Rotary Club of Grosse Pointe held it's second virtual meeting and and we had 45 people in attendance. Unfortunately due to GoToMeetings limit on the number of simultaneous streaming videos, only 25 faces were visible at a time. Our speaker was Jennifer Jones. Jennifer is a member of the Windsor-Roseland Club, was the Rotary International vice president in 2016-17, and is a 2019-2023 Trustee of the RI Foundation.Jennifer sees Rotary as a silver lining in these times with clubs, like ours, being flexible and connecting online. Her RI world has become a series of Zoom meetings.
This past month, RI has scrambled to help by diverting $1 million to its disaster relief fund with $25,000 grants available to any District fighting Covid 19. Numerous clubs immediately responded and the first 40 had the money in their hands within 4-5 days. Another influx of money will be added to this fund in the next few days.
Jennifer responded to questions:
Polio: RI is still working hard to eradicate the disease and was strongly working with governments and even the Taliban. Unfortunately, there is now a 6-month moratorium on delivering vaccines. There is good news -- the RI medical infrastructure that is already in place is now switching its focus to the coronavirus. RI is still working closely with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with Jennifer co-chairing a campaign to raise $50 million a year over the next three years.
RI Foundation: It’s even more important to donate as every dollar given today is used three years from now. The money being diverted to the coronavirus fight needs to be replenished.
Female leadership: RI is on the cusp of having a female president. Next year, there will be 6 women on the board of trustees.
New members: It’s very important that they do something meaningful and it’s up to the Club to ask what new members would like to do and then deliver.
Interact: Rotary Clubs should include their Interact Clubs in a meaningful way. Find young leaders and them make them better leaders.
The meeting came to an end as Jennifer was going out on her front porch at 7:00 PM to bang pots and shout out in support of health care workers, like her doctor husband Nick Krayacich.