 Welcome to another edition of Rotary in Hawaii People of Action. My name is Janet Sheffer and I'm a Rotarian and the host of Rotary in Hawaii. Today we have a very special guest with us, Naomi Masuno, who is joining us from the district level. She is the Chief of Staff of District 5000, which oversees all of Rotary in Hawaii. And she will be the district governor in two years. And today we're going to discuss membership in Rotary. So before we jump in, we'd like to get to know you a little bit better, Naomi. Give us a little bit of insight as to why you joined Rotary, why you've been a Rotarian for 17 years, I believe, why you're involved in service, and just your background. I'm a banker by trade. I've worked at Bank of Hawaii for 40 years. You know as a banker, a branch manager, you want to network, you want to get involved with your community, you want to make an impact. I really have so much time to do things. And so for a long while, I couldn't see myself having lunch with the same people every week. But I got reassigned to somewhere that didn't have a community, a really strong business association. So I joined Rotary in 2002. And what I found was that I didn't know enough about Rotary. I got a layered cake and it had different flavors of Rotary and different layers of Rotary. And it was just so rewarding to you take a scoop of that cake and be rewarded with doing something good in the world. And so I joined that Rotary Club and every week I would make friends. They became, you know, like family. You build this family up, you get a sense of belonging, then you hear speakers. And these speakers, you learn about business things, you learn about other charities. You're so much, you brought in your horizon with all of this information. Let me give you an example. Last week we had Dr. Sarah Park speaking and she's with the State Department of Health. Talked about disease prevention, which is one of the focuses of Rotary. And she talked about the polio eradication project that we have. One of the biggest things that we're doing is eradicating polio from the earth. And we need to finish this project. So we talked about going on an NID and how it was in, I think it was Kenya in Africa. And how this makes a difference for these children. Mothers were just passing their children, they wanted their children to be vaccinated. Rotary is very involved with this and Bill Gates, his foundation, knows the value of this eradication process. And he has given, his foundation has given so much. And right now, donations to polio plus are tripled by the Gates Foundation. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. So if I donate a dollar to polio plus, he matches it three times over. Right. That is awesome. That's huge. But Rotary does this. And this was one of the layers in the cake. So you've been enjoying that cake for 17 years. And I also understand that as chief of staff of the district, you have a lot of responsibility. You oversee 52 clubs, help the thousands of members. And you're going to be our district governor in two years, which is the highest honor in the Rotary. In the Rotary. So you'll be our leader in two years. And I look forward to working with you then. And that's one of the reasons I invited you on today. I know that you know pretty much everything about that cake. One of the most important things for our viewers to understand is the value of joining Rotary and what it can do for their life. I myself joined Rotary in 2007 and have loved every minute of it. It's taken me around the world. It's like you said, the people in my Rotary club, Waikiki Rotary have become just like family. So I value my membership in Rotary greatly. Please talk a little bit about the benefits and the value of becoming a Rotarian. We have a four way test that we have as beliefs. Rotarians believe that of the things we say, they say or do, is it the truth? Is it fair? Is it beneficial to all? So when you have friends in the Rotary club like that with a common belief, you trust them. So you build this family around you. They support you. We've seen many cases where someone is in need. Someone had their house flooded in Aina Hina recently. And their club members came out to help her to clean out, to move things, and she didn't ask. They just appeared. In Pahoa, where we had the lava of the members, five of the members lost their homes. So members around the state donated money. We sent tents there so they had places to live. They lived in other members' homes. And this was that sharing that family thing. On Kauai, same thing. They had the flooding. And Rotarians all over the state came up with donations so that we can help our fellow members. So this is the kind of support that you find in Rotary. So it's the family connection and with the different layers of Rotary. Members can find what they're interested in. We have five avenues of service. So you have the club service where you have socials. We have community service where they assess what the community needs to do projects in their own community. We have international service. We have vocational service. We have youth service. So here Rotarians find what's in it for them. How they can apply their skills, their interests in something that will make a difference in their community. I can speak to that for the 11 years, 12 years now that I've been a Rotarian in Waikiki Rotary. We work with the community center. We work very closely with the Waikiki Elementary School. Just last week having our