Rotary Club of Santa Monica

"2001/2002 - A Rotary Odyssey"

Rota-Monica

ISSUE NO. 16                           OCTOBER 26, 2001                       OUR 80th YEAR
www.RotaryClubofSantaMonica.org

HE COULD GET KILLED
 

Our speaker this Friday is Brant Didden, who heads an enterprise he calls Mountain Adventures Unlimited.  He escorts venturesome clients up and down the world’s highest mountains.  Last spring he led a team of three climbers in an attempt, on Mount Everest, which he’ll tell us about.

Everest was named for Sir George Everest, former surveyor-general of India, who used trigonometry to locate the peak and fixed its height at 29,002 feet, highest known point of the world’s surface.   Six expeditions tried and failed to reach the pinnacle (17 men died in the effort) before Sir Edmund Hillary and Norgay Tensing won fame by getting there in 1953.  Queen Elizabeth, Victoria’s great great granddaughter, was roused from sleep to hear about it on the eve of her coronation.

Others were killed in later climbs of Everest.  When asked why they were trying, some repeated the historic answer of George Leigh Mallory, who died on Everest:  “Because it’s there.”  G. K. Chesterton wrote, “The thing was perfectly useless to everybody, including the person who did it.”

However, Brant has arranged a worthy purpose for his climbs.  They raise funds to help build new schools in remote villages of Nepal.

For his expedition last spring, Brant engaged Babu Chiri, noted mountaineer and Sherpa tribesman, as guide.  During their climb Chiri was killed in an accident.  Nevertheless the team kept climbing to 28,000 feet.  There Brant’s oxygen system stopped working, and he was forced to turn back, but the other two went on to the summit.

Brant has been a professional mountain guide since 1993.  He grew up in Pacific Palisades and still thinks of it as home.  He earned a degree in environmental conversation from the University of Colorado.

This is a great program for the entire family. Remember guests are welcome.

ANSWER TO A BIG QUESTION

Our John Miller, UCLA’s director of development, gives the answer to a question asked at the October 12 meeting.

“Still remaining to fund the reconstruction of Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center is $155 million of the $230 million construction budget. Interested parties are welcome to contact me for further information about the many gift opportunities and the various methods of planned and outright giving.”

HOW SHE’S HELPED HUNDRED OF KIDS
(One of a series on new members)

Eloise L. Helwig’s life and career changed when she joined the alumni association of her alma mater, Mount Saint Mary’s College, in Los Angeles.

She was working as a chemical engineer, as she’d planned, when she was made aware that the college needed money.  Being optimistic by nature, she agreed to organize a fund-raising drive.  She knew nothing about fund-raising but it couldn’t be hard, she thought, since so many were doing it.

She began by seeking expert advice.  “I found a listing of colleges and universities who were successful in raising money, and wrote to them,” she recalled.  “About twenty took the trouble to send valuable tips. The most helpful was the alumni director at USC.  He just wrote a note, ‘Better come and see me’, then spent hours advising me.  As a result I became fascinated with the art of arousing people’s generous instincts. The St. Mary’s campaign worked so well that I knew this should be my life’s career.”

She became a volunteer for, and subsequently president of, the Retarded Children’s Guild in Palo Alto.  With her help, it built and staffed a “respite home” where weary parents could bring their retarded children for short stays.

“As I spent time working with children’s charities and other worthy causes, “Eloise continued, “I began to feel I could make a major contribution helping them.”  After several successful projects with non-profit educational institutions in the Bay area, Eloise relocated back to Los Angeles as a consultant, raising money for major capital campaigns.

In 1992 the Orthopedic Hospital Foundation.  She is responsible for managing all the hospital’s fund-raising and volunteer program, overseeing the foundation staff, and directing its marketing and public relations.

Two million children with orthopedic disorders have been treated at the hospital.  During the polio epidemic the hospital was filled with children in iron lungs, many from families who could not afford to pay. They were told, “We’ll pay for everything.  When you go out and become successful, maybe you can contribute or remember us in your will.”  Many have done so.

Some small donors, too, grew so enthused about the hospital’s work that they bequeathed sizable estates.  Eloise recalls one lady who sent ten dollars annually.  When she died, she left $6.8 million to the hospital.

Through the International Children Program, doctors from Orthopedic care for children from all over the world.  For the last 35 years, a medical team sees children from Mexico at a clinic on the Calexico/Mexicali border.  Annually, a group of physicians and surgeons travel to Nepal at their own expense to spend two weeks treating children with cleft palates.  Two years ago Eloise went along to observe.  She saw that Rotary International was also active there as one of many RI operations.  This is why she came to feel she’d like to be a Rotarian.  She joined us last summer.

She never entirely gave up chemistry.  In 1979 she acquired Brooktronics Engineering in Valencia.  Her son manages the company, which makes and sells electroplating equipment and chemicals.  She also has three daughters.  One is a deputy district attorney in Los Angeles, one is an interior designs and one is in the physical fitness business. We’re delighted to welcome Eloise to Rotary.
 

SIX FINE ROTARIANS ADD UP TO $675
TAXES ASSESSED THROUGH OCTOBER 12 $8,835

For having a new granddaughter, Henry Alcantar, was taxed $150.  This fine Rotarian (since 1980) and two-time Paul Harris fellow is owner and CEO of Medical Clinical Laboratories here in Santa Monica.

Radomir Samardzic lost his camera.  Dave Rimer lost his cell phone. Guess who found them?  Right: “Hal the tax man.”  The two unlucky Rotarians are luck to have such an alert president.  Their taxes were $100 and $125 respectively.  Dave’s larger tax was caused by his purportedly false accusation that Hal used the cell phone to call Paris, Shanghai and Rome.  Anyhow, let’s all congratulate Dave for his birdie 2 on a par 3 hole.  Not luck, just talent.

The Vikings departed and returned, led again by Allan Young, assisted by PP John McIntire and PP Spyros Dellaportas.  These special Rotarians among many other community leaders honor one another by their journey to Las Vegas for their annual golf tournament.  The Boys and Girls Club of Santa Monica is the major beneficiary of their participation.  Also Rotary benefited by a $100 tax from each.

BIG DATES AHEAD

LOOK WHO’S JOINING OUR CLUB!

Steve Alexis, Sara Frank, Iao Katagiri, Jackie Kittaka, Milly Kramer Miles Pritchard (all to be inducted soon.)

WE WERE GLAD THEY CAME

Guest of club members at recent meetings included Eva A. Brodehl, Kathy Dodson, Bob Inodomi, Don Price, and Bonnie Rimer.

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