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Briefly: August 5, 2011

Ringing bells In a shocking act of brazen piracy, Rotary Club of Powell River’s evening club has absconded with Rotary Club of Powell River Sunrise morning club’s meeting bell and is holding it hostage for $100.
Briefly: August 5, 2011

Ringing bells

In a shocking act of brazen piracy, Rotary Club of Powell River’s evening club has absconded with Rotary Club of Powell River Sunrise morning club’s meeting bell and is holding it hostage for $100.

The bell is an “age-old Rotary tradition” used to announce the start of the meeting, said Kip Brown, the longest standing member of Rotary in Powell River at 37 years in the club. Since taking the bell from Sunrise, the evening Rotary auctioned it off and Brown bought it for $100. He’s now demanding $100 from Sunrise to get it back.

“I bought it for 100 bucks, they’re going to get it back for no less than $100,” said Brown. “It’s all in fun.”

To raise the money needed to spring its bell from the hands of Rotary, members of Sunrise Rotary is holding a hot dog sale outside Save-On-Foods from 11 am to 3 pm on Sunday, August 7. All proceeds from the fundraiser will not only help Sunrise Rotary, but will also go to PolioPlus, a Rotary International charity devoted to eradicating polio worldwide.

“We’re going to be selling hot dogs and having some presentations on PolioPlus and the good work of Rotary International while drawing public attention to the misdeeds of the evening club,” said Sunrise Rotary project director Cam Muir. “We’re also demonstrating that we have a lot of really amazing, talented, dedicated people in both the evening and morning clubs working for the good of the community.”

PolioPlus is in the process of raising $200 million, to go along with $355 million donated by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, that will support immunization campaigns in developing countries.

More fundraising for PolioPlus will be upcoming, at Blackberry Festival and other community events.