annual garage sale, rummage sale. And every penny that we raised that day in the elementary school gives us their auditorium for the day. Every penny goes right to the needy kids at that school. And there is a section of kids that really need that service so they can get their school supplies. They can get a backpack. All their friends have backpacks, but now they can have a backpack. And that is something I've been doing for 10 years and it's very heartwarming. There is an enormous amount of community service projects that are different. On the island of Kauai, for instance, I know that they have projects that save lives, both with the AED machines and the beach program. Can you talk a little bit about that? The rescue tubes started because there was an emergency room physician that said, we can prevent these things. And so there was a group of Voterians at the Hanalei Club that thought, okay, what if we put these tubes, they're called rescue tubes, on the beaches? And so they map it out all over Kauai. They have these rescue tubes. The Reliance Club joined in. So we have rescue tubes on this island. We have a whole bunch on Maui and the Big Island. And so here someone came up with this idea and took action. These are people of action that actually did something to make a difference for these people. They weren't there to help these people in the water, but the rescue tube was there. The same with the AED. So they want to put in AED those electrical devices in every library. So they did that in Kauai and they're asking clubs around the state to do the same to put them in libraries. Fantastic. Saving lives. So Rotary also saves lives. That's incredible. As a member also in a small business owner, I have benefited greatly by the valuable business contacts that I've made at my own Rotary Club. Meeting vendors, meeting clients, meeting business associates. Talk a little bit about the opportunities that exist for someone that maybe works in a small business that needs the ability once a week, because Rotarians meet once a week at their weekly club, whether it's a breakfast, a lunch or a dinner. Talk about how they can also enhance their business opportunities by becoming a Rotarian. Well, you know Rotary started because they rotated business offices to learn more about other businesses on vocation. And so being a part of Rotary, you meet people in other industries and you get to learn, you get to be mentored maybe within your club. But the speakers too help you with your skills in trying to learn more about other industries and your own industries. We have this thing called Rotary means business. It's a fellowship where members from all different clubs can come to a social and meet people and it's kind of like latent solicitation because you're trying to sell yourself. You're trying to make friends. But it's more you make friends and you'll get the business. Well, that's a key, right? As a banker, you know that. And also here in Hawaii, you have to be friends before people will do business with you. There has to be that layer of trust back to the cake layer that we're talking about. So yes, for me, the business networking opportunities have been many. So we're going to move on to another section. And I know that we're coming up on a break here pretty soon. Before we go to break, I want the viewers to know how if they are interested in joining Rotary after hearing about the values and the benefits of Rotary. We have a special website. It's called www.rotaryinhoa.org. There you will have all of the information to do several things. Connect with a Rotarian to find out more about Rotary clubs in your area. Connect with a Rotarian to be invited to a meeting or an upcoming event. Also, there's great information about all of the projects Naomi just mentioned, whether it's our local community service projects, the global service projects that you can get involved with, events, opportunities, what have you, vocational business. So I encourage you, if you're interested in joining Rotary, to go ahead and visit www.rotaryinhoa.org. There's actually a contact form right there on the homepage. Fill it out simply with your name, phone number, what have you. And Rotary, we'll get back to you within a day or two. We're all busy, but we'll get back to you as soon as we can. We do get lots of contacts through that website. So the Rotary in Hawaii website has been a great benefit this year because we are growing. The membership is growing and we're trying to reach out beyond the normal amount of people that we have. We're trying to grow worldwide as well as here in Hawaii because the opportunities are so great. Can you talk just a little bit about a few more benefits maybe that you can think of or Rotary membership before we go to break? Being a Rotarian, you can go to any Rotary meeting in the world. That's right. You can just drop in. There was somebody who was an insurance agent and they went to one in England and they were able to just go to the Lloyds of London office. They were invited to the Lloyds of London office and that was a great benefit. Incredible. But even if you can't physically do something, you can donate to the Rotary Foundation. And there are a lot of people who just want to have that friendship to be able to do something by donating. The Rotary Foundation uses that money to do humanitarian projects all over the world. And we get back some of that money that we gave to do local projects. And so every club can use that money for something