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The first-ever “Scholarships for True Lake County Leaders” were awarded by the 99-year-old Rotary Club of Leesburg at the Venetian Center this week.
Scholarships included one-year free membership in Rotary International, one of the largest community service organizations in the world.
When Leesburg Club President John Alex Bernaden first offered up to 25 of these “Scholarships for True Lake County Leaders” at the Leesburg Chamber breakfast on Thursday, the following five people immediately signed up: Amanda Gaskin, owner, Ultimate Health DPC Deb Jayne, owner, Bases Loaded Convention & Travel Services S. Elliott Ward, owner, Blue Island Sportswear Diana Williams, center manager, ECS4Kids, Leesburg Head Start George Howells, energy consultant, POM Property Operations Mgmt.
“Congratulations!” Bernaden told a large audience at the Venetian Center in Leesburg. “The five of you are on your way to becoming Rotary Club members like Franklin Delanor Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy, Neil Armstrong, Pope Francis, Bill Gates, Sam Walton, Prince Charles and Colonel Sanders.”
“Rotary Clubs have members from every business or profession imaginable: banking, law, accounting, food service, healthcare, education and government,” he continued.
“We often attract leaders because we have some pretty lofty beliefs,” Bernaden said. “We believe that a business or professional who puts community service above their own selfish interests makes more money than those who don’t. We call it Service about Self.”
“For example, Rotarians believe the honest contractor makes more money than the dishonest one,” he explained. “In the short run, dishonest people may seem like they’re getting rich, but crooks don’t get as much repeat business as honest professionals.”
“When you get a group of professional people together with lofty ideals, they also start working on other lofty ideas like World Peace,” he said. “Unlike the United Nations top-down approach, Rotary Clubs are doing it from the bottom up starting in our local communities.”
To help make Leesburg a more peaceful community, one Rotary Club member invested a quarter million dollars in an experiment to stop student bullying in Leesburg High School. “And it actually made a pretty big dent in that problem,” Bernaden proclaimed.
“If you Back the Blue, for 45 years our Rotary Club of Leesburg has been giving prestigious Service Above Self Awards to recognize the Lake County Police officers from all 11 cities who go beyond the call of duty to demonstrate exceptional community service,” he continued. “For example, that officer who buys toys for homeless families out of their own pocket at Christmas.”
“If you want a business network of friends, you’ll be astonished how almost every one of our 1.4 million Rotarians around the world will welcome you like old college fraternity brothers and sorority sisters, the second that you first meet them,” he said.
“Last, but not least, Rotary Clubs still teach old-fashioned values like ‘citizenship’ in our communities as well as new-age ones like ‘stewardship’ of Mother Earth,” he concluded.
“Each week members of 34,000 Rotary Clubs around the world repeat the exact same Four-Way Test (in multiple languages).”
“Of the things we think, say or do:
Is it the truth?
Is it fair to all concerned?
Will it build goodwill and better friendships?
Will it be beneficial to all concerned?”
“That’s why we’re calling these scholars ‘True Lake County Leaders.’”
