New Rotary Prez Puts Service Above Self

[Editor's note: The following was submitted by the San Carlos Rotary Club. If you have some news to share with Patch about your organization, school, business or sports team, email the editor at joan.dentler@patch.com.]

Betsy Koefoed was installed on June 28, 2013 as the President of the Rotary Club of San Carlos for the fiscal year 2013-2014.  The Rotary Club was established in San Carlos in 1949 and has a long, rich history of community involvement. 

Betsy was installed just hours after returning from Rotary’s International Convention in Portugal.  The Convention is an annual gathering of Rotarians and located on a different continent each year.  Throughout the world there are more than 1.2 million Rotarians in nearly 200 countries and spread out over every continent.

Betsy and her husband, Bill Koefoed, owned the Dale Carnegie franchise in the San Francisco Bay Area for 20 years, and she continues as a consultant and trainer for that organization.

Together, they have two grown children and four grandchildren.  She and Bill have lived in San Carlos for 37 years.

Betsy Koefoed has been a speech coach, judge and volunteer coordinator for the Academic Decathlon, trains the District’s Ambassadorial Scholars, a Paul Harris Fellow and a Major Donor. She is currently District 5150 PRLS Director.

“My favorite part of Rotary goes back to the motto of ‘Service Above Self.’  Honoring that motto I participate at the Second Harvest Food Bank sorting food or pushing a broom along Laurel St. for a Community Clean Up Day,’ said Betsy of the things that benefit the community.

Betsy also spreads her service on an International scale when she and her husband and a large team of Rotarians have traveled three times to Mazatlan, Mexico to deliver Wheel Chairs, paint and refurbish "pallet" school and support an orphanage. 

Betsy said that she clearly felt what "being a Rotarian was all about when she helped pick up Gilberto, a very poor villager on the outskirts of Mazatlan from his cardboard bed and put him into his own, new wheelchair.  His first request was to go out to see the sunshine, which he hadn’t seen in some time,” she said, the emotions of that experience nearly overwhelming her as she explained the international project.

Betsy is very excited about the coming year as president of the Rotary Club of San Carlos and hopes to continue it tradition of fellowship and emphasize that "Rotary Means Business.”

 “What this means is that why not do business with a Rotarian who has the personal and professional ethics of the Rotary Four-Way Test,” she asked of the credo by which Rotarians live their lives and dedicate themselves to service.

“As a matter of fact, San Carlos Rotarians will share their beliefs of business ethics with the fifth graders at Central Middle School this next year as they will be asked to write about what the words of the 4-Way Test: ‘Is it the Truth? Is it Fair to all concerned?’”

“Will it build good will and better friendships?” and, Will it be beneficial to all concerned" mean to them in today’s world?  That should be inspiring and educational to all,” Betsy said.  

She also pointed out that in conjunction with the generosity of the Union Bank of California Rotary has personally hand-delivered a brand-new dictionary to every third grader in San Carlos and has done so for the past several years.

“I cannot express enough the happy looks on those students’ faces and the gratitude they express when they realize that it is their book to keep forever.

Locally, the Rotary Club of San Carlos just handed out $24,000 in student scholarship in addition to Rotarians donating many hours to the continuous community projects’ listed above.  In addition, over the past 64 years the Rotary Club of San Carlos has been involved in every aspect of life in The City of Good Living, dating back to police dogs for the police department, the Jaws of Life for the fire department; and taking the lead to build the Youth Center in the heart of Burton Park.

The strength of the organization has been continually evident for nearly three decades as Rotary International, which partnered with the World Health Organization, the Center for Disease Control and other entities to wipe out the dreaded polio from the planet. 

Now after spending nearly $3 billion, and with the generous financial support in recent years from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and additional substantial funds from world financier Warren Buffett, there were only 10 new polio cases in the entire world in 2012.  The end of this insidious disease is in sight.