June 8, 2019 marked an auspicious occasion for the Rotary Club of Richmond, and President Dean Hsieh as he was joined on stage by Brian Finley, District Chair for Polio Plus, and many other VIP's from the ceremonies around the International Children’s Cartoon Festival.  Through the efforts of the organizers of the Cartoon Festival, $5,000.00 was raised for End Polio.  A cheque was presented to President Dean and End Polio Chair Brian at the Chinese Cultural Centre in Vancouver.

Following the cheque presentation, Dean and Brian presented Certificates of Appreciation to the three organizations behind the Cartoon Competition.  Eva Luo - Academy of Modern Art, Elaine Zhang - Youth Initiative and Helen Qian - China International Children Cartoon Competition Canada Committee were acknowledged for their efforts to provide opportunity for youth across Canada to showcase their cartoon and art skills.  Thereafter, Dean and Brian presented Min Zhi Maggie Li a well deserved Paul Harris Fellow recognition for making possible the $5,000 cheque to the End Polio effort.  She and the event organizers, participants and parents have certainly helped bring Polio to Zero and closing the gap for "we are this close".

 

A special report prepared for Rotary International by the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies estimated the value of Rotary member volunteer hours at $850 million a year. 

 

The studies found that Rotary members had volunteered a total of 5.8 million hours within a four-week survey period. Extrapolating those results over an entire year, the report gave a conservative estimate of nearly 47 million hours of volunteer effort generated by Rotary members in a typical year. The report then analyzed the economic impact of all those hours and estimated the value conservatively at $850 million a year, if communities had to pay for the services that Rotary volunteers provide. more at rotary.org .....

 

In D5040, the 50 Rotary clubs in Greater Vancouver up the coast to Prince Rupert generated more than 68,500 volunteer hours of service among their 1,500 members in the past year.