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Forbes Rotary is entering its 75th year - and fittingly, this incredible service organisation began the year with the launch of a fundraiser "Sunflowers for Ukraine".
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You'll see little blue and yellow packets of sunflower seeds for Ukraine around local businesses, and your few dollars can help Rotary International fund CARITAS Eastern Europe in Ukraine.
Plant and tend the seeds this summer to enjoy the national flower of Ukraine in your own garden and show solidarity with those impacted by war.
It's one more way Rotary is supporting communities both here and abroad - as a group of faithful Forbes volunteers has now been doing for three quarters of a century.
Our town has two Rotary clubs and next year the Rotary Club of Forbes Ipomoea will celebrate 20 years of service in Forbes.
Forbes Ipomoea was chartered in 2003 and meets once a month on Tuesday at 7am
Our two Rotary clubs are urging more people to join them to "do good in our world, to do good in Australia and do good in our region".
As they reflected on a little of the club's history at a celebration dinner, it's clear our community and many more have many reasons to be grateful Doctor Laurie Vout gathered a group of businessmen on his side veranda in 1947 to discuss forming just such a club.
From flood relief to manpower through long nights of power outages, from Havannah House in Browne Street to Sarnelli House in Thailand, the impact and legacy of Forbes Rotary is significant.
President Chris Finkel and Past President Garry Pymont shared a few of the stories from the club's rich history on the night.
In 1952, Rotarians were called upon to help fill a roster to manually pump an iron lung around-the-clock to keep local polio patients breathing as floodwaters rose and interrupted power supply.
In 1990, Rotarians from Tasmania travelled to Forbes to present a cheque for $10,000 to Forbes Rotary for flood relief: that campaign would go on to raise $590,000.
In the early 1980s, local university student Maria Leahy was awarded a Rotary Foundation scholarship to study tropical diseases at Boston University in the US.
Maria completed her studies and went to India as a volunteer to treat malaria victims in the poorer regions of the country.
Tragically, during her second vacation from India back to Australia, she was fatally injured in a motor accident in Sydney. She was posthumously awarded one of the first Forbes Rotary Club's Paul Harris Fellowship.
District Governor Geraldine Rerunga congratulated Rotarians on the club's incredible legacy, and called on them to continue to imagine what the world could be like - then take action to make it happen.
"In 1985 Rotarians imagined a world without polio: today we have cases in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and that's it," she said, adding that some of her younger friends don't even know what polio is.
"That's an incredible thing that Rotary has done," she said.
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"Maria (Leahy) imagined a world without malaria. Mosquitos ... kill the most number of people on the planet and it's totally preventable."
Rotarians Against Malaria continues to work toward this.
Rotary's work continues and it is incredibly diverse: recently the Forbes senior club has been involved with bringing a driving simulator into local high schools to highlight the hazards of driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol; they have provided support for farming families through our Rural Financial Counselling Service, supported orphans in Thailand through Sarnelli House.
Over the past 12 months they have also donated funds to: the NSW Flood Appeal; Havannah House; Angel Flight; St Vincent de Paul; Sunshine Club; local school presentation nights and Rotary's Australian and international causes including the Australian Rotary Health Research Fund.
President Chris Finkel, his board and Rotary members would love to welcome more people to join them.
If you're looking for something incredible to be part of, this club is a good place to start: contact Chris on 0429 661 358 to talk about provisional membership.
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