This is why we are Rotarians and strive to make a difference in our world.
"On Tuesday 7 January, the day after Sue and I had driven my son and his family to the airport to return home to Los Angeles, driving past the city of Melbourne shrouded in appallingly dense smoke haze I was feeling a bit miserable and wondering what I was going to do with myself that day.
It didn’t take long to sort that out!
I received the call from a representative of Direct Relief, to the Rotary Office indicating that after consulting the Red Cross, they would offer up to 500,000 N95 / P2 Respirator Face Masks for people in communities directly experiencing the bush-fire crisis. 100,000 masks were already on their way, courtesy of air freight space donated by Qantas, and scheduled to arrive at Melbourne airport on Thursday 9 January.
Direct Relief is a non-profit, non-aligned Santa Barbara California based charity which ships medical supplies to communities affected by natural disasters the world over.
Their Associate Director, Partnerships & Philanthropy, Dean Axelrod, is also President of the Rotary Club of Santa Barbara. He had suggested they call us because:
After consulting with President Kevin, my first call was to Bob Glindemann to check whether the DIK warehouse had capacity to store, temporarily, the 100,000 masks, (24 pallets) while we arranged distribution. Bob said yes and has been front and centre in this amazing logistics response.
The next step was to enlist Grant Hocking, District 9800 Governor to inform Rotary District Governors of the face mask offer and check their needs. The response from Rotarians across the country has been magnificent.
By Monday 20 January, nearly 400,000 masks will have been received to where they are needed in far flung communities experiencing bush fires, ranging from Central Queensland, Kangaroo Island, the Hunter Valley, the NSW Southern Highlands, NE Victoria and East Gippsland.
Yet again, Rotary has met an urgent community need. To me this experience demonstrates that:
