Rotary honors Michelle Sterling

The Rotary Club of St. Augustine celebrated Rotary International's 105th anniversary by hosting their annual 7th Paul Harris Dinner at the newly opened St. Johns Council on Aging River House. Keynote speaker was George Allen, past governor and senator of the State of Virginia.

The event honored Rotary's Paul Harris Fellows, and recognized the 2010 Community Service Award recipient, local resident Michelle Sterling.

Sterling, a graduate of Flagler College and teacher at St. Augustine High School, was honored for her continual, outstanding and unselfish contributions of time and money outside of her everyday job. The benefactors of Sterling's contributions include the ARC, the Interact Club, the St. Francis House, the American Cancer Society and a host of other worthy causes.

Members and guests in attendance were from the Rotary Clubs of St. Augustine, St. Johns Coastal and Sunrise.

The Rotary motto is "Service Above Self" and members, as volunteers, conduct projects to address today's humanitarian challenges, including illiteracy, disease, hunger, poverty, lack of clean water and environmental concerns while encouraging high standards in all vocations.

Rotary's top philanthropic goal is to eradicate polio worldwide. To date, the organization has contributed nearly $850 million dollars and countless volunteer hours to the protection of more than 2 billion children in 122 countries. Rotary is currently working to raise an additional $200 million toward a $355 million challenge grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. These efforts are providing much needed operational support, medical personnel, laboratory equipment and educational materials for health workers and parents.

In addition, Rotary has played a major role in decisions by donor governments to contribute more than $4 billion to the effort.

Rotary, a global network of community volunteers, is one of the largest and most influential international humanitarian service organizations worldwide. Founded in Chicago on Feb. 23, 1905, today over 1.2 million members belong to 33,000 Rotary clubs in more than 200 countries and geographical areas.