Wagner Rotary began the month of September with the ringing of the Rotary Bell by President Bryan Slaba. Jeff Doom introduced his guest for the day, which was his wife, Julie. Pastor Laurie Kidd played only one song for Rotary which was “Sing Out a Song of Rotary” and a fine song it was.

Rotarian Ken Cotton spoke briefly about Still More Rotary Firsts from our Rotary Membership Handbook. Rotary first presented “Significant Achievement Awards” in 1969 to clubs with outstanding international or community services projects.

Rotary‘s first Interact club was organized in Melbourne,

Florida, in 1962 to become the pioneer for about 7,200 Interact clubs in 88 countries.

Rotary’s first convention held in the Southern Hemisphere was in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1948.

Rotary was assigned the copyright on the “4-WayTest” in 1954 when its author, Herbert Taylor, became president of Rotary International.

Rotary’s first Community Service project took place in 1907 when Chicago Rotarians led a campaign to install a public comfort station in the city hall.

1964-65 was the first year when The Rotary Foundation received total contributions of a million dollars in a single year. Today more than $45 million is given annually. Contributions since 1917 total more than $750 million.

Rotary’s first appeal for aid to disaster victims was in 1913 when $25,000.00 was given for flood relief in Ohio and Indiana.

Rotary’s motto, He Profits Most Who Serves Best,” was first expressed at Rotary’s very first Convention in Chicago in 1910.

WE HAVE A WINNER! Kathe Henke drew the Queen of Hearts and is the recipient of $904.00.

President Slaba reminded all Rotarians to hurry up and sell their football books as everything needs to be turned in next week. Slaba introduced his program for the day, Mike Brunsing who spoke on a troubling topic.

Child Sex Trafficking. Brunsing started by stating that this is a very dark topic and is widely misunderstood. He gave some statistics: 40 MILLION individuals are enslaved today for labor, sex, and other reasons. 25% of these 40 million are children.

The average age is 12 to 14 years old and as young as 3 years old. A child is sold for sex about 20 to 30 times PER DAY which amounts to about 2 million kids per year.

This is a 9 BILLION DOLLAR industry worldwide. Why the demand? It boils down to people being desperate enough to sell their children for a variety of reasons for money and drugs.

Pornography is a big factor. Pornography is a 32-million-dollar industry per year.

A man by the name of Tim Ballard who was the Head Secretary for Child Trafficking in government was so bothered by what he was seeing that he quit his job and has started a foundation called OUR RESCUE.ORG You can find out information on this program if you do a search on the internet using Tim Ballard or OUR RESCUE.ORG.

This isn’t a problem out of our area. It is right here in Wagner, South Dakota, and Charles Mix County.

It gets worse every day, every month, every year. We cannot and should not ignore this evil that is robbing children of their youth and parents of their children. Believe it or not sometimes it is the parent who sells their own child because they are so desperate.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

1. Talk to kids about pornography and how it can become an addiction.

2. Talk to a friend about child trafficking.

3. Donate or host an event about trafficking to get a conversation going in the community.

4. Buy merchandise to draw attention to OUR

5. Pray, pray, pray. This evil only gets worse with each passing day.

Sergeant at Arms Jerry Weber gleefully went to the podium to levy his fines:

• $2 to Jeff Doom for losing his keys

• $2 to Jerry Henke for not acknowledging the SAA when he entered the room

• $2 to Pastor Bill for his seedless watermelons

• $2 to Jordan Weber for not responding to his Grandma’s call for help getting calves back in the yard

• $1 to Becky Brunsing for removal of her shoe and $1 for not sitting beside her husband for the meal

• $2 to Bryan for talking too much

• $2 to Jeff Doom, Rachel Woods and Julie Doom for sitting together

• $1 to every member except Bryan and Craig

• Laurie Kidd offered up a $5 Happy Fine for Becky not stepping on her piano bench to hook up the TV

• Jeff Doom offered a Happy Fine of $2 for all his relatives going back home.