La Mesa Sunrise Rotary honors 4 altruistic women

By Donald H. Harrison

SPRING VALLEY, California – La Mesa Sunrise Rotary Club honored four women on Saturday, March 5, for their advocacy in behalf of Syrian refugees, victims of sex trafficking, survivors of torture, and abused wild animals. Besides a certificate of appreciation and half the proceeds from the tea for them to donate to their favorite charities, the women were honored with Paul Harris Fellowships, named for one of the founders of Rotary International.

An afternoon tea at which Mimi Pollack, Kathi Anderson, Estela De Los Rios, and Bobbi Brink were honored was held on the campus of Noah Homes, an organization that provides life-long care for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Like the biblical Noah, who welcomed every animal species aboard his Ark, Noah Homes—under Catholic community charitable auspices—offers group homes for people of every ethnicity and religious backgrounds. (Please see companion feature.) Among many other charitable projects, La Mesa Sunrise Rotary Club has a long history with Noah Homes, including sponsoring such projects at the facility as the purchase of eye glasses for residents, and planting a fruit orchard, according to Fern Platt, the afternoon’s program’s chair.

Honoree Mimi Pollack, a member of the Jewish community who teaches English as a Second Language at Grossmont College in nearby El Cajon, is also a freelance writer whose articles have appeared in such publications as San Diego Jewish World, East County Magazine, the Times of San Diego, and La Prensa San Diego.

“Mimi came to our attention last fall when she organized a ‘Go Fund Me’ campaign to raise money for a Belgian non-profit organization that was working to bring clothes, blankets and other necessities to refugee camps that were impacted by the refugees flooding in from Syria after fleeing violence in their homeland,” said Rotary Club member Janet Castaños, a retired administrator at Grossmont College. “She was concerned about the masses of refugees in camps who lacked basic needs such as clothing and shelter.”

Castaños quoted Pollack as saying: “I have been deeply saddened by the plight of the immigrant refugees arriving in Europe.” Pollack noted that she was very disturbed by a picture of a little Syrian boy who drowned after his family risked their lives to reach Europe in a small boat that overturned in the Mediterranean. “There is a crisis going on in Europe right now and in my own small way I want to help,” Pollack added.   In addition to her work for Syrian refugees, Pollack’s honor was for her articles about animals and good causes.

To introduce Kathi Anderson, a video by KPBS was projected onto a screen in which the founder of Survivors of Torture International said that people who survive torture are “amazingly resilient” although they appear, when they first walk through the door, to be but shells of themselves.

When she rose to accept her Rotary Club award, Anderson said she recently had been hurrying to a meeting when she was stopped by a man, originally from Zimbabwe, who said he thought he knew her. After a little while, they found the connection: he had been in her program 15 years before. Today, she said, the man has his own business, and his four children either are entering college, are already in college, or have graduated from college. The youngest, she said, has just received a full four-year scholarship to attend Vassar.

Before Anderson could sit down, a woman rose in the back of the room and said “We have an announcement.” One of the man’s daughters had heard about the presentation to be made to Anderson and was there in attendance to honor her. As the audience collectively said “ohhhh,” in surprise and pleasure, Anderson rushed to the table to greet the young woman.

Next to be honored was Estela De Los Rios, executive director of CSA San Diego, with the initials standing for “Center for Social Advocates.” Her organization is particularly concerned with human trafficking and she showed to the Rotarians a dramatization of a young teenage girl believing she was going out on a birthday date but instead being taken by her “escort” to a house where she was seized and presumably spirited away to be forced into a life of prostitution. The mean-looking abductors in the movie, De Los Rios later told the stunned group, actually were pastors at their churches, who felt making such a movie was necessary to alert the community to the danger of teen abduction.  De Los Rios said although she has seen the brief movie before, it never fails to have an emotional impact on her.

After that heavy moment, attendees of the afternoon tea were given an opportunity to laugh again with a video showing the antics of animals at Lions Tigers & Bears, a sanctuary in Alpine, California, for wild animals saved from private owners, and road side zoos.

Upon receiving her award, the sanctuary’s executive director, Bobbi Brink, urged Rotarians to be very careful before they contribute to any organization describing itself as rescuing animals. While some, like her own, have certification from the national Association of Zoos and Aquariums, for meeting its high standards, other so-called sanctuaries breed the animals in captivity and sell their offspring to less reputable zoos and menageries. Brink warned that some so-called rescue organizations keep the animals in small cages, without shade, rather than in appropriate habitats.

Rotary’s Paul Harris Fellowship is awarded to Rotarians who contribute $1,000 or more for Rotary’s charitable projects and to recipients such as Pollack, Anderson, De Los Rios, and Brink for whom $1000 is contributed by local clubs to Rotary International in their honor.  In addition to the Paul Harris Fellowships, the four women also received certificates of commendation from San Diego County Supervisor Diane Jacob.

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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com.  Comments intended for publication in the space below must be accompanied by the letter writer’s first and last name and by his/ her city and state of residence (city and country for those outside the U.S.)