IT WAS truly a grand slam. The Rotary Club of East Davao, headed by Ronald C. Go, got 11 major awards for the current Rotary Year 2009-2010 given at the end of the Mindanao leg of the District Assembly (Distas)-Presidents/Secretaries Trainings of Rotary District 3860 at the Garden Oases last May 22.
Roni Go, now training in the United States to upgrade his pilot license, was adjudged Most Outstanding Club President of the District which is composed of some 100 clubs in the Visayas and Mindanao.
Other major awards received by RCED categorized as large club are: Most Outstanding Club, Most Outstanding Club Secretary (Valentino Dionisio), Most Outstanding Club Bulletin (RED Chronicle), Most Outstanding Community Service Project, Most Outstanding Public Relations Project, Most Outstanding Membership Development Project, Most Outstanding Rotary Foundation Project and Most Outstanding International Services Project (End Polio Now fund raising).
The harvest of nine major awards is said to be unprecedented in the history of the RI District 3860 and an improvement of RCED’s record of first grand slam four Rotary years ago, when it won five major district awards during the time of past president Virgilio Sojor –most outstanding club, president, secretary, club bulletin and assistant governor. RCED was also the champion that year of the annual Inter-Rotary Club Tournament (in bowling, billards and dart).
Among the impressive projects of the club under outgoing President Roni Go are a donation of an ambulance unit worth P1 million plus to the municipality of San Isidro, Davao Oriental under a Rotary International matching grant program; continuing supplemental feeding programs to three schools in depressed areas in partnerships with Japanese sister clubs; six active college scholarships in partnership with local philanthropist Josue Tesado and Japanese philanthropists Dr. Atsushi Sasaki and Kohachi Oikawa and the Rotary clubs of Isonomaki South and Wakanayagi, Japan.
Through a piano concert of four eminent lady pianists led by Rotary past district governor Evelyn A. Magno, the club also raised funds for Rotary International’s Polio Eradication Drive in answer to the worldwide $200-million donation challenge of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, aside from RCED members contributing one of the largest amount this year to The Rotary Foundation, which supports Rotary projects all over 200 countries. The club, again taking advantage of the Rotary’s World Community Service (WCS) matching grant system, donated a concrete outhouse toilet to some 200 students of Davao City’s only all-lumad public school, the G. Asilla National High School of Malamba, Marilog District.
