Service Club Hears Tales of Poverty and the ‘Power of One Rotarian’

He addressed a club where every member could afford $1,000 donations to the club’s parent foundation, but when Larry Sundram* spoke to La Mesa Sunrise Rotary* on Friday morning, he described abject poverty.

Sundram, the new district governor for San Diego and Imperial County’s 61 Rotary Clubs, told of seeing lepers and polio victims begging for money and food.

He told of Rotary financing that helped a town get water-filtration so women didn’t have to carry 20-gallon jugs for miles every day—only to find their families sickened by the water they brought.

He told of a young boy living in India whose parents barely escaped genocide and whose family collected manure to spread on their own floor—to tamp down the dust and “keep out the vermin.”

The young boy was Larry.

“A fish doesn’t know it’s wet,” and neither did Sundram know he was living in misery, he told nearly three dozen riveted Rotary members and guests at Terra American Bistro on El Cajon Boulevard.

Nor did he fear for himself amid the assassination-dotted 1960s when he came to America as a young man.

“I didn’t feel a darn thing,” he said. “I felt opportunity after opportunity.”

But after a career in financial services, Sundram retired in his early 50s and began “trying to find a mission for myself.”

Then a car repairmen suggested he become a Rotarian.

Mistaking the remark as proselytizing, Sundram responded that he didn’t buy into Rastafarianism, Unitarianism or any other esoteric religion.

Soon he was enlightened about Rotary’s many projects. He joined Vista Rotary and went on trips to the poor colonias above Ensenada—where one day a small child grabbed his hand and showed him his family of five living on a dusty floor.

“I recognized the place,” Sundram said. It was a flashback to his own childhood.

He also recognized his own mission—which fueled his rise on July 1 to governor of District 5340.

He called the district “one of the finest” in Rotary, generating $1.3 million a year in grants toward projects around the world.  He called La Mesa Sunrise Rotary “one of the finest clubs in our district.”

And he returned to a theme again and again—“What’s the power of one Rotarian to make a difference in the world?”

He answered with several examples, including a $20 microloan to a mother in India who started a crocheting business. He noted the work in Ecuador and Mexico of La Mesa Sunrise’s own Dr. David Ballesteros.

But amid the dramatic stories and projects—numbering 120 in the regional district—Sundram counseled the audience that not every service effort had to be expensive or dramatic.

“Many of the tasks we perform are small and humble,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done.”

He quoted Helen Keller, the deaf/blind humanitarian, saying “Improving just one life is a noble task” and said that if Rotary’s story were a movie, it would bring  “a lump to your throat, tear to your eye.”

And: “If we showed that movie at every meeting,” the club would be flooded with new members. “People would join—do much more good in the world. … Where there is Rotary, there is less poverty, less ignorance and more literacy.”

Membership isn’t cheap.  Annual dues can run $800—and Rotarians need to have (or be retired from) “a professional, proprietary, executive, managerial or community position,” according to a Rotary FAQ.

But that was no obstacle for La Mesa Sunrise’s newest member— Rudy Shaffer. He served as greeter—being the first to arrive for the 7:15 a.m. meeting at Terra.

A Point Loma resident, Shaffer said he had launched three companies in the electronics industry.

In the welcoming ceremony, Sundram pinned a big Rotary ID badge on Shaffer.  Club President Manuela Bump Murillo invited members to line up for hugs, kisses and handshakes.

Shaffer brought roses for his president and another member.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story gave the incorrect club name for La Mesa Sunrise Rotary and misspelled Larry Sundram’s last name.