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Toastmaster Magazine December 2024 Cover
Toastmaster Magazine December 2024 Cover

December 2024 View PDF
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Toastmasters Make a Positive Impact

Members draw on their skills to help society.

By Staff

Man standing next to children

Throughout Toastmasters’ 100-year history, members have employed their communication and leadership skills to achieve humanitarian goals, speak out about social issues, support people in need, change the lives of children, and help others in many other important ways.

Here’s a small sampling of members’ good work over the years.

In honor of Toastmasters International’s 100th anniversary, this is the 12th in a year-long series of articles commemorating historic milestones.


Famed actor Gregory Peck, an advocate for the American Cancer Society, honored Toastmasters in 1966 for the outstanding accomplishment of its members as volunteers in the cause of cancer control. As a leader of the Canadian Paraplegic Association, Toastmaster Don Curren used his public speaking skills to advocate for physically disabled individuals, earning him Canada’s highest honor, the Order of Canada, in 1980. In 1952, after their fellow member spoke about the need to donate blood, Toastmasters in Michigan visited a blood bank. After going through a serious battle with depression, Australian Greg Van Borssum, AS, today speaks about mental health issues, including overcoming adversity and suicide prevention. Toastmaster Cynthia Long, DTM, worked for more than 10 years as a pediatric surgical nurse in St. Petersburg, Florida. As a clinical leader in the operating room, she cared for some of her hospital’s youngest surgery patients. Today she is an end of life and grief coach. Jimmy Thai, DTM, who fled Vietnam as a child, used his Toastmasters training to build schools and provide more educational resources to children in Vietnam. The Rotary/Toastmasters alliance has allowed some clubs from both organizations to team up on social projects, such as when members of the Port Louis Toastmasters Club and Port Louis Rotary Club, both in Mauritius, worked together in 2022 to put on a fundraiser to benefit a shelter for teenaged girls who are unhoused. Nara Venditti, DTM, discovered Toastmasters after fleeing to the United States in 1990 from what was then the Soviet Union. She started an organization to assist other immigrants with workplace-focused English skills. Toastmasters have also helped fellow members in times of need, such as in 2011, when a giant earthquake struck Japan, triggering a tsunami that destroyed much of the east coast. Members from around the world reached out to Toastmasters clubs in Japan with messages of support and even gifts of clothing and food.
 
 

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Staff The Toastmaster magazine staff is comprised of five editorial team members. Learn more about them on the Staff page.

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