March 8 marked the 110th anniversary of International Women’s Day. The Emmaus Rotary Club celebrated by, as event organizer Alicia Ruiz-Orbin stated, “… honor[ing] two women for their achievements in the field of volunteer humanitarian work.”

As part of this year’s celebration, the club also recognized each of the past three years’ Rotarian and Community Award recipients. Each Rotarian received a Paul Harris Fellow Recognition. Each community awardee chose a charity to which the club donated $500.

To ensure everyone’s safety and comfort, members, guests and honorees were given the choice of attending in person or via Zoom. Rotary International Woman’s Award recipient Linda Mayger attended virtually as did citation presenter State Rep. Milou Mackenzie, R-131st. State Rep. Mike Schlossberg, D-132nd, standing in for state Sen. Pat Browne, R-16th, made his citation presentation to Mayger in person.

Mayger, an advocate for universal basic education and literacy, was chosen for her contributions in the area of education. She was instrumental in the creation of a pollinator garden and amassing funds to build the Environmental Education Center in the Saucon Valley School District. In addition, Mayger committed much of her time for the past four years to developing Saucon Valley’s Book Fairy Project.

In her nomination of Mayger for this year’s Rotarian Award, Jennifer Wendling, president of the Saucon, Center Valley Rotary Club, wrote, “[The Saucon Book Fairy Project] sends volunteers to read to … first graders in the Bethlehem Area School District Title 1 elementary schools twice [each] year … and gives children in need 1,600 books per year.” Furthermore, numerous environmental science classes are enriched each year by visiting the Environmental Education Center.

As part of her award acceptance speech, Mayger discussed a former project that took her to Myanmar and the insights she gained from that experience. She explained, “Rotary truly connects people … without Rotary I would never have become interested in the people there and their struggle for freedom.”

Mayger also emphasized the importance of taking the time to understand others and their needs in order to offer appropriate assistance.

This year’s second awardee shares Mayger’s commitment to creating a better world through service to others, particularly the young. Prabha Sinha accepted citations from Schlossberg and Browne in addition to the Rotary Community International Woman’s Award.

In 2011, Pratyush Sinha, Prabha’s son, died. In the midst of her grief, Sinha recalled a quote attributed to the street artist known as Banksy, “…they say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time … when somebody says your name for the last time.” Sinha was determined her son would not be forgotten. Thus was born the Pratyush Sinha Foundation.

In honor of her son’s compassion for underserved children, Sinha and her husband have devoted their energies and finances to assisting children to cope with social and financial pressures, many of which have been acerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2013, the Sinhas began providing after school classes in yoga and mindfulness. The first was offered in an Allentown elementary school. From this modest beginning, the program has grown to serve schools throughout the Allentown School District and numerous other child-centered facilities.

The pandemic created new challenges for the foundation which have been met head-on. The group reached out by developing free yoga and mindfulness videos for the group’s website, offering a free virtual summer yoga camp for elementary school students and creating yoga and mindfulness videos to dovetail with Casa Guadalupe of Allentown’s STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) summer program’s focus. This list includes only a few of the services the foundation has and continues to sponsor. Expressing her appreciation for the widespread community support the foundation enjoys, Sinha said, “It truly takes a village to do what we are trying to do.”

Ruiz-Orbin’s closing remarks incorporated a reminder to those present that four years ago, the Emmaus Rotary Club was the first club in their district to commemorate International Women’s Day. She then thanked the community supporters and Rotarians who came together to once again make the event a success.