CORNER BROOK — When he was an 11-year-old farm boy growing up in rural Nova Scotia, the local Rotary Club gave Greg Coldwell a purebred, short-horned calf for all the work he had done with the 4H Club he was involved with.
The letter notifying him of the gift said that the local Rotarians hoped this female calf would become “the cornerstone of your herd.”
The calf became more than a possession for Coldwell, a longtime Rotarian himself who is visiting Corner Brook this week as the organization’s district governor for District 7820.
It became a pet. It may have broken his heart to have to take his cow to auction two years later, but Coldwell has since gained an appreciation for the tough life lessons that gift from his Rotary Club taught him.
“You never know what kind of an impact you are going to have on someone,” Coldwell told members of the Rotary Club of Humber during his address Tuesday evening.
Coldwell governs a district that covers most of Atlantic Canada, including the Magdalen Islands and St. Pierre et Miquelon, with the exception of New Brunswick. He said the district’s membership has grown to 1,600 in recent years, but would like to see even more people offer their time and resources to bettering their local communities and the world through the organization whose motto is “service above self.”
He spoke about, as a Rotarian, having seen the gratitude of a little girl confined to a wheelchair who got to play like other kids at a Rotary park with accessible playground equipment or someone from Guatemala whose community now has a steady source of clean drinking water.
He said further growth of the organization happens only with strong local Rotary clubs that have enthusiastic members and strong leadership with a plan.
“Rotary needs each and every one of you and each and every one of you has something to give to Rotary,” he said.
The Western Star
Published on August 28, 2013