It was a festive meeting on June 29 as our club installed Holly Applegate as its 111th president, along with a slate of enthusiastic officers and board members (see list at right).
Click Read More to read Holly's inspiring thoughts on taking office.
Thank you:
- Don Saracen and Anthony Hollingshead and your committee for planning this very special day.
- Wendy for your incredible table arrangement, Liz for organizing our meal, Cynthia Leonard for designing our invitation and program, Walter for being an authentic Paul Harris, Jackie Gourd for your beautiful certificate of election, Richard Applebaum for installing me and Barbara Harris for pinning me.
- I am thrilled to have my husband, Bill here who will soon be inducted at our next meeting, my daughter Brecken Schneider and brother, Gren Blackall on zoom from Maine, my son Austin from New Jersey and daughter,Burgundy from London.
- And thank you to our soon to be past District Governor, Charlene Jarest who is also here with us.
- I also wouldn’t be here without the incredible support of Sally Lapides, Libby Issacson, and JP Pagano from Residential Properties. Thank you so much for being here!
- Also a special thank you to Councilman John Goncalves for delivering the proclamation in person.
I am very excited about becoming the 111th President of the Providence Rotary. I am particularly honored to be the 8th female President to serve. I am indebted to Past Presidents, Elaine Carroll in 1995, Susan Blicker, Susan Fabrizio, Jan Feyler, who is here, Cynthia Leonard who is here, Barbara Harris who pinned me and Jenny Miller. Thank you for paving the way for me.
I do wish my parents, Steele and Patty Blackall were here. I think they would be proud. Service above self was an important part of my upbringing. My mother was very active in her community supporting the YWCA in Woonsocket, Sophia Academy, Providence Preservation Society and serving for many years on the Rhode Island Foundation Board. My father was also very active with Landmark Medical Center, Ballou Home, the United Way, Roger Williams University, The Rhode Island Historical Society and served on the Providence Building Board of Review.
I want to share with you my most memorable volunteer experience which was traveling to Guatemala in 1969 as part of an outreach program, Amigos De Las Americas based in Houston, Texas. I travelled to Senahu, Guatemala and lived in the mountains in a make-shift medical clinic. I volunteered and travelled by mule into remote areas to give Polio vaccines and Tetanus shots to over 3000 indigenous people of Guatemala. Little did I know then, that I would be part of an organization that champions a worldwide effort to eradicate polio. This continues to be an important focus of our club. Thank you, Kris David for all your work with the Polio-Plus initiative.
I look forward to beginning our Rotary year with our new Rotary International theme: Serve to Change Lives. Our incoming International President Shekhar Mehta from the Rotary Club of Calcutta-Mahanagar in West Bengal, India has special initiatives for our year. He is asking that every Rotarian to make membership a responsibility through each one, bring one Campaign. We all need to work together to let someone know why we are Rotarians and how we can change lives. Let’s work together to grow our club to encourage more diversity, equity, and inclusion in our membership. Our club needs to reflect the community around us.
President Mehta also has asked clubs to collaborate to conduct hands-on service activities with members of our community saying that caring for and serving others is the best way to live because it changes not only other people’s lives, but also our own. We have a perfect committee to make this happen called the Good Works Committee initiated last year by Kris David and continued with co-chairs, Mary Brewster and Karen Mueller. I look forward to their ideas for projects. Another initiative by Mehta is Empowering Girls to address the inequalities that girls face in our communities and world wide. Let’s focus on this effort as well.
Now that we are experiencing the joy of being together, I want us all to work together to make a difference in others’ lives such as our Literacy Initiative in our Providence Schools under the leadership of George Babcock, Mary Cullen, Connie Donnelly, Pete Brock, and going forward with Art Norwalk. Being able to read opens windows to the world for our youth. We are making a difference and need your continued support. On October 26th, our Second Legends for Literacy Gala is a critical event to help raise funds for our schools. I am asking for each of you to support and attend this wonderful event.
As we come out of the pandemic, let’s energize all our committees and traditional events that we have enjoyed in the past as well as create new ones.
- Liz Messier will be chairing our Rotary after Dark fellowship events!
- Steve Hug, our President-Elect is currently putting together a stellar speaker program.
- I want to thank our Past-President, Bryan Cook for shepherding us through the challenges of keeping our club going through Covid-19. I was proud that we continued to have zoom meetings throughout the year.I also want to thank Paul Segal who has been a loyal member for 30 years and led the efforts of the Rotary Charities Foundation for many years. We will be looking for someone to carry on his torch.
We have an incredible incoming Board of dedicated members and I look forward to working with them.
There are exciting times ahead!!! Let’s dream big and make things happen. I am ready to serve each and everyone of you and be the best President possible!!
