Council Honors Rotary Club of Beverly Hills
With Rotary International celebrating more than 100 years of service, the City Council takes a moment to recognize local members.
By Marie Cunningham, Patch Staff
The Rotary Club of Beverly Hills received a proclamation from City Council Tuesday in honor of Rotary International’s 107 years of worldwide service.
“The Rotary Club of Beverly Hills has been a very generous supporter of countless Beverly Hills projects, including the ‘s main literacy program, the , the Beverly Hills sign and …and the ,” Vice Mayor William Brien said at the formal council meeting.
Founded on Feb. 23, 1905, in Chicago, Rotary International has 1.2 million members in more than 34,000 clubs around the globe. As one of the largest non-profit service organizations in the nation, members volunteer at home and abroad for a variety of projects that focus on health, education and safety. Another goal of Rotary International is to end polio.
“Through PolioPlus, Rotary International has been instrumental in reducing cases of polio, one of the most feared diseases of the 20th century,” Brien said. “We’re really just a mere matter of one or two countries away from actually eradicating this disease worldwide. That’s been a tremendous effort by so many Rotarians around the world and something that will save lives and keep people from being crippled in a way that often has no cure.”
Incoming Beverly Hills Rotary Club President Susan Berk took a moment to thank the council and also highlight some of the local chapter’s latest endeavors.
“Recently a few of our members just came back from Puerto Rico where we did a humanitarian trip—we did a clean water project, we distributed over 100 wheel chairs to needy people, we funded computers and job training programs there,” Berk said. “And right now another international project we’re working on is cleft palate deformities. We’re raising funds to do that in Brazil in a couple of months.”
Mayor Barry Brucker, himself a Beverly Hills Rotary Club member, thanked the group for its continued dedication to humanitarian efforts.
“There are so many ways of giving service and one of them that is so near and dear to many of us in Beverly Hills and worldwide is Rotary International,” he said. “As a proud member of Rotary—as many of my [council] colleagues—what a wonderful opportunity to honor Rotary and its anniversary.”
SOURCE: Patch
