DISTRICT GOVERNOR- TOM BERKEDAL

Tom Berkedal, District Governor, has been part of Rotary for the past 28 years.  His wife, Laurie, may not be a Rotarian but is a Paul Harris Fellow and has been supportive of Tom from the beginning.  Tom and has wife were honored to attend the International Assembly in San Diego in January of this year.  This is a gathering of all of the District Governor Elects throughout the World.  During the assembly the Rotary International President, Gary Huang announced the 2014-2015 Rotary Theme which is “Light Up Rotary.”  The theme was derived from this saying by Confucius, “It is better to light a single candle than to sit and curse the darkness.”  Gary went to say that the Rotary way is the Confucius way.  The Rotary way is to light a candle. I light one, you light one, 1.2 million Rotarians light one and together we light up the World!  Tom then went on to talk about heroes in our lives.  The real “Heroes” in our lives are those people who take an interest in us for whatever reason to inspire, to mentor and to get us through difficult times in our lives.  He then asked us the question, “How many of you believe that it’s possible to be a hero in the life of someone that you never met”?  Well he does and here’s why:  Rotarians with the help of others are going to eradicate Polio from the face of the earth saving millions of children from the effects of that crippling disease.  Since 1985 Rotary members have helped immunize more than 2 billion children against polio.  Of course Rotary is not just about Polio. Rotarians also promote peace through the Rotary Peace Fellowship Program.  Since 2002 over 800 peace fellows from more than 110 different countries have participated in the Peace Fellowship program at a cost of more than 40 million dollars.  Throughout Rotary’s Global/Ambassadorial scholar program Rotarians provide $30,000 scholarships to young people throughout the world who are entering a field of study that reflects one of Rotary’s six areas of focus.  Since 1947, the Foundation has given scholarships to over 42,000 young people from over 130 countries at a cost of over $575 million dollars. Since 1965, The Rotary Foundation has funded almost 40,000 projects in over 200 countries at a cost of more than $500 million providing relief to refugees, low-cost health care, sanitation facilities, rainwater harvesting, water wells, teacher training, literacy projects, food, shelter and so much more.  Add to that the hundreds of thousands of local projects that Rotary Foundation has helped support over the years.  Tom believes that it is appropriate to say that Rotarians who donate to the Rotary Foundation are heroes in the lives of the children who have been immunized or the young adults who received a scholarship or the beneficiaries of Rotary’s global or local projects.  Tom is looking forward to the upcoming year for a lot of reasons.  2015 is the centennial year for our district.  To celebrate he is encouraging all clubs to do something special in recognition of our 100 year anniversary and the district itself has a great celebration planned.   During the weekend of May 15-17, 2015 we are going to host a three district, district conference.  We are calling it Tri-Con and the theme for the conference is “Light up Rotary…100 years of service.” Our district, 6220, will be joined by district 6250 which is located on the western side of the state which includes cities such as Madison, Lacrosse, Janesville, etc. and district 6270 located in the south central part of Wisconsin such as Neenah/Menasha, Milwaukee, Racine and so forth.  This is going to be a big party involving most of the state of Wisconsin, the upper peninsula of Michigan and a small piece of both Minnesota and Illinois.  The conference itself will be held at the Radisson Paper Valley Hotel.  We expect to have about 900-1200 Rotarians for this event.  Tom has been working hard on making this event affordable and accessible.  Registration is $15 and there is no meal plan.  Also this is a family friendly event.  Tom encourages everyone to attend and promises that the experience will change your perception of Rotary forever.  Registration began on September 1^st so please plan on joining!