Rotary’s Role in Bringing Our Community Back to Normalcy

submitted by Club President Andrea Kaminski

If you viewed our Rotary Club of Madison (RCM) Online Meeting earlier this week, you might have heard Nick Curran’s birthday message, in which he said, “I’m certain our Club will need to be at the forefront of post-COVID-19 recovery efforts, and I’m certain we’ll succeed in helping our community return to normalcy.”

Nick is right that our Club must be an active player in putting our community back on the right track — and we don’t need to wait until we are back out in the community to begin to do so.

April 1 was Census Day, and that’s a reminder that one important thing every one of us needs to do is participate in the decennial Census. You should have received a postcard in the mail a few weeks ago inviting you to complete the Census questionnaire. If you have not responded yet, you can still do so online, by phone or by mail.  Click here for full instructions or call 844-330-2020. If you don’t complete the questionnaire, the Census Bureau will follow up by phone or at your door.

Here is why it is so important that our community have a complete count in the 2020 Census:

• Census results help determine how billions of dollars in federal funding flow into states and municipalities each year. That includes money for health clinics, fire departments, schools, roads and highways.
• The results also determine how many seats in Congress each state gets.

Let’s not let our state and community be shortchanged!

As a follow-up to Dr. Ankur Desai’s excellent presentation entitled “Stormy Days?  What Climate Change Means for Your Local Weather” in our online Club Meeting this week,  I recommend that you check out the March 2020 newsletter  of the Environmental Sustainability Rotarian Action Group (ESRAG) which conveys the message that preventing disease and saving lives are central to Rotary’s worldwide mission.

Stay healthy, wash your hands and tune in to next week’s RCM Online Meeting on April 8, at noon, in which UW Health’s Benjamin Eithun will be speaking about how the Madison area has been prepared for the Coronavirus pandemic and its effect on our population.