 This is Think Tech Hawaii. Community matters here. Good morning and welcome to Hawaii Rotary, People of Action here on Think Tech Hawaii. I'm your host Ethan Allen. With me here in Think Tech Studios is Gary Germer. Welcome Gary. Thank you. Good to be here. Gary is the president of the Metropolitan Club of Honolulu here, local Rotary chapter that actually meets every week in the same building as I think Tech Studios. So Rotary is a big organization and a lot of people have heard of it, but I suspect a lot of people don't really know what Rotary does other than sort of do good kind of projects. Can you say a little bit, just a quick summary of it? You're probably right about that Ethan, but let me just say that Rotary is a membership organization of local business, professional and civic leaders. We meet regularly to get to know each other, form friendships, and through that we're able to get things done in our community and across the globe. We like to think of ourselves as people of action. Now I've read to you sort of a free written piece about what is Rotary, and it's a good summary, but the main things about it is people join Rotary to do good in the community, to give back to the community with friends. And yes there's some networking that goes along with that for your own job, but we find that the people that enjoy Rotary the most are there to get friends and then work with those friends to do community service both locally and internationally, and I'll tell you more about those projects as we go this morning. Right, yeah, and there are a huge variety. I guess the short disclaimer is not only the president of local Rotary, it's local Metropolitan Rotary chapter. I'm also a member of that chapter. And so I know something about this, and there are a lot of local projects from relatively small sort of simple events. We just recently staffed a booth at the Children Youth Day, for instance an information booth, which is very sort of simple, just handing out packets and giving people directions. But there is, we go into local schools and youth centers and help them clean them up, repair them, repaint, retile, help put in new kitchens and places, elder care centers I know we've worked with, we do a Kiki backpack thing, so all kinds of projects, but then Rotary goes off into a large scale of international projects, right? Well, Ethan, you've generically described what we've been doing locally and then you mentioned the international project. Let me address the international one first and then we'll get back to some of the local ones. The Rotary is probably best known that through the Rotary International Foundation, it is this close to eradicating polio from the earth. In fact, there's only three countries in the world that still have known cases, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria. And the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, with all their wealth and all their resources, went looking for a foundation and a cause. We didn't go looking for them, they went out looking for something to do and they chose the polio program of the International Rotaries Foundation. And now whenever you donate to that foundation, which is paying for this effort to get rid of polio, they match the donations two to one. And obviously that's been a huge help. And even today, Rotarians don't just give money, the Gates don't just give money, we actually send people all over the world, even from our Hawaii chapters, and there are 51 Hawaii chapters, but even from our Hawaii chapters to what we call national immunization days. And there's one coming up in January in India, any Rotarian, anybody that qualifies can sign up and do it. It's all on your own nickel, but you actually go out and administer the vaccine to the children. Now it's eradicated in India as far as we know, but the new kids have to get their immunizations. You've got to keep working on it and keep a certain level of immunity in the population, or else it will, it can spring back. There's been actually some recent evidence in one of the three countries I think in Afghanistan that they've seen some new cases popping up in places that they hadn't been seeing them, and it's very worrisome. Because again, those are very hard places to work in. And I do want to get back to Hawaii, but let me just say people may wonder why is Rotary trying to do something around the world? And the reason is we have Rotary clubs in 200 countries. Wow. We have 1.3 million Rotarians around the world who are leaders in their own community, and we bring those resources together in a number of ways, but all of that brain power, all of that energy to do good in the world really creates opportunities for Rotarians to be people of action and go out and do the types of things we're describing for polio. And one of the amazing things about, one other amazing thing about the polio eradication is there's only one other disease in the history of mankind that's been eliminated from the world and is the smallpox. And now we're working on number two, and we think it'll take, to be sure it's eradicated, it'll take three or four more years, but obviously all the new youngsters have to get the