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We’ve just celebrated Thanksgiving and now there are only 25 days until Christmas. A season of giving thanks and giving to others.

Keep the Rotary International Foundation on your list of worthy recipients. If you haven’t yet donated to the annual fund now is the time. Besides fulfilling your pledge to Every Rotarian, Every year, you can donate now to include it in your annual charitable gift giving to be declared among your tax deductible contributions for 2025. And don’t forget Rotary’s goal to End Polio. If your friends, neighbors, colleagues, or relatives ask for ideas for charitable deductions, I highly recommend that you encourage them to donate to the Rotary International Foundation. (rotary.org/donate)

The service committee has news from the Ukrainian-Hungarian Bilingual School for Ukrainian Refugees! Viktória Griessmüller, the founder of this school, has been recognized for her work, as one of the 40 under 40 Business Elite Europe honorees. She also received the Rotary International’s highest distinction - the Service Above Self Award, becoming the first person in Hungary to receive this global recognition for humanitarian impact. “Viktória transformed crisis into opportunity, creating the largest ongoing Rotary peace and conflict resolution initiative in education worldwide. Through partnerships with three non-profit organizations and collaborators across five continents, Victória has mobilized more than $500,000 in funding and in-kind support - $300,000 already delivered and $200,000 in progress - ensuring both educational continuity and community resilience for families affected by war. Over the past two years, the Ukrainian Refugee School in Budapest has provided Ukrainian-language education to more than 450 refugee children and employment for 43 displaced teachers and two psychologists.” (Business Elite Awards) Our Rotary district is ready to share funds we have collected for this school when the Global Grant is approved. (Rotary cause: Supporting Education)

Our December speaker is Nancy Comello, member of the Board of Directors of Supporting Safe Birth and member of the Rotary Club of Madison West Middleton. Nancy will be sharing her clubs’ project to improve the health and survival of mothers and babies in Guatemala. (Rotary cause: Improving maternal and child health)

And speaking of Nancy’s Rotary Club, its President Mary Beth Growney Selene is pictured in the montage of Rotarians titled What Makes Us Happy pages 36-37 in the December Rotary Magazine, The Happiness Issue.

Our January speaker Sydney Widell from the Coon Creek Watershed Council has been invited by Rita Wachuta-Breckel. (Rotary cause: Protecting the environment) We are always happy to have our members suggest speakers and topics for our meetings! Thank you, Rita!

Remember, if you aren’t available to log in to the meetings in person, you can still watch the recording of the video that our secretary Val puts on our Changemakers Rotary Web page along with the meeting summary.

November Meeting Recap

Find a full recording of our November meeting here.

Highlights from the meeting:

Sharon Bradish, Val Wachuta, and Julie Zilmer from our club attended the Vibrant Club Workshop in downtown Madison on November 1st, networking with members from other clubs in our district and getting ideas on making our club more vibrant.

We are still in need of a president elect for the 2025-2026 Rotary year. PETS Training is in February, we can't wait until summer for someone to step up.

Reminder - the monthly district newsletter, the District Dispatch has information about upcoming events, friendship exchanges, what other clubs are doing, and tons of other stuff. Read your Dispatch, which lands in your email inbox the 15th of each month. If you haven't viewed it in a while, it has been reformatted for easier reading the articles most interesting to you.

Changemakers Rotary Club has received the 2024-2025 Club Excellence Award for achieving at least half of the goals in Rotary Club Central. We reached all 18 of our selected goals! Sure, we mentioned this last month, but it's a big enough deal to repeat ourselves!

For November - Foundation month in Rotary - our club donated 50% of the 50-50 raffle winnings to the Rotary Foundation. Rita Wachuta-Breckel, the lucky winner, also donated her winnings to the Foundation.

Join us for the service committee meetings, the fourth Tuesday of the month at 5:00 pm. This month's meeting will be November 25th. Find the meeting link on the website.

The theme of the 2026 Rotary Rose Bowl Float will be unite for good. There is magic in teamwork. #Unite for Good.

Our application for a Rotary Peace Pole for Elmwood Elementary's Peace Pollinator Garden in Zion Illinois has been approved. Final logistics to get the chosen languages on the pole and delivery are underway.

Other ongoing projects we are following include the Ukrainian Refugee School and Operation Pollination.

Next month Nancy Comello, of the Rotary Club of Madison West Middleton, will present her club's current project of Improving the health and survival of mothers and babies in Guatemala.

The remainder of the meeting covered what the Rotary International Foundation does and how it works.

