By Russ George
The Cosmopolitan Club of Aurora made a decision during late 2018, that in order to build the membership, the Club must have an effective marketing program, in addition to the Club’s fundraising events. This decision, along with all of the marketing events the Club had or participated in, has made our community more aware of the Cosmopolitan Club of Aurora, “The Club That Fights Diabetes”, and attracted the attention of the American Diabetes Association-Chicagoland Office. The ADA-Chicagoland Office has become a Corporate member of our Club, and this relationship will take us through the COVID-19 Pandemic in the following ways, even though we haven’t had any Board or membership meetings.
• In November 2019 we published our “Diabetes Resource Guide”, full of information about diabetes from the American Diabetes Association, information on all of our local Diabetes Educational and Wellness Centers, complete with facts about Diabetic Alert Dogs. We included information about our Club and have supplied all our diabetic centers with the booklets, for distribution to their diabetic patients.
• We always send six to eight Type 1 Diabetic Children to the local ADA Summer camps, and this year the camps were canceled due to the COVID-19, and replaced with a Virtual “Imagine Camp 2020” with free registration, giving all diabetic children an opportunity to attend. Our Club forwarded all the information pertaining to the ADA-Chicagoland virtual Summer camps to all Chicago area diabetes centers, the Chamber of Commence, families of past and present camp attendees, our own Club members, and asked all to forward to anyone they knew who had a Type 1 diabetic child.
• ADA-Chicagoland has also canceled its original Tour de Cure (bike ride, run & walk) and has replaced it with a “Virtual Tour de Cure 2020” which will be held on August 2nd, along with a “Daily Wellness Village Virtual Series”, beginning Monday, July 27 through Saturday, Aug. 1. Our Club will be a sponsor of the Wellness Series, which includes a video about our Club, along with our logo on all the shirts sent to every one participating.
This will put our Club’s message in front of the thousands participating daily and our Club’s name and logo on the backs of all who are riding, running or walking Sunday, Aug. 2.
I have been communicating by E-mail to the membership, perspective members, and friends of the Cosmopolitan Club of Aurora. The ADA-Chicagoland office has forwarded several items of interest, pertaining to diabetes and COVID-19 which I forwarded.
Where do we go from here, our Board has already voted to move our Annual Wine Tasting Fundraiser to Saturday, Sept. 12, and it will be the catalyst to bring the Aurora Club back to working together, as the wine event is our Club’s main fundraiser, and every member pitches in to help make this event a success. The Board members will begin meeting again June 16, and hopefully by June 18, Illinois will be in Phase 4, which will allow groups of 50 or less to gather, allowing our Club to have our installation of officers and Board members for the 2020-2021 year.
The Cosmopolitan Club of Aurora was having a great year, when all of a sudden we came to a complete stop…..This pause, however, has given all of us time to be thankful, for what the Aurora Club has done over the last 93 years, to make the Aurora area and surrounding communities a better place to live. Soon we’ll be able to put everything back in place. Together We can make a difference, again!
Russ George is president of the Cosmopolitan Club of Aurora.