inoculations as they come into being. Right, because apparently if people can carry the virus symptom-free and keep shutting the virus for a few years apparently, so you really have to, getting those last few cases are the real hard ones, in particular in the war-torn remote areas. You can imagine Afghanistan, there's some amazing stories about having to deal with warlords to get in and take care of their kids. So that's one of the key priorities of Rotary, but they also have about half a dozen priorities, right? Right, and all of this goes through our foundation. The foundation is, one of the reasons Bill and Melinda Gates selected it is the Rotary International Foundation is always annually ranked by those that do the ranking as one of the top three charities in the world in terms of reliability. The money you give, well over 90% of it gets to the project and we've all heard the horror stories about other nonprofit charities where somehow it ends up in the hands of the executives and other administrative costs. But what was your question? The other Rotary priorities. Rotary actually has other areas of focus and they're all basically funded through the Rotary Foundation and the areas... So I know one of them, it's water. Yeah, sorry to be slow on that. It was one of the first things that drew me to it because I was working on a project bringing better quality drinking water to the Pacific Islands and when I went on the Rotary site and saw they had water as one of their central priorities I said, well I've got to join up with this group and work together with them because they're going to have expertise and I can bring a little something to the table too. Right, and our club and other clubs in Hawaii are funded and our funding, your efforts to have bring clean water to Micronesia. Right, so I'm actually involved now in a project getting a little bit of Rotary support to test field test a new version of solar stills that are highly efficient, very simple low-tech but very highly efficient and can produce from a one-square-yard base can produce about 5 to 10 gallons of fresh water per day. So that could go a long way to meet water needs. Yeah, and that may be the biggest topic for Rotary's areas of focus once we're done with polio. But the other areas of focus are peace and conflict prevention and resolution and it's amazing when you have Rotarians in 200 countries in the world and the everyday folks get to know each other and get to know other Rotarians around the world. Those types of people are interested in getting along, being successful, having good economies, having healthy environments and they want peace. And if we could just get some of the governments in the world to join us in that would be better. So peace and conflict prevention and resolution, disease prevention and treatment, which we've already been talking about, care and sanitation as you mentioned, maternal and child health, because there's many places in the world where they're left out, and then basic education and literacy and finally economic and community development. So those are the areas of focus of the Rotary Foundation and our local clubs contribute in one way or another to each of those areas of focus at least annually and at least in various ways. But Rotary also, you brought this up earlier, it's more than just sort of the hard work of getting out there and doing the service projects, right? People do, they meet one another, they work together on projects and they bond with each other and they become friends. Well making friends is one of the fun things about Rotary and actually because we're all friends out on these projects, those projects end up being fun too. But yeah, the standard Rotary Club has a weekly meeting which brings us all together for fellowship but also an interesting topic or program by a presenter from the community. For example, we've recently had the editor-in-chief of the Pacific Business News, we've had people from DLNR about the invasive species in our watershed forests and reefs and we've had the opportunity to see and visit the new Coast Guard cutters assigned to Honolulu. So our fellow, my club for example does a breakfast meeting at the Plaza Club and we meet at 7.15 on Thursday, we close the meeting at 8.15 because we are people of action and we've got other things to do. But in that hour we have fellowship, we have planning, we have recognitions and we have a great interesting program. And then separate from that, some days we do palanas with less structured program, more time with just casual social interaction. So there are a variety and then of course we have some special events too, right? Well, I'm glad you mentioned that, Ethan, because one of the no longer true images or reputations of Rotary is how strict the attendance requirements are and how the meetings have to be done a particular way and in fact Rotary has loosened all of that up so that at this time the clubs really can dictate how often they're going to meet. There's really no rule about how often you have to attend but what we try to do is enhance the opportunities so that people will come and most people do come, they're there because they want to come but you don't have to have just a breakfast meeting. Our club once a month does what we call a Pau Hana meeting at 5.30 at a local condominium's party room because our two members live in the condo and we've got access. That's a BYOB event. There's no formal program. It's a social event just to continue our fellowship and our friendships which actually lead us to being able to do our projects together better. So your Rotary's very flexible about how often and how you do it. Right, because there are other clubs that meet after sort of in the evenings or late afternoons or clubs that meet at noon time over lunch. Right. There are, as you said, there's 51 clubs around Hawaii or something. That's right. There are even most of those I suspect here on Oahu. