Since 2024, Rock, who is 10, and Beatrice, 11, have helped fill book bags with food for kids, sorted items at food pantries, weeded gardens, and served as extras in a movie made by an arts organization. They’ve also gotten to know the other like-minded families in the club, who are committed to making Bloomington a better place. Gloden says that by participating regularly in something that’s bigger than themselves, all three have grown. “Service is not just about the action and the outcome you expect to have with the organization you’re volunteering for,” he says. “It’s also about the change that takes place in the volunteer.”
Glenys Robertson came to a similar realization: that in moments of upheaval, helping others can be steadying. Like Gloden, she went to her first Rotary meeting at a time when she felt broken. She’d endured a traumatic divorce while living in Spain and then moved back to her native Britain to pick up the pieces. A friend invited her to a meeting at the Rotary Club of Grantham, where she was touched by the warm welcome.
At the time, she was partially retired and had time to fill in her schedule. When club members asked her to help run the district’s Disability Games, she eagerly agreed. The day of the event, she ran herself into the ground, making sure everything went smoothly. At the end of it all, a young athlete embraced her. “She said, ‘This is the best day I’ve ever had,’” Robertson recalls. “And I cried, because I was just so tired, but so elated, because I thought this is what Rotary is. Rotary gives you joy because you are doing and giving.”
Robertson threw herself into more service projects and, as time passed, took on leadership roles with the club. She saw that the more she gave, the more she healed. Today, at age 75, she’s an assistant governor of District 1070. Although she’s retired, she says she’s busier than ever. And she wouldn’t have it any other way. “If we are altruistic, we get so much more out of life,” she says. “I got my mojo back.”
Hope
In 2025, John Weiss completed his second term as president of the Rotary Club of Morro Bay, California, and his daughter, Jessica Bailey Weiss, started her first. The passing of the baton would turn out to be more significant than either of them knew.
John had been a dedicated Rotary member since Jessica was a teenager. In 2011, he helped charter the Rotary Club of Morro Bay Eco to draw in younger, more environmentally conscious members, and he let Jessica know that she’d be helping. “He asked me if I wanted to be treasurer or secretary,” she says with a laugh. “That was the choice. He didn’t ask me, do you want to join?”
At club meetings, Jessica saw her dad from a new perspective. Although he’d been something of a workaholic while she was growing up, in Rotary, he was a playful, funny guy whom everyone liked. He seemed to especially enjoy recruiting new Rotarians and mentoring members.
In 2017, John was preparing to serve as governor of District 5240 when he learned he had a rare form of cancer. One day, he was gearing up to visit the district’s 73 Rotary clubs, and the next, doctors were saying he might not survive five years. It was the ultimate lifequake, but he wasn’t budging from his plan. “He didn’t want to step down,” says Jessica. “He didn’t want to quit.”
Through various treatments and nine surgeries, John carried out his Rotary duties in the years that followed, often attending virtual meetings from his hospital bed. As he defied his doctor’s expectations, living past six years, then seven, Rotary gave him hope and purpose. In the eighth year, he trained his daughter to be president. And when he died on 4 September 2025 at age 66, he did so knowing the club was in good hands.
Jessica is grateful that her term as president followed her father’s because it meant they got to spend so much time together preparing for the handoff. Now, she’s comforted by the outpouring of support from Rotarians who loved her father deeply. “It feels like his legacy is living on,” she says. True to that legacy, after her father died, Jessica didn’t miss a meeting.
Identity
Gregor Baum thought he was living the dream. In 2021, he moved from his native Germany to Rocky Mount, North Carolina, to attend North Carolina Wesleyan University on a tennis scholarship with the aim of going pro. Then, at the first practice of the year, an intense pain wracked his back. A doctor told him that because of the injury, he might not be able to safely play tennis again.
#lifequakes #jolt #world
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