The Gainesville-Haymarket Rotary meets every Wednesday at 7:30 am at the Piedmont Country Club. Here's the address:

14675 Piedmont Vista Drive, Haymarket, Va 20169

Please sign on to the District Club Database and review/update your membership information.

This is just a reminder that our meeting is CANCELLED if Prince William County Schools have a cancellation or delayed opening.

To continue our World Understanding today, let’s consider Central and South America. Here are 41 countries, and 460 million people, 190 million of whom speak Portuguese. Here the poorest nation in our hemisphere, Haiti, exists with first-world nations like Chile, a country with more free trade agreements than any other on Earth. It is a region of high crime, with an annual capital murder rate of 27.5 per 100,000 people (compare this to Africa, with a rate of 22 per 100,000; or the U.S. with a rate of 5 per 100,000). The region provides a major conduit for drug trafficking into the U.S., particularly, cocaine. Innovative smugglers are now using semi-submersibles built in the jungle for about $2 million each, and sunk at their destinations, to move drugs to our shores. The region deals with torrential rains each year between April and December, obliterating roads and taking down electrical grids. It is home to 200 volcanoes, 50 of which are in Ecuador, and only 5 of which are monitored. The region is poor in energy, water, and agriculture. Fifty million of its people have no access to safe water, and 120 million, no access to sanitation (imagine every fourth house on your street with no plumbing). One hundred thousand children die here every year from waterborne disease.

Let us remember these things, and our good fortune, the next time the price of gas goes up a nickel.

More next newsletter…

Bennie Bough, Shriners International

Dr. Bennie Bough is an elected officer of the Kena Shriners located in Fairfax, VA. Shriners are distinguished by an enjoyment of life and a commitment to philanthropy. They also support what has been called the “World’s Greatest Philanthropy.” Shriners Hospital for Children is a network of twenty-two pediatric specialty hospitals, operated and maintained by the Shrine, where children under 18 receive expert medical care absolutely free of charge, regardless of their race, religion or relationship to the Shriner.

Professionally, Bennie is a retired naval officer and government officer working in international relations. He received his Ph. D. in international relations from George Washington University.

Dr. Bough has also been involved with Toastmasters International for over 50 years. This organization is dedicated to helping individuals to improve their communication skills. He is a past international president of Toastmasters International.

Today, he will share information about the World’s Greatest Philanthropy---Shriners Hospital for Children.

Jim Miller, DOD/Navy Humanitarians --Diplomacy at it's best.

Jim gave us an enlightening presentation of another side of military service that seldom makes the news - that of worldwide humanitarian missions - specifically those being conducted on the Navy Hospital ships, Comfort (based out of Baltimore) and Mercy (based in San Diego). These are the second largest ships in the Navy fleet and the most modern general hospitals in the world. The DOD assists the Red Cross when natural disasters occur, such as Hurricane Katrina and the tsunami. They deliver medical supplies, provide medical support, and provide shelter for the medical relief workers. They also provide supplies and relief during times of political crisis and war, and were instrumental in providing supplies to the refugees when Russia recently invaded Georgia. It was a heartwarming presentation that gives us all insight into the humanitarian efforts of our military and just one more reason to be proud to be Americans…

Ten members of our club attended the Chamber of Commerce Luncheon on February 24, where our Rotary Club had the distinction of being one of the finalists for the Shelley Krasnow Community Service Award. Even though we did not win, we can be proud to have been considered as finalists and we definitely seemed to have the best representation at the luncheon from all of the organizations being honored. Here are some pictures from the event - as you can see, we definitely got some good exposure for the Children's Wellness Festival in the community!

We did it! We made out monetary goal of $3300 raised for the current Rotary Year! Congratulations to everyone but especially to Russ Tuck for leading our efforts in Rotary Foundation Giving.

Our goal is EVERY MEMBER EVERY YEAR. FAIR We hope that every member will make some contribution to the Rotary Foundation this year. Perhaps you can join this group with a ten or twenty dollar gift.

There is still district money available - Rotary district will still match each gift for $100 or more.

Bring checks to Russell Tuck

Date	Speaker	Description	Guest Of
March 4	Cindy Seidel	Life Long Fitness	Dennis Fargo
March 11	John Stirrup & Sam Alattar	Prince William Update	Linda Marlow
March 18	Zed Wondemu	Zed's Restaurant	Linda Marlow
March 25	Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt	News & Messenger	Linda Marlow
April 1	Earth Day Team	Earth Day, Every Day Update	members
April 8	Club Assembly	Board of Directors
April 22	Michael Kieffer	Bull Run Mountain Conservancy	Linda Marlow
April 29	Timothy Burtch	Aircraft Accident Investigator - National Transportation Safety Board -	Linda Marlow

Date	Event	Time
Saturday, April 25	Earth Day, Every Day
Saturday, September 26	Childrens Wellness Festival

2008-2009 Board of Directors

Officers	Name	Directors	Name
President	Dennis Fargo	The Rotary Foundation	Russ Tuck
President Elect	Charlie Mills	Club Administration	Lori Power
Vice President	Alan Myers	Membership	Linda Marlow
Secretary	Don Rusch	Service Projects	Marilyn Karp
Treasurer	John Grzejka	Club Public Relations	Amelia Stansell
Sergeant-at-Arms	Ali Sayed	Rotary Community Corp	George Layne
Interact Club	George Layne	Past President	John Grzejka

Places to make up a meeting

If you would like to make up a meeting online, you can click here.

Excellence is the result of:

• caring more than others think wise
• risking more than others think is safe
• dreaming more than others think is practical
• and expecting more than others think is possible

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