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Charity Navigator upgrades Rotary Foundation’s rating
The Rotary Foundation has received the highest possible score from Charity Navigator, an independent evaluator of charities in the U.S.
In the most recent ratings, released on 1 September, The Rotary Foundation earned the maximum 100 points for both financial health and accountability and transparency.
The ratings reflect how efficiently Charity Navigator believes the Foundation will use donations, how well it has sustained programs and services, and its level of commitment to good governance and openness.
In the previous rating, the Foundation had received 97 points.
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Rotary district collecting relief funds for Louisiana flood victims
Rotary clubs of District 6200 are collecting relief funds to help thousands of victims after record flooding devastated communities in southern Louisiana, USA, earlier this month. Torrential rains caused rivers, streams, and bayous to swell, damaging or destroying more than 60,000 homes and killing at least 13 people.
The U.S. Coast Guard and emergency responders helped rescue more than 30,000 residents from the rising flood waters. As of 25 August, more than 3,000 residents were still in emergency shelters even after the water receded.
Donate to District 6200 disaster relief fund.
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ShelterBox and Rotary clubs take action following earthquake in Italy
A 6.2-magnitude earthquake struck central Italy early Wednesday, killing more than 120 people and trapping an unknown number beneath rubble. Tremors were felt as far away as Rome, 100 km (65 miles) southwest of the quake’s epicenter.
International disaster relief agency and Rotary International project partner ShelterBox is sending a response team from its headquarters in the United Kingdom to the remote mountainous area of Italy where the destruction is most severe. The response team will arrive Friday, 26 August, to assess the area’s needs.
Luca Della Volta, president of ShelterBox Italia,…
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Hall of Fame singer Donovan becomes a Rotary polio ambassador
Legendary singer and polio survivor Donovan Leitch, better known simply as Donovan, has joined Rotary in its fight to eradicate the paralyzing disease that afflicted him during much of his childhood.
Donovan contracted polio at age three in Glasgow, Scotland. The disease weakened his right leg and left it thinner and shorter than the other. Confined to his bed for much of his childhood, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame singer said his father would read him poetry.
In a recent interview with the Daily Express, Donovan said that listening to poetry piqued his interest in creative writing. “If I…
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World Polio Day toolkit available — start planning now
Rotary’s fourth World Polio Day celebration, on 24 October, will highlight extraordinary progress in the eradication campaign and emphasize the work that remains before we wipe out the virus for good. With the number of new cases worldwide nearly halved from this time last year, we have the opportunity to rally our resources and see the last case of polio this year.
Health officials and Rotary’s celebrity polio ambassadors will head to Atlanta, Georgia, USA, for the event, the first to be held at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It will be streamed live and then will…
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Young member uses leadership positions to promote diversity, inclusion
The way Rotary member Todd Jenkins puts it, he’s the first generation in his family “to do everything”: first to go to college, first to fly on a plane, first to visit another country, and the first to live across state lines.
Jenkins, 28, grew up in a low-income neighborhood in Columbia, South Carolina, USA. His family worked hard just to make ends meet. So travel and college seemed out of reach.
The eldest of ten children, Jenkins says his goal was to break out of the family status quo and set a positive example for his siblings. He credits his mother with helping him avoid falling into the…
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Rotary recommits to ending polio in Nigeria
The World Health Organization has confirmed two cases of wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) in Nigeria, the first cases in the country since July 2014. After passing a year without a case of the wild poliovirus, Nigeria was removed from the list of polio-endemic countries in September 2015. These cases – from two local government areas of Borno state – occurred in July 2016.
The Government of Nigeria – in partnership with the Global Polio Eradication Initiative – will take immediate steps to respond quickly to the outbreak to prevent further spread of the disease. This response will include…
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The Rotarian Conversation with Nobel laureate Stefan Hell
From the August 2016 issue of The Rotarian
Four hundred years ago, the invention of the microscope gave us a glimpse into an aspect of the world too tiny to be seen by the human eye. The microscope works by capturing light shone on or through an object observed through lenses, which magnify the resulting image so we can see it. But a microscope has its limits. In 1873, German physicist Ernst Abbe discovered that the ability of a microscope to see past a certain size was limited not by the quality of its lens, but by the wavelength of light shining into it. And since the wavelength of visible…
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Member spotlight: Rod Buffington's patchwork of good deeds
From the August 2016 issue of The Rotarian
Quilts may be utilitarian objects, but Rod Buffington’s “quilt paintings” – watercolors on paper that are then covered with small bits of fabric – are geometrics where mathematics and whimsy intersect. Buffington, a member of the Rotary Club of Springfield, Ill., didn’t come up with this unusual method overnight. His voilà moment came as he beheld the mesmerizing quilts made by his grandmother, who lived to 104 and continued her craft until she was 98. To create his works, Buffington lays cotton fabric over paintings he has created, then hand-…