good, caring the opposite of guilt by association. people to go around. It is guiltlessness by association. Baseball teams rely on a pipeline When we first married, my wife and I of minor league talent that eventually developed a division-of-labor approach gets called up to the majors. I think to civic-mindedness. She would handle that those who perform altruistic all the volunteer work involving the activities at the major league level schools, the community, the senior citizens, the underprivileged, the ozone

layer, and the manatees, and I would how his efforts were brightening people’s buy the opera tickets. While she wrote lives, however fleetingly. Occasionally, checks to the Red Cross, Children’s other college students or retirees would Aid, Greenpeace, and Doctors Without offer to help. These individuals were Borders, I would buy tickets to the New fiercely well-meaning. York Philharmonic or the Tokyo String Quartet. I also purchased memberships But when the chips are down and it’s to all the local museums. Thus, the time to drop off the Christmas baskets, good works practiced in our household well-meaningness isn’t enough. It is often were split right down the middle. She said that in the world of altruism, it’s the devoted herself to keeping society thought that counts. Incorrect. If you’re afloat; I devoted myself to keeping going to do the right thing, you have to do civilization afloat. Her job was a lot it the right way. This is often impossible, more time-consuming. because those who are only periodically virtuous are usually clueless. They give Since the coronavirus epidemic hit, chickens to people who asked for turkeys as I have watched growing numbers and turkeys to people who asked for of people who have never done hams. They put too many Oreos in one anything civic-minded in their lives bag and none in the other. At the end of pitching in and helping, I have thought those food runs, we invariably had to more and more about the essence of make a second trip to the supermarket philanthropy. When all the good works because we always came up a couple of are done by just a few people, which turkeys short. This was no way to run a is almost always the case in small railroad, much less a charity. towns like the one where I live, it hurts the community, because people This gets to the crux of the matter: who do not regularly do good works Good Samaritans are basically amateurs either forget how to do them or never — but they shouldn’t be rank amateurs. learn how in the first place. There’s Those who are going to get serious about an art to cleaning up polluted lakes altruism need to develop skills, to know or litter-strewn playgrounds. There’s where their talents are useful and where an art to sitting patiently with people they are not. Virtue, like mastering the and helping them learn English as hammered dulcimer, requires practice. a second language. For that matter, This is one of the few good things about there’s an art to going out into the the pandemic: It has given an awful street and asking complete strangers lot of people who have never lifted a to fork over their money. finger to help their fellow man a golden opportunity to learn the ropes, to go from This is where the Good Samaritan bumbling amateurs to effective doers of and the Intermittently Good good. People in my town who had never Samaritan part company. For a few been especially altruistic now give big tips years, my college-age son would help to those who work in the service industry, us deliver turkeys and groceries to or they drop off food for those who cannot needy members of our community at leave their homes, or they help clean up Christmastime. This was immensely the garbage strewn along the riverfront. satisfying work, because he could see I never knew they had it in them. IT IS OFTEN SAID THAT IN THE WORLD But what of those who stub- OF ALTRUISM, IT’S THE THOUGHT bornly refuse to lend a hand? I person- ally am not in favor of coercing people THAT COUNTS. INCORRECT. IF YOU’RE into doing good works, the way some GOING TO DO THE RIGHT THING, progressive companies strong-arm their employees into doing community YOU HAVE TO DO IT THE RIGHT WAY. service in their free time. But I am not opposed to embarrassing people into doing good works. When I was growing up on the mean streets of Philadelphia — and yes, those streets were mean, and remain mean to this day — my parents were devout Catholics. They were also poor. The wolf was not always at the door, but it was usually somewhere in the vicinity. Yet no matter how bad things got, my parents always put something in the church 48  ROTARY  DECEMBER 2020