Rotary Giving Tuesday December 2nd

Watch this short - 43 second - video on Rotary Giving Tuesday, which is December 2 this year.

What would you give toward supporting mothers and children, providing clean water, supporting education, growing local economies, promoting peace or polio eradication?

Click on the Giving Tuesday graphic to view.

One more Book Packing in 2025!

Hello Volunteers,

We at Madison Breakfast Rotary Club would like to invite you all to join us on Saturday, December 6 from 10am-12pm at Rotary Books for the World, 2209 Commercial Ave for the last book packing of 2025. We are so close to getting enough pallets packed for a shipment and it would be a really lovely way to end the year if we could pull that off with your help.

Please respond to ellenburleighcook@gmail.com if you think you can help out.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. We give thanks for you because we couldn't do it without you!

Ellen Cook

Rotary Books for the World-Wisconsin

Madison Breakfast Rotary Club

https://portal.clubrunner.ca/6721

608-658-6169

November President's Message

In October we dedicated our meeting time to Rotary’s Eradicate Polio initiative. October 24th was World Polio Day for Rotarians and we were encouraged to give to the End Polio Now fund on the Rotary International Foundation donation page found at rotary.org. It’s not too late to donate and to watch the recording of the Changemakers October meeting. The end of polio is so close. Let’s help push it over the finish line.

During the November 7th monthly meeting we will be focusing on the Rotary Foundation. We will talk about the Every Rotarian Every Year giving initiative and how Rotary gives back to local clubs like ours.

We are still accepting donations for our Peace Pole Project. A district grant will match our club’s contributions. We need $213 from our club for the Elmwood Elementary School’s International Peace Pollinator garden. Donations can be made to the Changemakers account online on the District 6250 Foundation donate page. Or a check can be sent to:

District 6250 Foundation

c/o Brian Watson

4030 E. Stone Ridge Dr.

Milton, WI 53563

Make check out to District 6250 Foundation and write peace pole in the memo line. Thanks!

Please make our monthly meeting a priority. If you can’t be with us live, look for the video recording mid month. I’m always open to your ideas and suggestions! If you have an idea for a guest speaker, we still need speakers for February through June and into the 2026-2027 new Rotary year.

Also, consider becoming our President-Elect! Your training and lodging will be covered by Changemakers Rotary. I attended the Midwest Presidents-Elect training the last two years and the presentations were incredible! Don’t miss this opportunity to serve our club. Take some time to consider it. Contact me if you would like to talk about this.

October Meeting Recap

Find a full recording of our October Meeting here.

Highlights from the meeting:

Changemakers Rotary Club has received the 2024-2025 Club Excellence Award for achieving at least half of the goals in Rotary Club Central. We reached all 18 of our selected goals!

For October - Polio awareness month in Rotary - our club donated 50% of the 50-50 raffle winnings to Polio Plus.

We have set up a Polio trivia contest on the Changemaker's Facebook page. Club members are encouraged to play the game. Winners will have money donated to Polio Plus in their name.

The club enjoyed video presentations from Rotary's Polio experts, which can be seen by watching the club meeting recording.

President's October Message

Rotary International has declared October 24th World Polio Day. It is a time for Rotary members to educate themselves about Rotary’s important role in the fight to eradicate Polio from this world. Our October meeting will be dedicated to providing information on what Rotary International and its partners have been doing.

Please join us to learn more and to find out how you can help. Our executive board will be posting a trivia contest on our group Facebook page this month. We will be sharing information at this meeting about how you can participate.

This past week I had the privilege to host Marianne, a Rotarian from Bromölla in the southern part of Sweden. I was part of a group of eleven District 6250 Rotarians who were hosted by four Swedish clubs over ten days in June. Marianne and four other Swedish Rotarians came to Wisconsin on September 19th and left on September 29th. They were hosted in La Crosse for three days, in Baraboo for three days, and in the Madison area for four days.

Some highlights included visiting the Peace Park in La Crosse, taking a tour of the Nasonville Dairy’s cheese manufacturing plant and Heiman’s Holsteins in Marshfield, hiking in Devil’s Lake State Park in Baraboo, touring the International Crane Foundation near Baraboo, visiting Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesen in Spring Green, touring Epic in Verona, experiencing the Dane County Farmers’ Market and the Wisconsin State Capitol Building, and many more activities.

We shared meals and conversation and talked about what our clubs are doing and how we try to accomplish “Service Above Self”.

I highly recommend going on a District Friendship Exchange. You truly become friends and feel like you are part of a big Rotary family.