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For the second year now, Marsha Teller, our Community Service Director, has led our club in a successful Bundles of Love Diaper Drive, in conjunction with the local Wrapped in Love Diaper Bank, This organization distributed over 129,000 diapers and other needed sanitary items in our community last year to individuals and families who are financially struggling, and have difficulty affording these products. While we lay no claims to being the swiftest or the most coordinated diaper bundling and wrapping crews in town, our table teams had fun, while doing a pretty-impressive job of this work at our quarterly social meeting last Wednesday evening at the Hassayampa Inn. Vicki the Rapper — Correction: Guess that should be "Vicki, the Wrapper" Richard counting and stacking — while noting the last time he handled a diaper, it was a recyclable type, rather than these disposable ones. Sarah and Jane — working as a team, and getting it done! Our diaper bundling and wrapping leaders from our club and the Wrapped in Love Diaper Bank Some of this year's Sunup Diaper Bundling Crew — others had to leave earlier before this photo Rotary's PolioPlus Initiative With the death of Paul Alexander on March 11, 2024, Martha Ann Lillard, who is seen here in 1953, became the last known person to still live in an iron lung. She celebrated her fifth birthday on June 8, 1953, with a party at Joyland, an amusement park in Oklahoma. On June 17, 1953, she woke up with a sore throat and pain in her neck. Her family took her to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with Polio, and soon had difficulty breathing on her own. She was placed in a giant ventilator, known as an iron lung, which is about 7 feet long. Patients lie inside with just their heads resting outside. A seal around the patient's neck creates a vacuum. Bellows at the base of the device do the work of a human diaphragm, creating a negative pressure, so the user's lungs fill with air, and positive pressure allows the person to exhale. It was, in fact, during the final stages of the COVID 19 Pandemic that Paul Anderson lost his life. Having lived through that Pandemic, which claimed the lives of some of our friends, we saw how our local hospitals set up dedicated sections devoted to attempting to save lives with special air handlers and ventilators, In the photo below, taken in August of 1955, you can see how hospitals, like this one in Boston, set up emergency Polio Wards, equipped with these iron lung ventilators, to attempt to save as many lives as possible during the Polio Epidemic, which existed here in this country and around the world. (EDITOR"S NOTE: I lived through this era as a child, and experienced the Polio panic that gripped this nation at that time. In current times, it was one of those specially-equipped COVID Units, at YRMC East,.which saved Sharon's life, when we thought she had no chance, after being diagnosed with COVID and pneumonia in both of her lungs.) In 1985, Rotary made a promise to the children of the world that one day no child anywhere in the world would ever be crippled or die again from the terrible disease of Polio. At the time, we had no idea how long it would take, or what it would eventually cost, to eradicate Polio from the face of the earth; but we Rotarians are committed to keeping our promises. With only two countries left (Afghanistan & Pakistan), we, along with all of our partners in this endeavor, are nearing the finish line. The financial help of all Rotarians is needed, though, to be able to cross that costly finish line. Today, when you donate $100 to Rotary's PolioPlus, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will triple your contribution. The Gates are as commmitted as we are to finishing what we have begun: wiping out Polio from the face of the earth. CLUB SERVICE Your help is needed to sell the advance $25 tickets for Sunup Rotary's Chili Cook-off, which is coming up quickly on Saturday, October 25, from 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. at Touchmark at the Ranch. A $25 ticket entitles the holder to sample some of the best chili in Prescott, cooked up in a competition between chefs, while enjoying the great music of the Bob Shimizu Trio. Advance tickets at this $25 price can be purchased at our club meetings, or by contacting Parshalla Wood, our ticket coordinator, at parshallawood@gmail.com, (928) 713-6716. Tickets purchased at the door will cost $30. DISTRICT NEWS Something New . . . INTERNATIONAL SERVICE Talk with Todd Clancy, our club's International Service Director, about joining him and John Stewart at this year's Mexico-US Friendship Conference and Global Grants Exchange in Yuma. The conference will be back in Mexico next year, so take advantage of the opportunity to participate in a truly uniquie Rotary International Service event, while it is nearby in Yuma this year. Todd can be reached at (480) 285-719, taclancy2000@yahoo.com.  We believe Tums is missing out on selling pumpkin spice flavored antacid, And calling it AuTums. __ If a man says he will fix it, HE WILL, There’s no need to remind him every 3 months. __ My co-worker said, “You should never eat donuts for breakfast.”
I told her, “My Grandmother lived to be 100 years old.”
She asked, “Did she eat donuts for breakfast?”
I said, “No, she minded her own business.” __ Did you hear about the town that legalized pot, but banned alcohol? The residents were left high and dry. __ When I was little, I didn’t care what I wore.
I just went along with what my parents chose.
When I look at old photo albums,
I realize that they didn’t care, either. __ I don’’t understand how a cemetery can raise its burial prices And blame it on the cost of living! __ A Pennsylvania man is suing Smart Water for not making him smart. I would like to formally announce my lawsuit against Thin Mints. __ Today's housekeeping tip: always keep several get well cards on the mantel.
That way, if unexpected guests arrive, they will think you've been sick and unable to clean. __ |
