Rotary impact is worldwide
The reach of Rotary International from local civic group to worldwide organization was illustrated by two recent presentations to the Rotary Club of Kinston.
Maximiliano Toledo Cruz, a 21-year-old Rotarian from Villahermosa, Tabasco, Mexico, visited the club on July 11 to report on his trip to the RYLA North American Conference in Washington, D.C., which the local club had a hand in financing.
“The main reason I’m here is to say thank you,” said Cruz, a law student, president of a Rotary club in Tabasco and son of Rotarians whom members of the Kinston club have worked with on international projects for years. “For me as a young man, it’s really important for me to keep learning. That’s the best thing I can do to improve our lives and our activities in Mexico.”
Cruz was one of 180 international attendees at RYLA, held at George Washington University. Among his list of highlights were visits to the embassies of Jordan and Pakistan and to the U.S. Capitol, and hearing from the ambassadors of Costa Rica and Estonia.
On July 25, the club heard from Kinston Mayor B.J. Murphy, who assessed the result of legislation passed in this year’s session of the N.C. General Assembly on municipal governments.
He sees the legislature’s impact as mixed. Kinston could benefit by the tune of about $50,000 a year because of changes in the state’s approach to taxation, specifically to the sales tax, but could lose a valuable grant provider with state funding cuts to the N.C. Rural Center, a source of money for infrastructure improvements here.
Church to install new pastor
Eldress Wandra P. Williams will be installed as pastor of Hull Road Free Will Baptist Church, 2660 Hwy 258 N., at 5 p.m. Sunday. She will serve as the church’s eighth, and its first female pastor.
The Lenoir County native has been a member of Hull Road since her youth. She attended Lenoir County Schools and earned an associate’s degree from Lenoir Community College, a Bachelor of Science from N.C. Wesleyan College, a master’s from ECU and an EdS from Walden University.
A fully licensed preacher with the United American FWB Denomination Inc., she is the daughter of Susan Harrison and Bishop Warren Pickett. She and her husband Troy and their family live in Kinston.
For more information, call 252-522-3384.