BOOKS are indeed our best instrument when we want to sharpen our knowledge about endeavors drawn from true-to-life stories, life-changing experiences, fields of expertise, travels, and success stories that can inspire others.
The Rotary Club of Bacolod North, led by its President Shirley Maghari, received book donations from Bacolodnon Belina Calderon Nurnberg who came back to Bacolod to turn over these books entitled ‘Finding Life's Meaning: Leaving a Legacy’ whose success story was part of the articles published by Ernie Delfin and Johnny Gaw Yu, Past District Governor of the Rotary International District 3780 who is the book's Associate Publisher.
Her story was entitled ‘Nowhere near the end where she also took the first bold step in realizing her American Dream with her three children.’
She shared how she went through hardships in her dream of having a taste of America where that time, she was 24, newlywed, and pregnant with her first child of the three children they had.
But their marriage did not work out. They divorced. The consequence of it was that she had to raise the three children as a single parent. Life was indeed very hard for her and her kids.
Financial difficulties were the root causes. And that pushed her to decide to face the ‘giants’ (problems) in her life. They pushed her to work hard and find the right opportunities for herself and her children.
She made nights into days, taking care of her kids, working in a foreign land, and facing life's challenges alone. But with the traits of humility, resilience, courage, open-mindedness, and integrity that was tested and developed along the way, she realized that “we learned our lessons and go through our own experiences in the ‘school of hard knocks.’”
Nunberg also shared, “In all our dealings and relationships with people, there is such thing called conscience that guides us to the wrongness or rightness of our motives and actions. Success does not happen because of luck. It is about making decisions. Let your conscience be your guide - always do the right thing and use that as the foundation of your actions and success will follow.”
Moreover, she said, “My story is part of the 25 stories of people who never gave up on life. Beautiful stories that can inspire especially the young when they read each story. These books were meant for donation to public schools. The publisher is also a Rotarian who saw me when I was the guest speaker at the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce,”
In addition, the Rotarian heard her story and approached her to write her personal.
“Since his books published articles of a person's success story or anything that shows struggle, or challenges that a person goes through and you come out of it being a winner, I agreed. The associate publisher wrote it is as our lofty mission and vision to create a vehicle to inspire our youth through the real personal stories of 25 successful men and women from various backgrounds and nationalities contained in this first volume of our legacy series of books,” she added.
Belina believes that not only is it our prayer, but also our lifelong commitment to educate, empower, and provide actual role models for future generations to look up to and emulate. Then, in their own time, they can be change agents in their society and generation.
She hopes that through Rotary, we can share inspiring stories with our schools and students which they can learn from it, she said.
President Maghari extended her gratitude to Ms. Nurnberg who thought of this book donation to also impart the life-changing experiences she and others have endured.
“The stories are relatable because some of these authors are from Negros and Bacolod. It resonates with those who are dreaming of making it somewhere else, dreaming of bigger things and we want to inspire more of that resiliency or the ability to handle challenges in young people. We are fortunate and grateful for this,” Maghari shared.
They will donate these books to schools as well as to those involved in non-government organizations.
Joining the group were Rotarians Ronnie Rio, Robert Cerrada and several others and Rotary Exchange student Jessica Liaudat.*