Trending

Advertisement

A golden celebration for Rotary Club of Rancho Bernardo

Share

For a half-century, Rancho Bernardo Rotarians have been living their motto of “Service Above Self.”

More than 100 Rotarians and their friends gathered on Dec. 4 to celebrate the Rotary Club of Rancho Bernardo’s 50th anniversary with a party at Maderas Golf Club in Poway.

“I thought the event was awesome, an opportunity to reflect on the (club’s) history and set the stage for the future,” said President Don Glover.

The club has 60 members and is poised to gain four more by year’s end, he said. “We’re on an upswing ... doing very well. This is a very excellent club.”

Glover said this year the group — dubbed the ‘Noon’ club after the Rancho Bernardo Sunrise Rotary Club formed out of it in 1988 when membership neared 150 — has contributed $41,300 in grants and other support to various community and international endeavors. “There’s $20,000 more (to give) in the pipeline,” he added.

“Our club is (on) pace to contribute, over its 50 years, nearly $525,000,” Glover said.

The money donated and raised by Rotarians has gone to a multitude of causes, including fire fighting, health care, disaster relief, senior citizens, education, law enforcement, youth and improving the quality of life for people around the world.

One of the club’s main causes is a key project of Rotary International — eradicating polio, which it has nearly accomplished worldwide. In 2009, some RB Rotarians traveled to India to help distribute polio vaccines to children.

Other international endeavors the local club has supported include the Honduran Village Bank Project and buying goats for Honduran families, sending $4,500 worth of medical supplies to help children in war-torn Bosnia, giving $1,000 to a Rotary Club in Mexico to fund eye surgeries for needy children, purchasing 48 wheelchairs for disabled people in Malawi for $3,600, and funding five village micro credit projects in Ecuador to help women in the poorest communities establish and expand their cottage industries.

In 1988, the club started a student exchange program with a Rotary club in Holland. By 1994, 20 Dutch students had visited San Diego and a dozen local students to went to the Netherlands. It also sponsors the annual Youth Orchestra Music Camp that has 40 youths from foreign countries join young musicians from across the U.S. for a performance in San Diego.

Locally the club has been very active since its start, with a lot of the money for project sponsorships coming through the club’s foundation, established in 1978. A few examples are sponsoring Boy Scout Troop 680 and Cub Scout Pack 680 for decades, purchasing a mobile van for the American Red Cross, sponsoring and staffing a flu shot clinic for senior citizens, purchasing a used car for the San Diego Police Department’s Retired Senior Volunteer Patrol and donating $25,000 toward construction of the Rancho Bernardo Library.

It has also provided dictionaries to third graders and thesauruses to fourth graders at some Poway Unified campuses for many years, gave $31,500 for Fire Station No. 33 improvements, established the Healing Field to commemorate the local homes damaged or destroyed in the 2007 wildfire by planting 1,100 American flags — one for each home — in Rancho Bernardo Community Park, placed the Rotary Clock in Webb Park to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Rotary International, and participated in service projects as part of the annual Rotarians at Work Day. In 2003, it helped establish the only Rotary clubs on military bases, when it started clubs at Camp Pendleton, MCAS Miramar and Naval Base San Diego.

The Rotary Club of Rancho Bernardo officially met for the first time on Nov. 26, 1964, under the sponsorship of the Poway Rotary Club. The first meeting with 27 members in attendance was at the Palomar Lanes bowling alley in Escondido, according to a club history presented on Dec. 4 by Rotarian Marty Judge. Soon after the club found another meeting venue, the Rancho Bernardo Inn. Over the years it has met at various locations, most recently the Bernardo Heights Country Club.

In May 1987, the Supreme Court said Rotary International must admit women members — for decades it had been a men-only organization — and by that summer the RB club had recruited four women. Now, the club’s female membership is approaching 40 percent, Glover said, and several women have been club president. The first was Karen Stelman in 1995. The club’s president-elect is Arilla St.Laurent and Benita Page is set to follow her to the presidency in 2016, Glover said.

The club has seen two members — Jack Mayo in 1992 and Mike Stelman in 2003 — become Rotary district governors, something Glover said is “fairly uncommon” for a local club. Former RB Rotary Club member — now a RB Sunrise Rotarian — Carl Kruse also attained the post in 2013.

“We’ve got a lot of great people, camaraderie and care about ‘Service Above Self,’” Glover said. “It is amazing how many in this community have that same philosophy and want to express it.”

The club meets in Bernardo Heights Country Club at noon each Thursday for a luncheon except on the second Thursday of each month when members gather for dinner. For details, call Sandie Dewane at 858-442-1059 or go to www.rbrotary.org.

Advertisement