Rotary in the News
By George Derringer / swampscott@cnc.com
Swampscott Reporter
Posted Jun 26, 2010 @ 02:25 PM Last update Jun 27,
2010 @ 08:31 PM Swampscott —
Team Rotary of Marblehead Harbor
Photo by Jessica Barnett
“Finally,” said boat designer Darryl Smith after a Swampscott Rotary Club vessel, designed to look something like a patchwork quilt, took first place for the first time in the club’s annual Duct Tape Regatta Saturday morning at Fisherman’s Beach.
The event, which features boats made entirely from recycled and recyclable materials – empty plastic soda bottles are a mainstay of most designs – is done not just for fun but to raise money for Rotary International’s Clean Water Project that provides sources of clean water to places throughout the world where it is not yet available.
This year, the funds will go to a group of MIT
students who are going to Uganda this summer to dig
a well at a health clinic. Until then, the clinic
depends on sending children two miles away to bring
back supplies of water, Smith explained to the crowd
of races, fans and friends assembled for the event.
A vessel from the Rotary Club of Marblehead Harbor
was the early race leader but ended up in second
place while the Marblehead Rotary Club boat, red and
black in color of course and designed by naval
architect Dieter Empacher, had to settle for third
place.
The Salem Rotary’s “Carpe Ductum,” supposedly meaning “seize the tape,” finished fourth, one place shy of winning a trophy, a loving cup made entirely of genuine recyclable plastic.
But funds were raised and the Rotary Club of Marblehead Harbor won a second trophy for itself as the top fundraiser with a total of $874.
Blessing of the Fleet
Again this year, the Rev. Mark Templeman, record of
Church of the Holy Name in Swampscott, provided a
Blessing of the Fleet as dozens of boats (and one
kayak) moored in Swampscott Harbor passed by the
floats at the end of the town pier.
The blessing is an annual event sponsored by the
Swampscott Yacht Club.
Hands Across the Sea
A quiet protest of offshore oil drilling, a
nationwide event not part of the Swampscott Harbor
Festival but instead organized by community groups
and individuals, also was observed twice in
Swampscott on Saturday, once at 11 a.m. at Preston
Beach on the Marblehead line and again at noon on
King's Beach at the Lynn line.
Copyright 2010 The Swampscott Reporter. Some rights
reserve
Jared Hutchinson, part of the USS Constitution Honor Guard on hand for the Star-Spangled Pops, poses in front of the ‘Spirit of ’76’ painting at Abbot Hall.
On Saturday, May 15, Armed Forces Day, enjoying a splendid early spring evening, Marbleheaders and local veterans gathered at Abbot Hall, festively adorned with red, white, and blue bunting, for the third annual Star-Spangled Pops concert, sponsored by the Rotary Club of Marblehead Harbor.
Club President John Williams welcomed everyone, thanking them for supporting the charitable work that Rotary International performs throughout the world.
The program then began with the presentation of the flag by a Naval color guard from the USS Constitution. After co-chairman Don Doliber led the salute to the flag, young Paige Vigneron sang the National Anthem. Co-chairwoman Linda Doliber recognized several prominent veterans in the audience and then introduced Maestro Dirk Hillyer, who led the Hillyer Festival orchestra in a musical “Tribute to the Armed Forces” and then on to a “Salute to Broadway,” which included much-loved music by Rogers and Hammerstein, George Gershwin, Cole Porter and others.
Featured soloists were Rebecca Kenneally, Daniel Blake and young fourth-grader George MacDonald. The trio enchanted the audience with “Love Makes the World Go Round.” Kenneally’s rendition of “Embraceable You” and Blake’s interpretation of “Bring Him Home” from “Les Miserables” were particular highlights of a musical program, which celebrated American life and the sacrifices that have been made to preserve and protect it.