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Well, you know, for example, the downtown area has five clubs in it and we are, I'm in touch with those four other presidents and our assistant governor for our area from the district and we are constantly planning activities together, whether it's projects and doing good in the community or a social event. And so some of those clubs are even evening. They're regular meetings or in evenings like there's a Pohana club here and there's a Pohana club in Waikiki and of course there's clubs on all the major islands and several clubs even on the outer islands. Fascinating. And they all essentially get involved again with both the local but also with these larger scale international projects right in various ways, shapes and forms. Right. Yeah. A lot of the way that happens is we encourage every Rotarian of course to donate annually to the three or four different funds that the Rotary International Foundation has. And one of the great things about that system is that half of whatever our district and we're district 5,000 and I love the fact we're district 5,000 because we're the 50th state. It's just circumstantial that we're also 5,000 in Rotary. But the half of the money that us in district 5,000 give to Rotary International is sent back to us three years later by Rotary International for our use in our projects here in Hawaii. And because we're a responsible charity and have meticulous records we fill out all the proper grant paperwork, it's documented, teas are crossed, eyes are dotted and we use the money back here in Hawaii. So half of whatever we send from Hawaii comes back to us every year but it's a three year wait. So this year alone in district 5,000 $150,000 is coming into Hawaii for use on projects in Hawaii. Excellent. On that note, we're going to jump out to a quick break here. Gary Grimmer, president of the Metropolitan Hawaii Rotary Club and your host here, Ethan Allen, are talking about Hawaii Rotary, the people of action, and we'll be back in one minute. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. I'm Dave Stevens host of the Cyber Underground. This is where we discuss everything that relates to computers. It's just kind of scare you out of your mind. So come join us every week here on ThinkTechHawaii.com 1 p.m. on Friday afternoons and then you can go see all our episodes on YouTube. Just look up the Cyber Underground on YouTube. All our shows will show up and please follow us. We're always giving you current, relevant information to protect you. Keepin' you safe. Aloha. And welcome back to Hawaii Rotary, people of action. I'm your host, Ethan Allen here on ThinkTech Hawaii. With me today is Gary Grimmer, president of the Rotary Club of Metropolitan Honolulu, give it its proper name. You call it Metro Rotary, typically. And Gary and I have been talking a little bit earlier about the general structure of Rotary, the relationship between local Rotary clubs and the international club. But I wanted to shift gears a little bit and talk sort of the self-interest thing. What has Rotary done for me recently? What has Rotary do in the community? What kinds of projects have we gotten involved in? And I know only a little bit about this, you know much more than I about these projects. Yeah, well that's good. I'm glad we get to those points now. And I hope, and at home, there's the Rotary International logo or brand. But I hope some of the photos of our work in the community are being shown as we speak here too. But our club is fortunate that we have architects and contractors and engineers in it. So we actually take on some physical rehabilitation and refurbishing projects for nonprofits here in Honolulu. For example, there's a Meramed house for troubled youth in Kahalu. And I won't give the address because I think they like to keep those things private. But we went out there and turned a Shabby house into a totally refurbished, so that everything in it worked. All the shelving was cleaned, the place was painted. And, you know, 50, 60 of us showed up to do that on two different Saturdays. And we did similar things for Safe Haven, for Mental Health Kukua, for some of the elderly places in town as well. We also do a lot of work. Oh yeah, there's some photos now. We also do a lot of work at the public schools in the downtown area, whether it's Kalihi Elementary or Princess Kailani. And, you know, at Princess