Editor's Note: Our speaker Chris Stein referenced this article during his presentation on Friday (4/16).

Seventy-five percent of the world’s plant species are dependent on pollinators, such as the monarch, to survive

by Frank Bures in Rotarian Magazine - October 2020

Late last winter, just before the world shut down, my family flew from Minneapolis to Mexico City, then drove two hours west toward the city of Valle de Bravo. From there, we continued on to Santuario Piedra Herrada, a nature preserve situated in the forested mountains of central Mexico.

The next morning, as the sun rose behind the mountaintops, we began our hike up a mile-long trail. The air was cool, and the sky was obscured by patchy clouds. Higher up the path, we noticed the oyamel fir trees start to take on a different appearance. They looked solid. They looked so heavy that they might fall over. They looked like they had been colonized by some strange creature.

When we reached the top, we could see that in fact it wasn’t one creature that had colonized the trees, but many: Millions of orange-and-black monarch butterflies covered the branches and trunks of the now orange-tinged trees, huddling together for warmth as they have done every winter for thousands of years. When the sun emerged from behind the clouds, the insects, warmed by its rays, filled the air, and the beating of their wings sounded like a soft rain.

In a few weeks, those same butterflies would take off from these hills — Santuario Piedra Herrada is one of a handful of places where monarchs gather to spend the winter each year — and fly to Texas and other parts of the southern United States, where they would lay their eggs on milkweed plants. Those offspring would then fly north as far as Canada to lay their own eggs. After a third generation, at the end of the summer, a fourth, “super” generation, whose life span is as long as nine months (as opposed to its predecessors’ two to six weeks), would embark on a journey back to Mexico, following the Sierra Madre Oriental mountains until reaching the hills around Piedra Herrada.

pay it forward [pey it fawr-werd]: Pay it forward is an expression for when the recipient of an act of kindness does something kind for someone else rather than simply accepting or repaying the original good deed. - Pop Culture Dictionary

Following Albert Alcarraz's presentation, individuals in our club sent $1000 and a box of gifts to Albert and his family in Lima, Peru.

The money was wired to Albert at no cost thanks to our friends at Port Washington State Bank. Albert used part of the funds to buy food baskets for needy neighbors. The remainder was set aside for family expenses.

Club members also filled a box with family gifts including games, bilingual books, clothes, and puzzles. Scott Bern covered the costly international postage. After an anxious four-week wait, the package arrived today! (See top photo)

From an earlier article:

On Friday (2/19) our Rotary speaker was Albert Alcarraz who was kind enough to share a bit of his life and beautiful family with us. He also shared the not-so-beautiful situation that currently exists in Peru. On top of a corrupt and ineffective government, citizens of Peru are experiencing a hard lock-down with extreme limits on mobility, no opportunity for work or income, and no hope of receiving a covid vaccine.

After hearing Alberto's story our club wanted to do something to help. In addition to collecting needed items and shipping them to Albert we also raised $1,000.

Here are some photos from Albert about the 10 baskets he prepared for neighbors using part of the funds we sent. The rest will be used to cover family expenses.

By Gregory Brusko, DO, Chief Clinical Officer, Ascension Wisconsin 
News Graphic April 6, 2021

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect people worldwide, access to safe and effective vaccines is critical to stopping the spread and keeping people healthy. With the authorization and distribution of three COVID-19 vaccinations in the United States, there are many questions about who should receive the vaccine, concern about side effects and efficacy and hope that this will bring an end to a pandemic that has affected millions worldwide for more than a year.

Understanding fact from fiction is an important first step when considering vaccination.

Myth: If I’ve already had COVID-19, I don’t need a vaccine.

Fact: Every eligible person should get vaccinated regardless of whether they have already had COVID-19. We do not yet know how long a person is protected from getting sick again after recovering from COVID-19, which is why it is important to get vaccinated to prevent further illness and/or hospitalization. Since every individual’s health history is unique, talk with your clinician about an appropriate time to get vaccinated after a COVID-19 infection.

Myth: The vaccine will make me sick with COVID19.

Fact: Not true. None of the authorized and recommended COVID-19 vaccines or COVID-19 vaccines currently in development in the United States contain the live virus that causes COVID-19. This means that a COVID-19 vaccine cannot make you sick with COVID19.

All of the vaccines available today “teach” our immune systems how to recognize and fight the virus that causes COVID-19. Sometimes this process can cause symptoms, such as fever, body aches, chills that may last for a few days. These symptoms are normal and are a sign that the body is building protection against the virus that causes COVID-19.