that they're interested in, something that's near and dear to them. It could be library books, it could be other things, but that's one of the other benefits. So that's unusual as nonprofits go. You can actually dedicate and earmark your donation to a specific project. Also, we understand that Rotary has one of the highest ratings for nonprofits and charities. Share with us a little bit about that because I think that's important to people out there. You want to make sure that the charity that you're spending all of your time and resources at is actually highly respected in the business community. There are organizations that will monitor charities. For the charity navigator, we were ranked very highly because we take that money very seriously. We want to put it to good use. We want to make sure that we're not using so much of it for administrative purposes. Because that's our mission. It's service above self. It's something that we want to give back to the world to make a difference in the world. The charity navigator is one of the highest regarded rating systems for nonprofits and charities worldwide. Rotary has been at the top echelon of the charity navigator for years. I know that from doing other work with other charities, how important that is to people. So that's fantastic. I know that we are supposed to be going to break here pretty soon. But before that, we'll just touch on a way for people to join and learn more about Rotary one more time. Go to the website www.rotaryinhawaii.org and you will find out everything there is that you need to know about Rotary in Hawaii and to connect with an actual Rotarian. Someone will get back to you very, very soon and invite you to a meeting. There are 52 clubs statewide on five islands. So we are located on the Big Island, all across the Big Island, all around the Big Island. We are located on Maui with a lot of very, very important clubs that do incredible work on Maui. Of course, here on Oahu, also on Lanai and on Kauai. And there are some clubs on Kauai that have been around for, oh, 80 years. So a great long time. They've made major, major impacts on that small population. Don't forget our two E-clubs. Talk about that to us. That's a great opportunity if you're either homebound or just unable one day to, you know, unable to get out to the community and attend physically. We have online opportunities. Talk to us about that. We have two E-clubs. One, actually they meet in person. So they do have a presence online. But there's one that's the Rotary Club of D5000. And their president actually lives in Russia. And so they have members that don't live in Hawaii and they meet online and they do international projects together. Okay. Well, I've met her, Irina, and got to meet her at a training session in Volcano last year. She's incredible. So yeah, it's a Russian gal living on a Russian island who operates the E-Club in Hawaii. Talk about global impact. So I know we're going to take a little break. Give our viewers a chance to take a breather. We will be back here in a few minutes. Please stay tuned to Rotary in Hawaii, People of Action. Mahalo. Aloha. I'm Wendy Lo, and I'm coming to you every other Tuesday at two o'clock live from Think Tech Hawaii. And on our show, we talk about taking your health back. And what does that mean? It means mind, body, and soul. Anything you can do that makes your body healthier and happier is what we're going to be talking about. Whether it's spiritual health, mental health, fascia health, beautiful smile health, whatever it means, let's take healthy back. Aloha. Aloha. I'm Dave Stevens, host of the Cyber Underground. This is where we discuss everything that relates to computers that's just going to scare you out of your mind. So come join us every week here on thinktechawaii.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. Do another commercial. Hi, I'm Rusty Komori, host of Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. My show is based on my book, also titled Beyond the Lines. And it's about creating a superior culture of excellence, leadership, and finding greatness. I interview guests who are successful in business, sports, and life, which is sure to inspire you in finding your greatness. Join me every Monday as we go Beyond the Lines at 11 a.m. Aloha. Aloha, and welcome to At the Crossroads. I'm your host, Keisha King. You can catch me every Wednesday. Alive at 5. I'll see you there. Hi, I'm Rusty Komori, host of Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. My show is based on my book, also titled Beyond the Lines. And it's about creating a superior culture of excellence, leadership, and finding greatness. I interview guests who are successful in business, sports, and life, which is sure to inspire you in finding your greatness. Join me every Monday as we go Beyond the Lines at 11 a.m. Aloha. Aloha, and welcome to At the Crossroads. I'm your host, Keisha King. You can catch me every Wednesday. Alive at 5. I'll see you there. Welcome back to Rotary in Hawaii, People of Action. My name is Janet Sheffer. I'm the public image chair for the District of Hawaii, which is called District 5000, covering the entire state of Hawaii, 52 clubs, five islands. Very, very happy to introduce you again to Naomi Masuno, who is our local banker in Rotary at Bank of Hawaii, and also our chief of staff for the district. She has a very important job overseeing those 52 clubs and nearly 2,000 members on five islands. Naomi has been selected to be our district governor, which means she'll be overseeing the entire district and serving all of us. And we'll be helping her have a successful year in 2020 to 2021. So welcome back to the show, Naomi. It's been a great conversation so far. We are learning all about membership in Rotary, why it is beneficial. It can be valuable to your business. If you're a retired person, it can be extremely heartwarming to know that you can make an impact in both your local community and your global community. So we're going to jump right back into the membership message. So people out there can learn more about the opportunities to join Rotary. And by the way, we have a special website, www.rotaryinhawaii, where you can connect with the Rotarian immediately to find out more about joining a Rotary Club in any of the 52 areas where Rotary Clubs are in the state of Hawaii on five islands. So we're going to move into an area which encompasses projects. And in Rotary, we have five avenues of service and Naomi is going to discuss some of the literacy side of things. We're very, very engaged in literacy as an avenue of service. So talk to us about the different projects and the opportunities that people can become involved in. We have several literacy projects and one of the big ones is giving dictionaries to third graders. And at one time, we gave every single third grader in Hawaii a dictionary. But now with tablets and digital things, some of the schools are saying it doesn't work for us, but we still have schools in pockets. When we take the kids, the dictionaries to the kids and we ask them how to look upwards or what the four-way test is or look up Rotary, they are so engaged in that dictionary because for some of them, this is the first book that they'll ever own. So when we tell them to write their name in it, they're so excited that they're going to have this book and their name is going on that dictionary. So we have dictionary projects and many of these projects are funded by our Rotary grants or district grants. We have library books for the schools. The schools' budgets are cut. And some of them, they need library books. They need reading books for their classes. So we ask them what they need and sometimes they pick out the books and we pay for it. And so it's good because they're getting exactly what they want. But here, we can reach them. We're giving them books. We donate books to clubs in the Philippines in other areas, Myanmar, Taiwan. So literacy is a very big thing. It is one of the most important areas because it lifts people up and out of that situation, I had the opportunity to read to the children second graders at the time at our sister school, the Waikiki Elementary. And I cannot tell you how gratifying that was. Our club is very, very... We have the Queen of Literacy. Sorry to call you out, but Gloria King has been overseeing this both on the district level and at my club, Waikiki Rotary for years. And she does a phenomenal job making sure the books get into the kids and she somehow arranges phenomenal deals for low-cost books. So not only are our donations going a long way, we're getting a lot for our money because we buy in volume. And so we make sure that the children are read to. So it's not just, here's some books. It's, here's your dictionary that you get to keep and take home and share with your family. Here are some other books. Back about 10 years ago when I did this, we actually gave away reading books also at the Waikiki Elementary and we got to sit in a classroom and read to the kids. Our club has been doing that for over 10 years. We do that on a regular monthly basis. So the literacy piece isn't just, here's a book. It's telling that story and engaging that child for that love of literacy. So that is a huge important project. I know that there are other projects. Can you talk about some other projects? Oh, but first, back to Gloria. Oh, yes, Gloria King. Sorry, we called you out today. I know she is awesome. She's got a garage being stacked full of books and she just has a passion for it. She's so amazing to find those books at a reasonable cost. She's an asset to your club. Very much so. And the district. Thank you, Gloria. Another wonderful Rotarian doing good work in the community and really making a difference in kids' lives. So other projects, maybe? And we need more people like that who are passionate about certain things and can do a good job that they're interested in. Kahauiki. What is it? Kahauiki, yes. It's the village for homeless families that Dwayne Grusu did. And this was not our project, but Rotarians could see what the benefit of that project was. So let me get back up and tell you this story. Okay. I'm sitting at a dinner next to the mayor. So Mayor Kogo. And I ask him, what are the issues facing Hawaii? He went through some things and he said, you know, you ought to talk to Dwayne Grusu about this project. And it was something that, okay, maybe. So I asked district leaders and they said, sure, let's go into it. So one of our members, Mel, was there every day because I called them up. We need help. And what can Rotary do for you? So he said, we need a dozen people this Saturday to do baseboards. Okay. So we had 12 people go. I brought my skateboard, my son's skateboard, and people went, what? Yeah, that face. So baseboards on the bottom, right? Right. Put it down. I sat down and I was doing baseboards on the skateboard. Very smart. Xavier Okole. Yeah. That's what Mel said. He said, he was the second