Marblehead Reporter Posted Apr 05, 2010 @ 04:10 PM Marblehead —
Mark your calendar: The third annual Star-Spangled Pops will be presented by the Rotary Club of Marblehead Harbor on Saturday, May 15, 7:30 p.m. at Abbot Hall.
Maestro Dirk Hillyer and the Hillyer Festival Orchestra will enthrall the audience with an evening’s “Salute to Broadway,” and Rebecca Kenneally will be the featured soloist. May 15 is also Armed Forces Day, and the men and women of our military and their families will be honored at this fabulous Star-Spangled musical evening celebrating American life.
Floor-table tickets will be available by mail-in reservation only, and the form will appear in the April 15 issue of the Marblehead Reporter. Balcony tickets will be found at the Arnould Gallery, 111 Washington St., and the National Grand Bank, 91 Pleasant St., after April 15.
Watch the Reporter and MHTV for more information.
Community Service Nominations in Andover
"HELP FOR HAITI - The Rotary Club of Marblehead Harbor is
raising money to send shelter boxes to Haiti."
>>> More on Boston.com
Harbor Heroes on MHTV
The show Tom Gale produced with Jodi Vigneron about our Harbor Heroes program will be shown on MHTV (channel 10 on Comcast, channel 28 on Verizon)
Wednesday, Feb. 17, 7:30 p.m.
Thursday, Feb. 18, 1 p.m.
Monday, Feb. 22, 7:30 p.m.
Tuesday, Feb. 23, 1 p.m.
Club's Haiti ShelterBox total: 24 and counting
 |
| Rotary Club of Marblehead Harbor President John Williams, left, receives a check for some of the funds that will be used to send ShelterBoxes to Haiti from Ed Bell, the club’s ShelterBox chairman. Through its fundraising efforts, the club has sponsored 24 of the life-saving boxes thus far. |
Each box contains a tent that houses 10 people as well as a stove, water purification equipment, and other essential items. Doctors have been using supplies from the containers to treat the injured. Three field hospitals in and around the capital city are using the tents to provide emergency shelter for postoperative patients.
The Rotary Club of Marblehead Harbor has already raised funds to send 24 ShelterBoxes to Haiti and is continuing to seek additional donations from North Shore residents. Rotarian Ed Bell has been to talk to other Rotary Clubs, schools and civic groups about the benefits of sending Shelter Boxes to Haiti.
“It is the ideal solution in a crisis situation like this, where you have an urgent requirement for housing, particularly with the imminent onset of the rainy season,” Bell noted. “We know from ShelterBox General Manager Lasse Peterson, who has been in Port au Prince for three weeks, that everybody there wants a ShelterBox tent, and we’re sending in as many as we can as there are so many people needing help.”
The price of a complete ShelterBox is $1,000, but smaller donations are clearly also welcome. Local residents who would like to donate to ShelterBox can do so by making a contribution to the ShelterBox donations box in the National Grand Bank.
A ShelterBox display will be set up in the Northshore Mall on Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 13 and 14, and members of the Marblehead Harbor, Lynn and Danvers Rotary Clubs will be there to talk about Rotary’s emergency relief projects in Haiti and collect donations.
Further information about the Club and its fund raising initiative to send ShelterBoxes to Haiti can be obtained from Vicki Staveacre on 781-249-7517 or vicki.staveacre@gmail.com.
Marblehead’s two Rotary Clubs have quickly ramped up
fundraising efforts to send ShelterBoxes to help Haiti begin
to recover from the devastation of a Jan. 12 earthquake
and a second 6.0-plus quake that struck early Wednesday
morning.
Each ShelterBox contains a 10-person tent, sleeping bags and mats for 10, a multi-fuel cook stove, pots, pans, cups, utensils, a tool kit, shovel and rope, mosquito netting, rain gear, a children’s activity kit, water-purification kit and more. The $1,000 cost to sponsor a box also covers the costs of delivery and having a “Response Team” on the ground to monitor the distribution and set up of the boxes.
