Still no sightings of either Frank Bernardo or his dog...July 18, 2013

New Canaan Rotary Club Bulletin                                             July 18, 2013

Still no sightings of either Frank Bernardo or his dog.  Has “We’re watching you” become “We’ve got you…and your cute little pooch?”  Everyone stay alert and report any Bernardo intelligence to President Fred.  If Frank has been the victim of official overreach we must support him and ensure, at the minimum, that the dog is freed and that, if possible, Frank’s conditions of incarceration are humane.

President Fred was in the state of Maine [For those of you with a literary bent, a bear in one of John Irving’s novels was named State of Maine].  Fred was not with a bear.  Amy was in the room and, having pointed out to the audience that she was not Fred, led the Pledge and called on Dr. John to deliver the invocation.  In what turned into a foreshadowing event for the program John recounted the story of a woman who had written to Mother Theresa offering to come to Calcutta to help with the poorest of the poor.  Mother Theresa replied that the woman should find her own Calcutta.  While the response seems a bit snippy, the point is valid and, when our program was presented, brilliantly demonstrated.

Valerie Connelly who has visited with us before was again in the room.

Amy congratulated in absentia our two Rotarian Republican nominees to the Town Council, six month incumbent John Engel and rookie Bill Walbert.  The Club and the Town are grateful for their willingness to serve.

Sergeant Scott recounted a brief story of marital devotion, Amy suggested an IOU from the absent Rob Avery who is celebrating a birthday, Mike Hobbs contributed a happy $5 for the outcome of the Republican Caucus, and Gentle Ben, relishing the subarctic conditions in the room, placed a “guilty $20” in the plate due to his absence for almost a month.  The good news; while he was gone he learned how to make soup!

Ken Campbell then introduced Karen King, a fifth grade teacher from Newtown, who had found her own Calcutta as the result of a pen pal exercise she thought up for her students some years ago.  Through an association with New Haven based Unite for Sight Karen identified a group of Liberian refugee children  in the Bububuram refugee camp in Ghana and had her students write to them.  English is the official language of both Liberia and Ghana which facilitated the exercise.  This led to a home and home photo exchange of the individual students, their families, pets, chores, etc.  between the children of Newtown and the ten year old Liberians which wound up emphasizing the similarities between these two unlikely groups.  As the Liberian civil war concluded the refugees were repatriated from Ghana.  By then Karen and her compatriots had established a school and a clinic which they paid to have moved back with the refugees.  Raising money from Fairfield County Rotary Clubs, including New Canaan, she leveraged an R.I Matching Grant which met the initial budget of $37,500 for the New Sight Eye Clinic in Monrovia.  Staffed by an up-trained male nurse as cataract surgeon and a number of volunteers the Center in two and a half years has cared for over 20,000 patients including those seen at the Center and those seen where they live during 23 outreach trips.  Karen is in the process of raising $230,000 to build a new facility which will address a number of deficiencies in the existing building and growing the Center to be the primary provider of eye care for all of Liberia.  When that is done, she wants to train and connect eye care providers throughout Africa who have trouble getting professional training, staying current with best practices and networking with colleagues from similar practices.  Mother Theresa would be proud.  Should you need to contact Karen, her email address is: MsKing1999@sbcglobal.net.

Stevie Wonder