Elgin Rotary welcomes former president back as guest speaker

ELGIN Rotary members were delighted to welcome former president Bill Ross back as a guest speaker this week.

Mr Ross gave an interesting and informative outline of his role as District 1010's Foundation Team leader.

This key function of Rotary International began in 1917 and now boasts an expenditure of $362 million per annum.

The key purposes are polio plus, peace fellowships, disaster response grants, global grants and district grants.

Foundation continues to play a significant role in the eradication of polio. A current focus is also to respond to the pandemic, with examples given as grants to provide freezers to food banks and hand sanitiser to care homes.

Rotary Elgin has, in recent years, benefited from Foundation grants to support international projects to provide water, health and sanitation projects in Nepal and Tanzania.

Grants are available for peace building and conflict resolution; disease prevention and treatment; water, sanitation and hygiene; maternal and child health; basic education and literacy and community economic development.

From July, there will also be funding available for environmental projects.

This funding is raised through donations from Rotary clubs and individual members, although donations this year so far have declined by 14 per cent. This will inevitably result in less grant funding being available to clubs to support their projects.

Difficult decisions will have to be made at a time when the need worldwide is far greater than ever.

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