“Shelter Box delivers exactly the kind of aid that is desperately needed now in Haiti,” noted Ed Bell, the Rotary Club of Marblehead Harbor’s Shelter Box chairman.
At the club’s Tuesday morning meeting, it was announced that the club, with the help of some of its friends, had raised enough to contribute seven Shelter Boxes to the relief efforts.
The previous Thursday, the Rotary Club of Marblehead had voted to send four Shelter Boxes to Haiti, two funded out of the club’s treasury and two funded by “passing the hat” at the club’s lunch meetings. The club raised more than enough to purchase one box at its Jan. 14 meeting.
ShelterBox began as a grassroots effort in Great Britain, part of a Rotary International worldwide effort to honor the turn of the millennium with service projects. It soon went international, with founder Tom Henderson reaching out to the Rotary Club of Lakewood Ranch near Sarasota, Fla. to become the primary Rotary administrator for the ShelterBox program in the United States.
The ShelterBox USA Web site notes that the organization has established an operations base in Port au Prince, Haiti’s capital, and is being assisted by a French aid agency to determine the areas in most dire need of the boxes. “Logistical hubs” in Miami and the Dominican Republic are serving as way stations for Haiti-bound supplies.
The Marblehead clubs’ efforts comprise part of the more than 3,300 ShelterBoxes that have been committed so far, enough to help up to 33,000 people. Beverly Rotary, too, has sponsored four boxes. But more help is desperately needed.
ShelterBox Head of Operations John Leach noted, “This is the largest, quickest and most complex deployment in our history. We are now very well organized across four countries [including the U.K.] to get ShelterBoxes to the people of Haiti quickly. We are now set up to channel aid to those in need efficiently and effectively in the days and weeks to come. This is a long-term commitment from ShelterBox and we have to sustain our initial push.”
Bell noted that what makes the program so easy to support is that “100 percent of the donation actually ends up on the ground with a tangible and direct impact.”
Rotary Club of Marblehead President Jeffrey Wargo agreed.
“This aid goes directly through Rotary connections in Haiti,” Wargo wrote in an appeal to members. “Consequently, these boxes do not end up in government warehouses or on the black market and is our guarantee that our sponsored boxes will actually help families in need.”
By sheer coincidence, Bell had set up speaking engagements scheduled for this week before Rotary Clubs in Danvers and Lynn long before the Haiti earthquake hit. Those talks will now take on a new urgency, he noted.
A retired media executive, Bell also recently produced a half-hour program on ShelterBoxes to air on Marblehead’s local-access station, MHTV. Upcoming air times are Tuesday, Jan. 27, 7:30 p.m. and Wednesday, Jan. 28, 1 p.m. on Comcast Channel 10 or Verizon Channel 28.
Both Bell and Wargo noted their clubs would be happy to serve as a conduit for donations to ShelterBox. Donations may be mailed to the Rotary Club of Marblehead Harbor, P.O. Box 941, Marblehead, MA 01945. Donations may also be sent directly to ShelterBox USA, 8374 Market St. #203, Lakewood Ranch, FL 34202 or made online at shelterboxusa.org.
Power of One - How ShelterBox Helps Haiti Earthquake Victims
As Told to William Lee Adams Monday, Feb. 15, 2010 Time Magazine
In 1999 I watched a disaster unfold on the evening news. As aid workers threw loaves of bread on the ground and people scrambled after them, I asked my wife, "Why can't they hand the bread to those people? They've lost everything. Why should they lose their self-respect too?" It was as if someone hit me over the head with a cricket bat. I got out a piece of paper and wrote down what I would need after a natural disaster: shelter, warmth, comfort, dignity.
ShelterBox: A Quick Fix for Home in Haiti
ShelterBox, created by social entrepreneur Tom Henderson, provides temporary shelter and disaster relief for thousands of homeless earthquake survivors in Haiti.
Watch video on Time.com