smartest person after his wife, Nancy Page. That is very smart. He loved it so much that he volunteered to coordinate the other volunteers that were down there. And we were there almost every week. Even on weekdays, the weekends, we brought people from the military. They called. What do you need to help with? And we said, can you come help us? We asked someone, can you bring your church members? So the MLH people from a church that had a connection with East Honolulu, they came and they were awesome because they knew exactly what to do. So here, Rotary is the connector. We know other people and they want to support what we're doing because what we're doing is good in the world. Fantastic. So we helped the organization of Dwayne's group with painting and cleaning and then there was a wish list so that the families who moved in would have toilet paper and pots and pans. So every single club on this island and every family that moved in had toilet paper or dishwater liquid pots and pans sheets, all kinds of things that we brought for them. But it wasn't only us, it was other organizations that pitched in and together it came to pass. It came to fruition. So in January last year when they were moving in we should have seen these people. They had tears in their eyes and they were thanking us because now they had hope that a future and you know for Rotary they were thanking us but we were thanking them for an opportunity to make a difference. That's incredible. Really made a difference. Our club has been involved with the homeless shelters and also the serenity garden for Ho'ol on the Pua. I have a love of gardening so I remember donating to Cal Weekies project. Not time at the time. I think I was busy doing something else. But I got to go garden for Ho'ol on the Pua's serenity garden an entire day of helping clear an anchor of deep brush on the North Shore where they're building that facility for those for the human trafficking issue that our current district governor, Win Shoneman, is so passionate about. So it's those types of projects you can find anything. Whether it's working with youth whether it is helping the homeless whether it is helping victims of human trafficking you can always find something that is your passion and if you are unable to physically jump in and do that type of labor there's always the piece of a donation even barter. We have opportunities for you to barter your services or your products. Because Rotarians come in all shapes and sizes. We have bankers we have advertising executives. We have retired people. We have students they really come from all walks of life. So I want to talk about that fostering Rotary in youth. How do young people learn about Rotary here in Hawaii that are not necessarily of our age. Yeah, students, young people how do they get involved in Rotary what programs are out there for students? Well, a lot of the young ones come with us. It's family and we do family projects. So they learn about and we bring them to our meetings right and so they learn about Rotary that way. But we do have interact clubs in high schools. And so we have 50 clubs in Hawaii. And there at McKinley High School had 100 members. And they got an award for being a good club at McKinley. But it was Eric Kehler who's our district governor. His son was very instrumental in getting that up to speed and getting the advisor and having them do projects. So McKinley High School has a very active one. Hoy Baptist Academy has another active one. And sometimes they do have 100 people at their meeting during lunch. But their projects might be collecting pennies for an international project. It might be a cleanup project. They're part of the Ala Moana club. So the interact clubs have a sponsor club. It's a Rotary club. So the projects that the Ala Moana club has they'll invite their interactors. So interact is for the high school. Is it based on age or grades? It's in high school. Anyone in high school has it. Freshmen to senior. So that's interact. And that is an opportunity. It's like Rotary for high school students. And some of the clubs are bigger than our regular Rotary meetings. Regular clubs. 100 kids. That's a very large club. Yes. What other opportunities are there for young people? So that's for the high school. We have Rotaract in the colleges. So from there they can go wherever they're going to college look for a Rotaract club. Rotaract clubs are the one at HPU for instance. They have the alumni club that is interested in mentoring and getting involved with the students. And so here the Rotaract clubs have a connection. They can grow and it can be a community Rotaract. They're not necessarily students from that college. It can be outsiders. And here we're giving them an opportunity to be interns to learn about different industries to get their leadership skills. And then from there they can join Rotary. Fantastic. And they're already aware of what Rotary is all about. This has been a great conversation. Naomi Masuno our chief of staff of the district one of the most important people. Governor in two years, we look forward to that. I want to thank you so much for joining me today on another edition of Rotary in Hawaii People of Action. We are so happy that you're interested in becoming a member. RotaryinHawaii.org is where you go. Stay tuned right here to Think Tech for other great shows and episodes. And we'll be back here in two weeks for another episode of Rotary in Hawaii People of Action. Thank you all for listening.