Now especially important: Flu Shot Saturday
The Rotary Club of Farragut already is gearing up for its next Flu Shot Saturday, and given the worldwide impact of COVID-19, event chairman Mark Bialik said during a virtual Rotary meeting Wednesday, July 22, getting a shot will be “more important than ever.”
“Not only do we have the flu to contend with, but we also have the COVID-19,” president Edward Jones said. “I can imagine it being catastrophic if you get flu as well as COVID.”
Flu Shot Saturday will be Sept. 19, rain or shine, but as with many events during this COVID period, those who attend will see changes.
“I’ve had a couple conversations with (former RCF member Dr.) Charlie Barnett (who directs the medical component of the event),” Bialik said. “Instead of five locations this year, we are going to narrow it down to three, one of them probably being Farragut High School.”
Austin-East High School is another proposed location, and “we’re looking for a third spot,” he added.
“Another unique thing this year is all the shots will be in a drive-by situation. There will be no line-up of people going into the high school to get their shots.”
Bialik and Barnett “are reaching out to the city and the county governments for help with coordinating traffic control and stuff like that,” Bialik said. “We will probably need a lot more volunteers than we have in the past because it’s totally all drive-by shootings.
“I will need your help more than ever this year,” he added.
“We would like for everyone to participate in this very important activity that we do every year,” Jones said.
Furlow speaks to RCF
Concerning COVID-19, former Tennessee Vols football player Derrick Furlow Jr., RCF’s July 22 speaker, shared his formula for “transitioning like a champion:” T+C+C=ST, which stands for “Take Away - what have you learned from your past that you can take away that will help someone else; Correlate - do those skill sets and mindsets correlate with where you are now and where you are going? Carry over - how can you carry those skill sets over to where you are now? The ST stands for “Successful Transition.”
“With COVID going on, we’re all in transition,” added Furlow, who played at UT from 2005 to 2009. “What I encourage you to do is don’t miss the message.”
Furlow, also an entrepreneur and author, shared his hard times as a child — one of three — being raised by a single mother who moved her family first to Griffin, Georgia, and then to Arkansas.
Though a knee injury forced him change careers, transitions and adversity were not unknown to him.
He said he has learned “either your are attacking life or it is attacking you.
“I learned at an early age, living in southwest Atlanta, that things were at their best, and I wanted more,” he added.
While doing so, he finally achieved his dream and was asked to attend UT, eventually receiving a full-ride scholarship and earning a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree before he was injured.
