I’ve been a Rotarian for over thirty years, most with what is now known as The Rotary Club of Madison West Middleton. Previously, for three years, I was a charter member of the Rotary Club of Richland County. It’s been a great ride!
Before I get to The Rotary Club of Madison West Middleton, I will mention what a small club in rural Wisconsin was able to accomplish, despite great odds. In the mid 1980’s, The Rotary Club of Richland County initiated Rotary Youth Soccer in Richland Center, a community of 5000 with very little prior exposure to the sport. In year one, 99 boys and girls, spread over six teams, participated. We had more enthusiasm than knowledge of the game. We did, however, discover a couple locals with some soccer expertise, which they happily shared. The program grew nicely over the first six years. Finally, when our original players aged out of the youth program, our soccer leadership group approached the school board about offering soccer at Richland Center High School. The school board was hesitant, in part because of cost, concern no other schools in the conference had a soccer team and some community naysayers with worries about the sport competing with football for athletes. The skepticism of some board members, was countered by push back at a board meeting packed with enthusiastic soccer parents. The program was accepted as a high school offering by one vote! As a way of addressing the cost issue, we found a Belizean coach, a 23-year-old student at U.W. Richland, who volunteered his services as a coach. In his home country, the man was both a school teacher and a soccer player. With English as his first language, he was a good fit! And, it didn’t hurt our cause, when, without prompting, our soon-to-be soccer coach raised his hand to speak. You could have heard a pin drop, when he told the school board his coaching would be a way to pay back this country for the educational opportunity he was being afforded (at U.W. Richland). I am happy to report soccer, at all levels, is thriving in the Richland County area today, and other conference schools now offer soccer. The Rotary Club of Richland County proved to be “the little club that could!”
My current club, Madison West Middleton, has about 65 members, and the group is active in a variety of ways. Many wonderful friendships have been formed. At weekly meetings, we enjoy a luncheon, usually featuring a guest speaker. Presenters have talked on a wide variety of topics. There are too many to remember, but one was particularly unusual. A friendly older man, working for the catering company serving our luncheons, mentioned to one of our members that he had been a circus performer. Fascinated and wanting to know more about this likable guy and his story, we invited the man to be our guest speaker. He told of leaving his Middleton area farm, as a young man, joining a circus and traveling the world as a trapeze artist. His talk was riveting, complete with slides of his long-ago performances and peppered with interesting anecdotes. The members loved the talk. He was made an honorary member of the club, and attended meetings in that capacity until he moved from the area. I bet there aren’t many service clubs in the world, who could claim a trapeze artist as a member. Other recent, and well- received, talks included an FBI profiler, an underwater sea-life photographer, the director of a children’s home in South Africa, a DNR specialist on Elk re- introduction efforts in Wisconsin and the deans of the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine and of the Marquette University Dental School. There have been many local and international programs and projects we have supported. In some cases, its more than a check. Members had ‘boots on the ground,’ with hands at work. Locally, I recall, projects in which members constructed beds for needy children, helped out at Habitat for Humanity worksites, provided judges for Academic Decathlons, found local homes for Rotary Youth Exchange Students, picked up roadside trash, judged high school student business plans and planted trees in a Town of Middleton Park.
The Rotary Club of Madison West Middleton has been especially productive in overseas projects. Guatemala has garnered significant interest from our club over many years. One of the bigger Guatemalan efforts was a $50,000 engineering project, i.e. the drilling of a deep-water community well, fitted with storage capacity, purification equipment and water transport. In another, equally important, hands-on effort, member nurses and other helpers traveled to Guatemala to train midwives from across the country. Reportedly, Guatemala has high maternal mortality rates, and the project addressed a known problem. For about twenty years or so, The Rotary Club of Madison West Middleton and a Menomonee Falls club take a medical team of doctors, dentists, nurses, translators and others to Guatemala to attend to health concerns of the poor.
Long lines always await their help. The medical missions gave birth to another project. While on one of those missions, a member of our club noticed many school-aged children were not attending classes, and learned it was for lack of funds. She passed the hat, and team members donated, making it possible for a few kids to attend school. The educational assistance idea grew into the Oliveros Scholarship Fund, a 501 c (3) Foundation of its own. Oliveros has funded scholarships for about 20 years, and remains a favored charity of local Rotarians. At present sixty 7th - 12th grade students receive scholarships, as do fifteen university scholars. While the Oliveros learners aren’t a Rotary project, per se, its board includes several Rotarians, while a part of its budget is funded by the club.
Orphanages in Bulgaria, Romania, Peru, Guatemala, Tanzania, South Africa, Uganda and Grenada have been matched to service clubs, schools, churches and businesses through the efforts of Madison West Middleton Rotarians and its Orphan Train Project. As part of the Orphan Train Project, and with the cooperation of Mooseheart Child City and School in Mooseheart, Illinois, at least thirty orphanage personnel, from around the world, have been offered training at Mooseheart, followed by an exposure to child-related programing here in the Madison area. While in Madison, visiting caregivers stay with Rotarians and other community members. Other international efforts involve Haiti and Liberia.
As mentioned in previous writings, the club has provided a pathway for high school students to live in another country through our Rotary Youth Exchange program.
If you are looking for an opportunity to meet interesting people and be of service to others, Rotary could be the answer. To learn more about The Rotary Club of Madison West Middleton, go to www.madisonwestmidrotary.org. To see what Rotarians across the globe are accomplishing, check out www.rotary.org. The club meets on Fridays at 12:12 P.M. - 1:15 P.M. on the 6th Floor of the Johnson Bank/TDS Building at 525 Junction Road. Let us know of your interest!