Rotary Voices

Salome Agbaroji is a 20-year-old Nigerian American poet and activist from Los Angeles County. She was the seventh National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States and has performed spoken word for the Golden Globes and at the White House. At the Rotary International Convention in Taipei, Agbaroji performed a spoken word poem titled “Hope.” In this episode, Rotary International staffer Hannah Shaw sits down with Agbaroji to discuss her Los Angeles roots, her work as an activist, and the inspiration for “Hope.”

Few contemporary novelists have captured the complexities of family, friendship, and the ties that bind as beautifully as Ann Patchett. Over the past three decades, she has become one of America’s most celebrated writers, earning the PEN/Faulkner Award. Patchett also owns Parnassus Books in Nashville. In this episode, Past RI President Stephanie Urchick explains Patchett's connections to Rotary before Scott Simon sits down with the author to discuss her new novel, Whistler.

In the final installment of this two-part series on membership attraction and engagement, past RI director and vice chair of the joint strategic planning committee Chris Etienne sits down with Jackie Huie, the immediate past governor of District 6360, which serves southwest and central Michigan regions. Etienne asks Huie about the role of district leadership in membership growth and “fun” as a membership strategy.

Membership attraction and engagement are crucial for Rotary’s success. In this two-part series, we’ll hear from four women in Rotary leadership positions who have successfully achieved membership growth in their U.S.-based clubs or districts. In episode one, RI Membership Growth and Engagement Specialist Taylor Evans Ghosal sits down with Julie McKinney, a club membership chair and past club president from California, and Barbara Bartle, an assistant Rotary coordinator for membership and past district governor from Nebraska.

In the final episode of this two-part series, Etelka Lehoczky learns more about Intersection to Care, a program supported by The Rotary Foundation that helps incarcerated women in Kansas rebuild their lives. In this installment, Lehoczky learns more about the trauma that human trafficking inflicts and discovers how an art class in the jail offers a way forward.