With 1.4 million Rotary members around the world participating in 46,000 different clubs, it was interesting in July at one of our weekly meetings to find out the origin of our club. Camilo Montenegro and Armando Castle joined our club to give a presentation on the origin of Rotary in Puerto Peñasco. The first Rotary Club in Puerto Peñasco began in 1972 when the population of our town was less than 6000. This Rotary Club was in existence until 2005. Then, from 2005 until 2016, there was no Rotary presence in Rocky Point, and it wasn’t until 2016 that our club was formed. Puerto Peñasco has grown and changed since 1972, and I’m sure our club has done the same. However, one thing that hasn’t changed is the mission. The mission in 1972 was service above self, and the mission of our Rotary Club today is service above self. I guess you could say the mission of Rotary has withstood the test of time.
Our four Rotary students are all back in their home countries now, and we hope they’ve taken with them a lot of memories of Puerto Peñasco. We are now in the process of welcoming new students, who will be arriving in either late July or early August. We will also be sending outbound students to Taiwan and Canada. It’s always an exciting time to meet our new exchange students.
In July, we also had a change in our club leadership. We welcomed a new president and board who will lead us through the activities of this year. At our installation ceremony, we also recognized a local individual for her outstanding support of Rotary. We were proud to name Mary Snyder as an honorary Rotarian.
This coming year, we will be scheduling our annual dental clinics as well as vision clinics. We will also be planning our Polio Plus dinner in October and our fishbowl activity in February. These are annual occurrences, but I’m sure we will be adding to this list as we recognize other needs in our community. The opening of the dialysis center is still front and center, and it’s definitely taking longer than we first thought; however, sooner rather than later, this will come to fruition.
Our Rotary Club continues its weekly meeting every Wednesday morning at 9 o’clock. One of the items we are trying to put in place is a translation mechanism. Because most of the meetings are in Spanish, many of our American friends miss out on much that goes on. We are hoping that we will be able to remedy this with some of the current software that’s available.
If you are a newcomer to Puerto Peñasco and want to get involved in the community, Rotary is a great vehicle to do that. Or if you are a Rotarian and just want to visit our club, please join us. We always love to share ideas with other Rotarians from other places. The meeting information and my phone number are at the bottom of this article. Enjoy the rest of the summer and join us in September with a renewed spirit of service… See you then.
