Rotary club

Rotary club

Written by Tiffany Young Monday, 24 March 2008

Rotary Club International, the world’s largest service organization with more than two million members, has two locations in Northwest Austin: the Northwest Austin Rotary Club and the Lakeline Rotary Club.

While the Northwest Austin Rotary Club has been meeting at the Balcones Country Club for 26 years, the Lakeline Rotary Club, which meets at Texas Land & Cattle on US 183, is only a few years old.

The Northwest Austin Rotary Club’s main fundraiser is citrus fruit sales. The profits are given back to the local community through scholarships to high school seniors, and House of Friends, a ministry of Bethany United Methodist Church in Northwest Austin that provides respite to caregivers and aims to enrich the quality of life for their loved ones with dementia. The sales also fund a number of international projects.

“(The fruit) is a Texas product,” said Tom Perkins, chairman of the Northwest Austin Rotary citrus fruit fundraiser. “We sell health and we sell Texas; nothing from Florida or California.”

Last year’s profits from the citrus fruit fundraiser was $82,750. All of the oranges and grapefruit sold are grown in South Texas and all of the Northwest Austin Rotary members are involved in the sale.

“There are Rotary Clubs all over the world and we’re just a small part,” Perkins said. “It’s about giving back.”

While local clubs support their surrounding communities, they also participate and fund international Rotary efforts, such as the Rotary’s top international goal of eradicating polio worldwide.

Last November, a member of the Round Rock Sunrise Rotary Club Beenu Deuja spent 12 days in Nigeria for one of the National Immunization Days in which volunteers traveled to villages and immunized children for polio. Deuja was the only Texas representative of about 90 volunteers who traveled to Nigeria.

“I always wanted to volunteer, and Africa has always fascinated me,” Deuja said. “Even if you can change just one life, that’s great.”

Originally from Nepal, Deuja had witnessed poverty before, but said the trip to Nigeria reminded her of where she had come from.

“Having come from an underdeveloped country, it was a reminder [of the difference in lifestyles] because we tend to forget [what’s its like] since there’s a way to get everything here,” Deuja said.

Much of the trip Deuja spent in a village about an hour away from Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, going door-to-door giving oral polio vaccinations to small children under the age of five with their parents’ permission. Sometimes volunteers ran into opposition to giving the vaccine because some Islamic leaders in northern Nigerian states believe it is a plot for the U.S. to spread the HIV virus and infertility among Muslims.

Since her trip, Deuja has continued her international support by pledging to raise money for malaria prevention in Ghana. The money raised will go towards buying nets for children’s beds, which will keep mosquitoes away at night.

She also does her part in her own community, receiving the Mentor of the Year award at Berkman Elementary in Round Rock last year.

“We work together to provide for our community to give them things they couldn’t provide themselves,” Perkins summed up.

Rotary trains youth leaders

• Austin Lakeline Rotary Club, Meeting: Tuesdays at 11:45 a.m., Texas Land & Cattle, 14010 N. Hwy. 183, Contact: Eric 775-8391
• Rotary Club of Northwest, Meeting: Friday at 7 a.m., Balcones Country Club, 8600 Balcones Club Drive, Contact: www.nwaustinrotary.org