Kailani we've built a Mahula Halal at Kalihi Elementary. We've given them brand new, painted up picnic tables for outdoor dining and outdoor cafeteria use. We've put their school logos on big posters that can be taped to the walls. And so they have pride in their school, we put the multiplication tables on the steps as they go up so they're seeing math no matter where they go in their school. That's great, that's great. And, you know, those are the types of things. Oh, and I want to mention on the homelessness subject, it's a huge subject, it's a huge, complicated issue. But as we all know, Kahuiki Homes was opened up near, just past Sand Island on the way to the airport. And Rotary's District 5000 did a lot of work out there on the finishing touches. You know, the basics were built by professionals, but there was a lot of finished work that could be done, including landscaping, and there was a lot of Rotary donations with the things they need for a kitchen and the things they need to have sanitation in their own homes. And so a lot of work was done by District 5000 and the Metropolitan Rotary Club as well. Excellent, excellent. Now, it's a wide range of projects. I know they've done park cleanups, I know Thomas Square Park at one point, they went in and really got the whole place out and did good on that. And they've worked with senior centers, all kinds of different things. So this is really making an impact in our home communities, which is really important, right? Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned Thomas Square, because for many, many years, Metro Rotary was the one that cleaned up what the homelessness of left behind there. And fortunately recently, the city got very activated and the city has really cleaned it up. And they've got barriers and they're trying to monitor the situation. If they need us, we'll be back there. But even in Chinatown, you have these public parking lots and the homeless use them not just to sleep or whatever, but they leave their business behind. And it makes it unusable by the community. And we've gone into those with power washers and paintbrushes and scrubbing and brush and cleaning and detergents and all the stuff you need to sanitize it and make it look better. And we can go in with our group and do a whole entry and elevator area and stairwell and get it all cleaned up in one Saturday. And so we're trying to help out in the downtown area. Yeah, it's a really wonderful balance in between these local, small-scale, but very important projects that really make differences in communities and local neighborhoods and the quality of the environment, right? And then some of these grander visions to eliminate polio from the face of the earth. It's certainly a huge challenge. So that's really nice. And I think there's another perception about Rotary. Rotary is really only sort of a group. It's a lot for older folks, very established business leaders, that kind of thing. But Rotary, again, is changing these days, right? Oh, yeah. It's interesting how the current young generation is actually more aware of community service than perhaps my generation and your generation's worth. At a much earlier age, they're getting interested in service to the community. And part of the reason, and I want to give Rotary some credit for that, Rotary has what they call Interact, which is high school clubs. And then they have Rotaract, which is young people from 18 to 30 years old. And there's two types of Rotaract clubs. You can have a school-based one, where the university has one. I think Shamanat has one. And you can have a community-based one, which is the kids that are perhaps already out of college, but they're young in their job careers. And they want to coordinate and work with other young people. So you can be a Rotaractor from age 18 to 30. And I'm happy to say that Rotary Club of Metropolitan Honolulu sponsors a community Rotaract club in downtown Honolulu. We have about 12 members. Young people starting out their careers. And they do a ton of work with us. They were very active. They sort of organized the whole community youth day piece. Rotary supported an info booth there. They sure did. And that was just this past Sunday. And we love having them at our regular meetings. They don't all get there at 7.15 in the morning, but we sure honor them when they do. And they've always been very, very helpful in our community projects. And I get a kick out of them, because we have an annual fundraiser, and the theme changes every year. This past April, the theme was Sinatra Live at Honolulu Casino. And we had a great vocalist, not trying to imitate Frank Sinatra, but doing a great vocal honoring of Frank Sinatra music during our sit-down dinner with all the nice wines and champagnes and so forth at the Pacific Club. And then we had a play-money casino going on at the same time, thus the casino part of it. And we had a silent auction, as many fundraisers do. And what I get a kick out of is our road directors always volunteered to be the cashiers and the marshals of the silent auction. They want to see what's going on with the items and who's buying what and how much money's coming in and all