The Pulse for the Week of July 21, 2026 | Rotary Club of Sacramento

Despite the heat, there was a good showing at Tuesday’s meeting for our new club president Paul Keefer – so members were surprised to be greeted by PP Kerry Wood in his stead.

Thought for the Day

Well, yes, the vacationing Keefer missed his first meeting, but those of us who weren’t on vacation carried on. Robyn Delong’s Thought for the Day touched on the importance of professional news reporting; with artificial intelligence being used to create fake photographs, she spoke powerfully about the commitment of news photographers to bring readers the truth. Robyn’s comments set the stage for later remarks by our guest speaker, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Renee Byer.

New Sergeant-at-Arms Maggie Hopkins surprised us with a trivia question about California history, the first in a new recurring club activity.

Meeting Sponsor

Meeting sponsor Nancy Weaver Teichert took her three minutes to remind our club members of The Community of Writers which meets every summer in Palisades at Olympic Valley. As a board member, she works hard to raise financial donations to the small family-run Writer’s Workshop, one of the most respected in the U.S. Many famous authors credit the workshop for their success. All donations are tax deductible!

Get to Know Our Working Rotarians

In a Rotarian business profile, PP Peter Dannenfelser presented a summary of Bryan Murray’s professional work. Well-known for his leadership on Golf4Kids, Murray used to work in the venture capital world before he decided to change careers to insurance. He assists nonprofits in getting insurance and reducing their worries.

Club Announcements

Sac Century – the Sac Century race is only 10 weeks out, and Sarah Hodge gave fair warning that she’ll remind us weekly of our progress, volunteer needs, fundraising efforts and more.
Loaves & Fishes – Virginia Wade urged more volunteers to sign up for our July 30 service date
Rotary After Dark – our August 18 club gathering will be held at SacYard and will feature live music from The Roadies.
International Service Committee – PP Jim Leet proudly noted that one of Rotary’s first anti-human trafficking initiatives, which involved our club’s participation, was approved at the international level.

Levels of Giving

When PP Kerry introduced President Paul’s new levels of giving, members studied the chart and considered the choices with hands slow to raise. Looking at Wood’s disappointment, PP Jon Snyder jumped up and donated, saying “I can’t stand to see her sweat like that.” Others quickly followed. Rick Osen reminded us of Norm Marshall’s recovery from surgery and contributed. Len Simpson contributed in honor of getting certified as an Emergency Medical Technician – and his 50th wedding anniversary! Lev Kaganovich celebrated his grandson Benjamin’s high school graduation and his scholarship to Princeton University. Tom Bacon choked up a bit recounting the loss of his brother, and with a donation he thanked PP Kevin Smith-Fagan for joining Tom to play music at the upcoming celebration of life in Santa Cruz.

Featured Speaker

PP Jim Leet introduced Sacramento Bee Photographer Renee C. Byer, who walked into the villages in 10 countries on four continents to photograph and publish a book entitled: Living on a Dollar a Day: The Lives and Faces of the World’s Poor.

Her photographs will pull at our heartstrings, Leet said, just like the faces that have inspired our club to set new records with our international WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) initiatives in many countries.

Byer introduced her slide deck, stating her goal as a journalist is to show “the unvarnished realities of life. My hope is to give a voice to these people.” When the book was published in 2014, one in six people lived on less than a dollar a day. It’s more today.

A major reason is the lack of safe water, which is what our club’s WASH projects work so hard to address. Children often die before their 5th birthday from diarrhea, thyroid and cholera, malnutrition and malaria and respiratory infections. One of her photographs shows a 2-year-old drinking water from a rusty can in West Africa, where the children pick through smoldering charcoal pits with their mothers.

When she first started her work, the World Bank defined extreme poverty as living on a dollar a day. Today, that has been updated to $3. Worldwide, more than 800 million people struggle to get enough to eat and drink.

Many children don’t go to school because they have to work. “Children are the workhorses,” she said. They herd animals, dig through polluted electronic waste or garbage dumps or beg on the streets. Byer said women and girls make up 70 percent of the world’s poor.

One of her photos showed two children smiling and clapping. “I was brought to tears when these children who have nothing, no boys, no school, no bed, no home wanted to sing and clap a song for me,” she said. “Here they were giving me this amazing gift of the human spirit.”
A videographer who accompanied Byer was so moved that he offered rescue assistance to the children and their mother, who now operates a little cart clothing store on the same spot where she had found them begging for food.

One photograph Byer took of an 8 year old with a bucket on her head and tears streaming down her face from malaria caught another’s attention who rescued the family and started a children’s international fund. When Byer went back, she took a selfie with the smiling, healthy girl.

“Just one photograph and her life was changed,” Byer said.

President Kerry thanked greeters Michael Mui, Lev Kaganovich, and Bryan Murray. Wine was poured by PP Jon Snyder, Nancy Weaver Teichert handled Pulse reporting, and Virginia Wade took photographs.