Perry Rotary Club spreads peace with poles

PERRY—Customers who visit Hamby Chevrolet and Landmark Realty may notice a four-sided white pole with multiple languages strewn down the sides. 

On March 28, members of the Perry Rotary Club gathered at Landmark Realty and Hamby Chevrolet to unveil these symbolic peace poles, planted in the ground at Hamby and in a flowerpot at Landmark. This marks a significant milestone in the club’s ongoing efforts to spread peace and goodwill around the city of Perry and the globe. 

President of the Perry Rotary Club Marietta Lomboy spoke about why the club set up these peace poles. 

According to Lomboy, the Rotary Club’s ultimate goal is to promote peace in whatever way possible. 

“For us to have a peace pole in our community is a great opportunity for us to really highlight that we are promoting peace in Perry,” she said. 

Rotary Club is also aiming to promote peace worldwide, as Lomboy explained. Currently, Rotary touts peace centers in Thailand, England, Japan, Australia, Uganda, Sweden and most recently Turkey. 

The Perry Rotary Club would like to have all of its members set up a peace pole in front of their respective businesses. 

“The goal is to make sure that all of us are 100% committed to promoting peace,” she said.

Setting up these peace poles is very important to Lomboy and the Perry Rotary Club.

“It is very important because it symbolizes that we are tolerant and we include everybody,” she said. “Rotary is inclusive so we promote the inclusion of everyone no matter their race, color, or religion.”

 According to Lomboy, setting up these peace poles was initially started by the World Peace Society after the second World War. Peace poles started showing up in Japan to push peace instead of conflict. 

Lomboy also thinks that more businesses should reach out to the Rotary Club about adding a peace pole. 

“That would be a big first in Perry if we had so many businesses with peace poles,” she said. “This would really shine a big light on Perry, Georgia, that we are a peace loving community, and hopefully that can attract attention from the United Nations and the other peace centers of the world.” 

Lomboy mentioned that it is a big scale of what her goal wants to be and says they are going to start with a few businesses right now and hopefully this movement can explode.