Myth: The COVID-19 vaccine causes infertility in women.

Fact: There is no evidence suggesting that fertility problems are a side effect of any vaccine. According to the CDC, experts believe that COVID19 vaccines are unlikely to pose a risk to a person trying to become pregnant in the short or long term.

Scientists study every vaccine carefully for side effects immediately and for years afterward. The COVID-19 vaccines are being studied carefully now and will continue to be studied for many years. People who are trying to become pregnant now or who plan to try in the future may receive the COVID-19 vaccine when it becomes available to them.

If a woman is vaccinated against COVID-19 prior to the birth of her child and chooses to breastfeed, she will provide passive immunity to her child. Passive immunity gives antibodies to the child and protects them from contracting COVID-19 during the early months of their life.

Myth: Scientists rushed vaccine development, so its effectiveness and safety cannot be trusted.

Fact: All vaccines require extensive research, documentation and closely monitored clinical trials to determine effectiveness and safety before being submitted by pharmaceutical companies for approval. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for ensuring the safety, effectiveness and availability of vaccines in the United States. The FDA requires extensive testing and reporting of results by manufacturers before making vaccines available to the public to protect safety and identify any potential side effects.

Given the widespread impact on health and safety, the global medical and research communities have placed unprecedented urgency and collaborative focus on developing a COVID-19 vaccine. While these vaccines are available to the public faster than is typical, they passed clinical trials and have undergone rigorous testing to help ensure effectiveness and safety. All three approved COVID-19 vaccines demonstrated high levels of effectiveness in preventing serious illness, hospitalization and death.

While the COVID-19 vaccines were completed within a year - they were built upon research that began decades earlier with the SARS-CoV-1 outbreak in the early 2000s. Since that outbreak subsided, the research stopped as vaccines were no longer needed. With the current SARSCoV- 2 (COVID-19) pandemic, scientists used a lot of that information, and information learned in subsequent years, to forge ahead and create a vaccine in record time.

Myth: The COVID-19 mRNA vaccines will alter my DNA.

Fact: Not true. COVID-19 mRNA vaccines do not change or interact with your DNA in any way. The mRNA that is injected into one’s body degrades naturally after being used by our cell machinery (i.e. the Ribosome) to make the spike protein. It cannot be integrated into our own DNA.

mRNA (or messenger RNA) vaccines “teach” our cells how to make a protein, or even just a piece of a protein, that triggers an immune response inside our bodies. That immune response, which produces antibodies, is what protects us from getting infected if the real virus enters our bodies.

Myth: The side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine are dangerous.

Fact: Sometimes after vaccination, the process of building immunity can cause symptoms, such as fever, body aches, headache, and fatigue. These symptoms are normal as the body is building immunity, according to the CDC.

Symptoms are typically mild to moderate in severity, occur within the first three days of vaccination, and resolve within 1–3 days of onset. These symptoms are more frequent and severe following the second dose and among younger persons (less than 55 years old) compared to older persons (greater than 65 years old).

The benefits of vaccination and community immunity far outweigh the risk of side effects from vaccination. Those 65 and older were some of the first residents able to get their COVID vaccines at Ascension hospitals.

Here’s how joining a Rotary club helped enhance Ashley Holmer’s work

Looking for a meaningful year-abroad experience, Ashley Holmer decided to teach in Tanzania. The former college soccer star coached and taught English in a Maasai community in 2005.

But Holmer soon became more deeply involved in education in Tanzania. She co-founded the Indigenous Education Foundation of Tanzania (IEFT), which established a school in the village of Orkeeswa in 2008. In 2011, the leaders of Mungere village asked Holmer to help build its first community high school. That was the beginning of the Red Sweater Project, named for the color of the school uniforms. Since then, the Mungere School — and education — has been a central part of Holmer’s life.

The Red Sweater Project focuses on three main areas: quality education, gender equality, and responsible innovation. In Tanzania, many children — especially girls — leave school around age 12, in part because of costs for uniforms, school supplies, meals, and transportation. To keep students in the classroom, the project makes education affordable by reducing those ancillary costs.

In 2013, Holmer, who still spends about half her time in Tanzania, was invited to a meeting of the Lewis River Rotary club. She was struck by the way her values meshed with those of Rotary but was unable to join at the time because of attendance requirements. In January 2017, with those requirements having become more flexible, she became a member.

The club has embraced Holmer’s work and sponsors scholarships for six students each year to attend the Mungere School. “We have students whose parents are illiterate,” Holmer says. “One of my students just finished her teacher training. It’s coming full circle.”