Bellevue Rotary Weekly Bulletin

Here are some of the items on the BRC Calendar for November:

• Dec 2 — International Day for the Abolition of Slavery
• Dec 3 — International Day of Persons with Diverse abilities
• Dec 3 — 10 AM World Committee Meeting
• Dec 3 — 12:30 PM BRC Lunch, Hybrid, Speaker: Shinji Maeda
• Dec 7 — Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day
• Dec 10 — 12:30 PM BRC Lunch, Speaker: Rich Herzberg
• Dec 11 — 2 PM Holiday High Tea
• Dec 12 — 12:15 PM DEI Committee
• Dec 17 — 12:30 PM Last BRC Lunch of 2024
• Dec 18 — 8 AM Board of Directors Meeting
• Dec 19 — 6 PM Thirsty Thursday
• Dec 20 — International Human Solidarity Day
• Dec 24 — Christmas Eve
• Dec 25 — Christmas
• Dec 25 — First day of Hannukah
• Dec 26 — First day of Kwanza
• Dec 31 — New Year’s Eve

The Calendar includes some committee meetings, service events, and other BRC happenings. If you are a Committee Chair or Event Organizer, you can add your item to the calendar by filling out this form.

The next Book Group meeting will be by Zoom on January 15, 2025, from 6:30 to 8:30 PM. Back again in our
rotation is a fiction pick; this time it’s “James: A Novel” by Percival Everett.

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • SHORTLISTED
FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD AND THE BOOKER PRIZE •
KIRKUS PRIZE WINNER • A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and darkly humorous, told from the enslaved Jim’s point of view

When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

While many narrative set pieces of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place (floods and storms, stumbling across both unexpected death and unexpected treasure in the myriad stopping points along the river’s banks, encountering the scam artists posing as the Duke and Dauphin…), Jim’s agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light.

Brimming with the electrifying humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a “literary icon” (Oprah Daily), and one of the most decorated writers of our lifetime, “James” is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first century American literature.

In development as a feature film to be produced by Steven Spielberg •  A Best Book of the Year of the Year so Far for 2024: The New York Times Book Review, Esquire, W Magazine, Bustle, LitHub

“Genius”—The Atlantic • “A masterpiece that will help redefine one of the classics of American literature, while also being a major achievement on its own.”—Chicago Tribune • “A provocative, enlightening literary work of art.”—The Boston Globe • “Everett’s most thrilling novel, but also his most soulful.”—The New York Times

If you are interested in attending, RSVP to John Campbell to receive the Zoom link, which will be published about a week ahead of the meeting.

Hearts & Wine is Harvest Against Hunger’s signature fundraising event. Join us for dinner and an evening of fun, fellowship, and wine tasting.

Visit Harvest Against Hunger for regular updates.

Bellevue Rotary’s World Community Service committee is honored to collaborate with Nepali Rotarians in serving the Children’s Orthopedic Hospital.

Rotarian Robert Rose had the privilege of meeting Rotarian Ashok Shrestha in the scenic town of Dhulikhel, Nepal. They visited several impactful Rotary projects, including one at HRDC Children’s Orthopedic Hospital. HRDC delivers exceptional orthopedic medical services for children up to age 16 on a sliding scale, based on what their families can afford.

Through the generosity of Bellevue Rotary’s World Community Service committee, HRDC has received vital equipment like an x-ray machine and an ambulance. Now, with an already approved Global Grant from The Rotary Foundation and the Rotary Club of Dhulikhel as our local partner, HRDC will conduct a screening camp for 300 children with disabilities. Each child will receive a comprehensive treatment plan, and the grant will also cover surgical interventions and prosthetics when needed.

Bellevue Rotary Club has contributed $3,500 toward this $36,000 global grant, continuing our legacy of successful collaborations with the Rotary Club of Dhulikhel. Recently, we completed a school rebuilding project at Shree Devitar Primary School.

The Rotary Foundation makes these impactful programs possible thanks to the generous contributions from Rotarians worldwide. 🌏🤝💙

In the past few months, several committees have asked to publish club internal content to our website.

As our website is currently targeted to public facing content only, the ability to add club internal content was lacking until now.

We’re pleased to announce that we have a new section of our website dedicated to this.
You can find this section by clicking on “Club Internal” on the member page (see screenshot) of our site or by directly opening: https://bellevuerotary.org/internal/

This section of the website is password protected, we will change the password from time to time and send an update to brc-mbrs@ (and include it in the emailed bulletin as a reminder as well)

The Rotary Club of Bellevue and the Bellevue Rotary Foundation now accept payments via Zelle.  We recently switched our banking relationship in order to reduce operating costs for both the Club and the Foundation, but we need your help!  Another way to reduce our operating costs if for our members to start using Zelle to make Happy Bucks, Fines, Club, and Foundation payments as there are no fees associated with these transactions versus the fees we incur when payments are made via credit card.

See instructions on how to use Zelle to make payments to the Bellevue Rotary here.