How Rotary service can sustain us in our darkest hour

John Weiss, during his year as president of the Rotary Club of Morro Bay, California, USA.

By Jessica Bailey Weiss, president of the Rotary Club of Morro Bay, California, USA

My dad, John Weiss, was relentless about Rotary, even when he was forced to do his service work or attend club meetings virtually from his hospital bed.

Throughout various treatments for a rare type of cancer, he didn’t want to miss out on being there for our club and for other clubs that he helped as a past district governor.

Even in his final months this summer, he joined me on a trash cleanup on the Embarcadero (boardwalk area) along Morro Bay in California, as I was encouraging our Rotary club to do more hands-on projects. My year as president of the Rotary Club of Morro Bay comes right after my dad served his second stint as our club president, in 2024-25.

My dad died of the cancer on 4 September at age 66. But the extraordinary story of how he reacted to the disease shows how Rotary can inspire hope and resilience, and how one Rotarian can inspire others. His experience speaks to how service, community, and purpose can sustain us even in our darkest moments.

Doctors found a tumor in 2017 just ahead of his term as governor of District 5240, eventually diagnosing the specific type of cancer, adrenocortical carcinoma, which gave him a low chance of surviving even five years. The disease starts in the adrenal glands, which are above the kidneys and make hormones to regulate various body processes.

My father chose to fulfill his year as district governor, working through surgeries and many hardships. Rotary motivated him to continue and gave his life purpose. Through hospital stays for nine surgeries and other treatments (including for several bouts of sepsis), he attended countless Rotary meetings from his hospital room by video calls.

He traveled to important events when he was able and always enjoyed calling Rotary members. He was notorious for dialing up people to encourage them to join Rotary, and many did as he brought in about 75 members throughout our district.

When my dad took on a task, he stepped up to accomplish more than was expected, a quality that led him to help start a Rotaract club and an Interact club locally; create our club’s Public Heroes honors for residents; and run the group’s golf tournament 10 times over the years. In our club and our district, he held numerous leadership roles for Rotary youth programs and membership.

Rotary members who have shared memories and comforting messages with my family have called my dad a super-Rotarian and a friend who became more like family through his frequent checks on people’s well-being and his welcoming personality.

Denise Vivero, of the Rotary Club of Conejo Valley, says that my dad always seemed to teach with “such calm and knowing grace” at district conferences. “It gave me a sense of peace and confidence to know that he was there to ask questions to and rely on for guidance,” she says.

I’m grateful for the timing of my presidential year with the Morro Bay club because it gave us so much extra valuable time together. We worked closely through my year as president-elect, and he was always there with advice, which I asked for almost every day. In the months before my term, I started taking over his presidential duties in February as he went through chemotherapy.

It was difficult for our club’s board to cancel the golf tournament that he’d started planning ahead of his last trip to the hospital, hoping to run one more. He was our club’s expert in organizing the event, and no one wanted to do it without him.

Though he felt a high level of pain many days, he was willing to sacrifice his own comfort to do more for our club and our community. That’s because Rotary kept him going. It’s what gave him the hope and inspiration to keep serving through all the cancer treatments and complications. He knew it was for a higher purpose than himself.

This story is from Rotary magazine online.