What Is A Rotarian? And What Does Rotary Mean To Me?
My first Rotary meeting was in 2017. I was curious about Rotary for some time because I had seen posts from their social media about community service and I was looking for ways to get involved in my community. If you’re unfamiliar, each meeting typically has a program or a speaker, this particular meeting’s program was a belly dancer. After seeing a few of the members “volunteer” for the program and watching Virginia Panico shake down the Chief of Police for being published in the paper I thought to myself, “this is the club for me”.
People often ask me “What is Rotary?” (one guy I spoke with thought it was a fan club for old rotary telephones). I think the best way to explain Rotary is to tell you about my most recent experience with Hurricane Ian, the bastard that wreaked havoc on Key West, specifically my home. I’ve lived in The Keys off and on for 20 years and luckily this was my first flood experience so when the water came in I don’t think I really comprehended what the implications were and what 6 inches of water in your home really means.
Our damage wasn’t as bad as others but it was enough to mess shit up. Enough that we had to rip out our entire kitchen, floors, walls, drywall, vanity, get new appliances, well… you get the picture.
I like to consider myself a natural optimist. I tend to look at the bright side of things and look for solutions not problems. So that’s what I did, I took to social media and let everyone know that we were “ok”, house not so much; but we were in good spirits and not to worry. I fully anticipated being back in action but when it came do doing the action it was pretty damn overwhelming. To be honest it’s one of the most overwhelming and stressful situations I’ve ever been in and it was all going down 7 weeks before our wedding. Needless to say getting back in action would be harder than I thought.
But time doesn’t stop for anyone and there were things to be done to prevent further damage and we needed to get started clearing out our house to begin the demo and start drying out Johnson Street. But where do you start? Then I got a message from one of the members and Past President of my Rotary Club saying that they were rescheduling the community clean up that had been planned for that Saturday and re-routing the Rotarians to my house to help.
Luckily from my social media updates we were able to get dehumidifiers, fans, and rubbermaid totes delivered to our house from friends and friends of friends. By Friday we had two friends come over and help us pack up the entire house (Thank you Kristy and Priscilla!) but I was nervous about having people at the house and being too overwhelmed to direct them to the tasks I needed help with.
I wasn’t really sure how many people were going to be coming over, typically on the community clean ups we have about 10 or so volunteers so I figured since they were re-routing that event the number of people coming over would likely be somewhere around there. One of my biggest pet peeves when organizing or volunteering at any event is when you have people who are giving up their time to help you and they are standing around without anything to do. That’s when I decided to transfer my “master to do list” to a painters tape list that could be easily delegated to anyone who was looking for a way to help. Take a strip of tape, do the task, throw it away, Viola!
So Saturday morning rolls around and when I tell you people showed up, THEY. SHOWED. UP. We had over 45 people come to our house on Saturday to help us pack and move. We had almost the entire house emptied in 45 minutes. My ENTIRE Tape To Do List had been completed including cleaning out my car that had been totaled - shout out to Audrey Green for being my Tape To Do List Master Delegator when I didn’t have the capacity to delegate!. And it didn’t stop there… then the parade of cars and volunteers followed Ed to our newly rented storage unit so that they could help unload and stack all of our boxes.
After everything was unloaded we transferred some of our fans and dehumidifiers to a fellow Rotarian that lived two blocks over and also needed help but chose to come to help at our home first. It might sound strange but I get it, often when I’m overwhelmed I turn to service and helping others as a way to move forward. Plus, sometimes it’s just nice to be with your people.
And it got me thinking. This is what being a Rotarian is all about. It’s not about the meetings and the lunches. Don’t get me wrong, I like the weekly fellowship opportunities, buying my 50/50 tickets, and watching Virginia do her magic but it’s what happens outside of the meetings where you find the good stuff…like when 40+ Rotarians show up at to our house to help us when we didn’t even know what we needed help with. It’s about showing up on your doorstep with backpacks full of school supplies because you became an emergency foster parent overnight. It’s about delivering meals to senior citizens on Saturdays and fellow Rotarians because their wife is sick. It’s about helping to change a students life by awarding $25,000 to a deserving Key West High School senior for college. It’s about connecting with others and organizations that inspire you to be a better person and to think about the relationships you’re building.
It’s about creating a legacy of service and considering the Rotary Four Way Test in the things we think, say and do that make me proud to be a Rotarian and a member of the Rotary Club of Key West.
