Bartlett Rotarian honored at Rotary Day at the White House

Neli Vazquez-Rowland, (of Bartlett) a member of the Rotary Club of Chicago , shown with her husband Brian Rowland an at event at The White House, where Neli was honored as a Champion of Change.

Selected by Rotary International and The White House, Neli was honored for the work she and her husband do at A Safe Haven Foundation, a non-profit organization that they founded in 1994 that successfully rebuilds lives from poverty and homelessness … the Foundation has served over 40,000 people, including families, veterans, and others, and now serves almost 4,000 each year.

Paulette Aniskoff, Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of The White House Office of Public Engagement, commented “The Rotarians we honor today truly exemplify the Rotary Club motto: 'Service above Self' and in doing so show that the American Spirit is a generous one.”

The Rotary Club, founded as a friendship club in Chicago in 1905, is the world's first service organization. The four originators soon realized that they wanted to be more than just a friendship organization … they wished to make a difference. So they began to pull their talents together, and focused on solving local community problems. In a few years, Rotary had expanded into the East and West coasts, and into Canada. Today, there are over 34,000 clubs around the world, with 1.2 million members.

Rotary One, is the name given the original Rotary Club, which meets at the Union League on West Jackson. Rotary One donates over $250,000 annually in support of a variety of different projects, including student scholarships, water wells in Haiti, medical supplies in third-world countries, dictionaries to CPS students, among many others

For more information, visit www.rotaryone.org