March 2011 marks the tenth year that I have been a member of the Clarkstown Sunrise Rotary. While many people are aware of Rotary, I would guess that most do not have in depth knowledge of what Rotary is all about. Clarkstown Sunrise Rotary is one of 33,000 clubs worldwide that have over 1.2 million members. Rotary was founded by Paul Harris a Chicago businessman with a group of fellow business owners over 100 years ago and is the world's first and largest service club organization. The object of this article is not to give a history lesson but to place it in context with a specific focus on one group of local "Rotarians." These are people who I have come to respect and admire deeply these past ten years and each in their own way are local heroes.

Rotary is a service organization that promotes ways in which individuals and the clubs collectively can serve others. While many might think it is a business organization it is far more and accomplishes much through each of the 33,000 clubs worldwide. In Rockland there are 15 Rotary clubs with over 400 members; each doing extraordinary things to help other people.

The Clarkstown Sunrise Rotary is a small club with 23 members. We meet every Tuesday morning from 7:30 - 8:30 a.m. at the New City Diner—oddly enough named as it is located on Route 304 in Bardonia. Most of the local clubs meet for lunch; we happen to be the only breakfast club which means we also host a fair number of visiting Rotarians making up a meeting. Some of our visitors are regular almost adjunct members like former Spring Valley Police Chief Adam Krainak and Denis Gaber a local New City accountant. Our meetings consist of some socialization, discussions/presentations, which we call programs that our members or outside persons are asked to make, and happy-sad dollars. In the last category each member places money into a bucket and expresses things for which they are happy or sad or noteworthy they wish to discuss. None of this is particularly remarkable, but in rotary just like in life it is the actions of the individual members that give both breath and depth to the club.

The members of the Sunrise Rotary club are both unique and involved in our community. We have printers like Dan Mazzaro and Steve Kaye who are both extremely involved in the community in different ways. Dan was recently recognized for his efforts by Home Health Aides of Rockland as "Man of the Year" and quietly helps many people. Steve Kaye is the Captain of the Spring Hill Ambulance Corp and regularly has saved lives for decades in this capacity. We have lawyers Lawrence Garvey—the former Clarkstown School Board President—and Antonio Reda, who has a small practice and also works in the County Attorney's office. We have realtors Marilyn Klubenspies and Marie Lorenzini, both remarkable women. Marie served as a Village Trustee in Nyack and is deeply involved with Soup Angels; Marilyn has been a force since the beginning in our club helping to found it, taking leadership roles and doing a great deal of personal charity and philanthropic work—most of which she does not publicize.

We have a husband and wife team John and Ginny Wall, both extremely dedicated, each owning an insurance company. John has served as Club Secretary for as long as I can recall and Ginny like Marilyn was present in the beginning to help found the club in the early 1990's. She also founded Miracle Kids, which helps sick kids in the hospital; she prompted the club when I first joined to raise over $15,000 for the Westchester Children's Hospital and both are big supporters of Hospice, One to One Learning and several other local charities.

Jim Vitale is a member: he was president last year one of the best we have had and also serves as the principal at Clarkstown South High School. Barry Fixler, whom I previously profiled, is appropriately enough one of our Sergeant at Arms; the war hero turned jeweler and now author raises money and awareness for disabled vets. Our other sergeant at arms is Allan Beers the Rockland County Commissioner of Parks who also does a fair amount of local volunteer work.

We have bankers Josephine Lore of M & T who also sits on several boards for local charities and has been a leader on the District Level with Rotary. We have Executive Directors like Laura Geberth who runs the Association for the Visually Impaired and financial planners like Harvey Berk, one of the most dedicated philanthropic people you might meet and our current club president Mitch Kahn who is now repeating for the second time as club president. We have Tom Martucci, a local IT guy who has been instrumental in getting our club website and emails coordinated.

Ray Florida is one of our earlier members who left and came back; he is legendary in the emergency services arena and serves as the president of Rockland Paramedics. Lou Sinatra is a dentist and a magician—that's a good combo. He also does much with our youth outreach.

Deanna Simon, Walter Root a retired science teacher from Felix Festa who lives in Orange County do not make as many meetings as they used to but both have given extremely faithful service on the district level and are past presidents. Paul Lentini is a chiropractor who is on the club roster and is a past president and helps many in Bardonia. Jerry Fox is a local realtor one of our active members and a prince of guy. Thankfully, he sponsored me for membership—something I will never forget and am always grateful; Jerry is also a dedicated volunteer in his own right and the regular cook at our pancake breakfasts, which we hold twice a year. We seem to like pairs in the club and have Barry Blank also a jeweler who is a member for several years now. We also expect good things of our newest member Alexandra Duenas who is joining the club.

This group gathers together weekly and meets the mission of Rotary International for our local club. While each helps to constitute the collective whole of our club, individually the acts of service and charity are incredible. Each year tens of thousands of dollars are raised for charity, each member engages in quiet and numerous acts of charity and philanthropy doing so much for so many. I would not even be able to venture a guess at the vast number of hours of volunteer work that this group offers every year—suffice to say it is enormous.

As I approach my tenth anniversary as a member of Clarkstown Sunrise I thank my fellow Rotarians mentioned here and those no longer present for exemplifying the rotary motto of "Service Above Self" on the local level. As for my non-Rotarian readers if you want to do a good thing—in fact many good things—look no further than your local rotary club and consider becoming a member it changes lives; most importantly your own.