Rotary projects around the globe

February 2023

By Brad Webber

United States

Members of the Rotary Club of Twin Cities (Centralia-Chehalis), Washington, took to the stage to perform an interactive play, Game of Murder: A Sword and Sorcery Murder Mystery Lunch. A tradition over the past decade, every year’s show features a different production with a different cast. The latest show in April sold out and raised $3,400 for charitable causes, including ramps for disabled access, scholarships for Centralia College, and Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. “We’ve generally had between 100 and 140 people attend each year,” says Catherine Cleveland, who co-wrote the script and was one of six Rotarian thespians who starred in the performance.

Bolivia

Since 2016, the Rotaract Club of Chuquiago Marka has sponsored community events to fund its signature project, providing ocular prosthetics for young eye cancer patients. In November, the club organized a food festival that drew some 4,000 people to Plaza Abaroa in La Paz, the capital. The star attraction was a traditional type of empanada called the salteña. “It is delicious, and people love it,” says Pamela Tapia Salazar, the club’s president. The event raised $700 for the vision program and gave a boost to the salteñas companies, still recovering after the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.

6.00,000
Community theaters in the U.S.

41.00%
Proportion of Bolivian adults who identify as Indigenous

United Kingdom

To foster connection among older adults who may have felt isolated during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Rotary Club of Kings Lynn Priory worked with a local cinema to offer discounted screenings through a Silver Mondays Cinema Club. Nearly 60 moviegoers turned out in November to watch Matilda the Musical. Club members served as greeters, ticket takers, and ushers, says Phil Davies, the club’s immediate past president and main organizer of the screenings. “The benefit to the cinemagoers is probably 70 percent the opportunity to socialize and 30 percent the film itself,” Davies says.

Spain

Members of the Rotary Club of Punta Prima International, in Torrevieja, sponsored and helped stage the Golf Tour Las Ramblas, a series of fundraisers begun in 2019 near the Mediterranean city. Sponsorships, start fees, and party and dinner tickets from the 2022 competitions brought in more than $1,500. Rotarians directed some of the funds to a church charity that assists women and children who have fled Ukraine, says Gunnel Thunström, a club member and tournament organizer. She says the partnership is mutually enriching, even if only a handful of the club’s members are avid golfers.

19.00%
Share of the UK’s population over age 64

1764.00
The year when golf’s 18-hole round originated

Malaysia

While Malaysia’s citizens are among the most proficient English speakers in Asia, a gap persists between people in urban and rural areas. The country has pushed in recent years to increase English literacy because of its role in the global economy. Shortly after it was chartered in 2015, the Rotary Club of Kota Kinabalu Pearl began working to reduce the disparity, says Noni Said, a club past president who inaugurated Project REAL. By 2020, the club’s initiative operated in 16 rural schools in Sabah state, benefiting some 4,000 students by providing teacher training, books, and equipment. A committee including Rotarians visits schools and meets quarterly with education leaders to monitor progress. Project REAL attracted early financial support from philanthropic organizations and the Australian Embassy. New partnerships with Rotary members in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, and in Taiwan have enabled the club to expand the project to an additional 18 schools.

This story originally appeared in the February 2023 issue of Rotary magazine.