that. So we couldn't do it without them. And it's really a great help. Yeah, no, a silent auction is a great example of a way that they get people together to have fun, get some interesting things on the table, get some money contributed. Yeah. Well, the play casino proved to be so much fun that we didn't get as much action at the silent auction as we would have liked. But we did very well. We raised over $20,000 on that evening. And the main thing is everybody had a lot of fun. I hope some photos of that have been going up, too, while we speak. Yeah, it was a great event. And the other clubs might have a different theme. All the clubs are doing a fundraiser every year, but they have a whole different theme. And those of us that can go to the District 5000 website, which anybody in the public can do, can see the calendar of what's coming up and buy, take it, and go. Yeah. So that's a great way to sort of make an initial foray into roadway, right? I think so, yeah. I mean, yeah, definitely. Yeah. And that's, again, it's a, I think it's something I think in Hope Road we are trying to change to become perceived more widely perceived as very inclusive, very welcoming of a wide range of people into it. I should add on the Interact Clubs. There's Interact Clubs at Kalani High School, one being formed at McKinley, and hopefully somebody will form one at Kima Key. But we could use more Interact Clubs, but we're constantly working on those. Yeah, so again, that would be a great project for somebody to take on who felt like they were tied to one of those schools. Oh, yeah. We started Interact Chapter there. That would be great. We'd have to get that individual involved with Rotary. Yeah, all kinds of good options there. And then, so let's step back for a moment and talk about how do people sort of balance this. I mean, there's a lot of giving involved in Rotary, right? How do people make that commitment? I mean, it's a substantial commitment. Yeah, well, people, I think everybody, I think most of Honolulu's population at one point or another hears the phrase, let's give back to the community or themselves initiate that. And they definitely have to have that willingness to get the full benefit of being a Rotary. But as I've tried to explain, there's so many different ways we do it through fun, whether it's new friends or the fellowship or painting the same wall with somebody and getting to know them better or whatever the project might be. And yes, you got to plan it and work it into your calendar like you do everything else in your life, whether it's your job or your family or whatever it is. But from what we've seen, there's many, many, many people all over the world that can work that out and fit that into their lives. And I'm going to talk a little bit, as we close here, about how to join Rotary and how to get into Rotary. But I wanted to highlight one very, very important thing that's coming up. And this is a great way to get to know Rotary better. The Rotary International Convention is annual. And last June, it was in Toronto, Canada. This coming June, it's in Hamburg, Germany. And in June of 2020, it's in Honolulu, Hawaii. And I want to tell you, I had the pleasure and good fortune to be at the Toronto one. It is the most amazing convention or conference I'd ever been to in my life. And it is a first-class convention bringing people from 200 countries together that want to get to meet other people in the world, that want to learn about what's going on at Rotary and other places in the world. And they bring in first-class programs and speakers. The general opening session, the general closing session, have world-class entertainment at them. And it's a relatively inexpensive thing to register for. I wanted to mention the 2020 convention in Honolulu because I want everybody in Hawaii to be aware of that. At the convention center, right? Right, at the convention center. And I really encourage all Rotarians that might be watching this to volunteer for that, to be a worker and a server and an assistant at that. And for all of you that want to know more about Rotary, be a registered guest at it. Excellent, excellent. Well, we're winding it up here, but Gary, this has been great. I really appreciate this. I've learned more about Rotary here in this last half hour. And I hope our viewers now know more about Rotary. I hope some of them will sign up with Rotary. We'll join a Rotary on a Work Party and come to a meeting and we can get more people involved and do better things. Do we have time for me to tell you how to get ahold of us? Really quick. Okay. Hawaii.Rotary, I'm sorry, www.rotaryinHawaii is especially good for people that are interested and haven't joined it. So Rotary in Hawaii, just Google that, go to the d5000rotary.org, that's the district site, and go to RotaryInternational.org. And there's so much information there, more than you'll ever want to have, really. But that's how you find out about us and every club will welcome you with open arms when you come by just to check us out. Excellent. Thank you so much, Gary. And I hope you'll join us when we come back for another episode of Hawaii Rotary. Thanks a lot. See you then.