ImageWilf Wilkinson, Chair of the Rotary Foundation Board of Trustees spoke to the South Georgian Bay Rotary Club's sponsored Foundation Dinner
 

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Wilf Wilkinson, Chair of the Rotary Foundation Board of Trustees spoke to the South Georgian Bay Rotary Club's sponsored Foundation Dinner held at the Bear Estates at Cranberry Resort in Collingwood On March 2nd, 2013.

President of Rotary International in the 2007-2008 Rotary year, Wilf has held numerous other Rotary offices. He joined the Rotary Club of Trenton in 1962, served as Club President in 1967-68, District Governor in 1971-72, Director in 1992-94 and Vice President in 1993-1994. He has also served as a Trustee of The Rotary Foundation in 1997-2001 and 2002-2003, and chaired the Convention Committee for the 2005 RI Centennial Convention in Chicago.

The Rotary Foundation Board of Trustees is responsible for managing the business of the Foundation. Its members include the chair, chair-elect, vice chair, and the Rotary general secretary. Trustees are appointed to four-year terms by the RI president, with approval from the RI Board of Directors.

To a crowd of over 100 Rotarians from District 7010, he stated :

Rotary was built upon the idea of advancing goodwill and understanding – it’s in our mission, and part of everything we do. The Rotary Foundation has six areas of focus, each of which is important. But every one of them depends on peace in the world.

There are endless ways to help build peace in our world, through our clubs and through our Foundation. The polio eradication initiative, as the largest global public health initiative in history, is doing a tremendous amount to promote peace – by building partnerships between the public and private sectors, by improving health infrastructure and monitoring the poorest areas, and by making it clear to all that we cannot have a healthy world if even one child is forgotten.

Peace comes from sharing, and as many of you know, Rotary Shares is my personal answer to what each Rotarian should be doing

Our own John Van Larr was awarded a special RI Service Above Self Award. The “ Service Above Self” is given to a maximum of 150 Rotarians every year. This year there were 350 applications and 143 given.
John was nominated by RI's  Bryn Styles (Bryn had to show all of John's activities in social work in the past and present years.
It is the highest award given to individual Rotarians by R.I.
 Ata go John !!

From the  Blue Mountains Courier-Herald

A trip to the Philippines and a glimpse into hopeless poverty pushed one local man to send help.

Since the day in 2005, when John Van Laar watched people - children - scramble for food at a city dump, he's helped bring education, food and proper health care to poverty stricken villages and towns in the Philippines.

"That changed my life completely," said Van Laar, who lives in Thornbury.

In recognition of his work and the success of those programs, Van Laar has just received one of Rotary International's highest honour, a Service Above Self award.

Van Laar is a member of the Collingwood South Georgian Bay Rotary Club and calls himself a professional beggar.

What he means is that he is a fundraiser. He travels to Rotary Clubs in Canada seeking support for the programs he has helped to start in the Philippines.

Thanks to the support given by Rotary clubs and the Rotary Foundation, there is a feeding program for children aged 0-4 in the Philippines near Cebu.

There's also a back-to-school program for children who have dropped out or never went to school due to their family's poverty. Many have to spend their days at the garbage dump scavenging for food.

The program uses sponsorships from Canadian donors to help students go to a traditional school in or near their village. It also offers an alternative learning system to accommodate for older children who have work during the day. The program partners each student with a mentor who makes sure the child stays in school and is looked after.

"The program is looking after more than 1,000 children," said Van Laar. Hundreds more have graduated and are working in full-time jobs with salaries.

There are 200 former street kids who were enrolled in the alternative learning system and trained to use a computer who are now employed full time.

One of the most recent projects is a mobile dental van, purchased by Rotary and staffed and taken care of by the local military in the Philippines.

The van brings top-quality dental care to the poor and remote villages and islands of the Philippines. Because of the partnership with the local army, there are well-trained army dentists and full access to transport boats to take the large van from island to island.

Currently, Van Laar and his Rotary partners are working on a mobile eye clinic, and a deal with the Air Force in the Philippines to staff and run the mobile clinic.

There have also been projects to provide a rainwater purification and catch system for clean water at schools, disaster relief, funds for in utero heart surgery, support for a school for the hearing impaired, and Polio eradication (a Rotary International initiative that has it's roots in an idea that came from Cebu).

Van Laar received his award from a past president of Rotary International, Wilf Wilkinson. Van Laar admires Wilkinson's life of achievement, and was very honoured to receive the award from him.

And now it's back to work for Van Laar, who, with his wife, Cora, wants to change the lives of the people of the Philippines, just as his life was changed by them.