February is Rotary "World Understanding and Peace Day Month"

The following was given to the Sherwood Park Rotarians at our last morning breakfast meeting and I wanted to share it with everyone.  -- Mayor Linda

A. Peace and Understanding

• Rotary Peace Day is Rotary's Anniversary of February 23, 1905.

"The way to war is a well-paved highway and the way to peace is still a wilderness." - Paul P. Harris 1945.

• The Rotary way works! But Rotary has no patent on it, for it is the Golden Rule in action. Any person, any nation, can apply it by displacing negative hatred and fear with goodwill based upon understanding. Peace among nations is not impossible of attainment; they can find peace if they will." Paul P. Harris, January 1946 (Passed away in 1947).
• Rotary's Peace Action - 1. Provides future leaders with education at six Rotary Peace Centers around the world. 2. World Understanding initiatives.

B. World Understanding
Partial excerpts from Frank Deaver writings (Rotary Club of Tuscaloosa, Alabama)

• World Understanding is part of Rotary's fourth ideal of International Service
• Thought provoking - Our world is full of minorities: racial and ethnic, religious, political, and many more. Interestingly, Rotarians also constitute a minority: of the more than six billion people in the world, our number is only a little more than 1.2 million. What makes Rotarians different is that we are a distinctly privileged minority. We are all too often the victims of a lack of understanding, or perhaps more accurately, of misunderstanding. We give to the Rotary Foundation, but we are only minimally aware of how our contributions are spent. February challenges Rotarians to introduce one minority (ours) to other minorities (those who are in need) at home and abroad.
• How shall Rotary further its goal of World Understanding, and its ultimate goal of World Peace?

          1. We must recognize and admit to our differences, whether they be differences of
          national pride, ethnicity, language, politics or religion.

          2. We must focus on our commonalities, not on our differences. As Rotarians, we have
          embraced lofty goals of humanitarian and educational programs through our Rotary
          Foundation. Understanding leads to respect, respect to friendship, and friendship to
          service. Only with understanding can we be bound together in the common goals of
          Rotary friendship and service.

Written by Dennis Pommen
Reprinted with permission.