Kenneth "Ken" Jaskot

In a ringing call to community service, District Governor Ken Jaskot challenged Putnam Rotarians "to change lives, every day, all day long, for the better."

The story of Rotary is the story of one man who, over a century ago, wanted to promote the small-town values of fellowship, trust, and purpose in Chicago.

On a winter evening in 1905 he met with three other businessmen of like mind. They decided to meet weekly in rotation among their offices -- and thus was born the first Rotary Club.

Two years later, those first Rotarians undertook their first community service project: They bought a horse for a circuit-rider minister whose horse had died.

The next year they built a rest room for women where there had been none -- in the City Hall.

From those four men in one club, Rotary has grown to over 1.2 million members in 32,000 local clubs in over 200 countries.

In 1972, two Rotarians heard Oakland (Pennsylvania) Club President Dr. Robert Higson speak about his "jet injector" which made possible as many as 1,000 innoculations in an hour.

They were inspired to start a project to innoculate a million children against polio.

That was the beginning of the "Polio-Plus" program sponsored by Rotary International.

A half-century ago there were 600,000 cases of polio each year -- 58,000 in the United States alone.

Today, the once-dreaded disease of polio has been all but eradicated.

"Individual Rotarians have changed the lives of millions of people," Jaskot said.

"Rotarians provide wheelchairs and artificial limbs. Rotarians teach literacy."

President Mary Keely accepts theme banner from District Governor Jaskot

Women in third-world Africa can see their grandchildren -- "because a Rotarian surgeon removed the cataracts from their eyes.

"Children in South America may one day have grandchildren because Rotary made wells for safe drinking water.

"Fishermen in India have new nets and fishing boats to replace those destroyed by a tsunami so they can feed their families.

"One of thse fishing boats was provided by a local club, and the boat has been named 'Rotary Club of Barboursville,'" Jaskot told the group.

"'Service Above Self' is one of the oldest and truest themes of Rotary," Jaskot said. "Find just one thing that inspires you -- locally or internationally -- and work through the power of Rotary to make it a reality.

"The history of Rotary demonstrates the power of hope over misery and despair.

"Rotary is a 'movement,'" Jaskot told Putnam Rotarians. "Rotary is more than a weekly luncheon meeting -- much more.

"Join the 'movement' to change a world besieged by untruth, unfairness, selfishness and destruction," he said.

"The four-way test of Rotary -- truth, fairness, good will and benefit -- is not just a slogan. The Rotary four-way test is a way of life."