Dave Newman, Ken Mosier
Our July 18th speaker was Dave Newman, District 5960 Fast for Hope Team Lead. As many of you know Fast for Hope has been working in Nicaragua since 2007. Last spring a civil disturbance erupted which has affected what the team has been able to accomplish in the past year.
Did you know that the Fast for Hope program has been around since the 70’s and is unique to our district.
It is called Fast for Hope because initially clubs would forgo one meal each year and the monies for that meal would go to Fast for Hope. Now clubs do a variety of activities including one that has a NCAA basketball pool they call Hoops for Hope.
Money can be spent as we would like, not tied to Rotary Foundation restrictions. In past years funds have funded fistula hospital in Ethiopia, feeding program in Haiti, Books for Africa and water wells in Haiti as just a few examples.
In the Nicaragua Initiative the team has tried new things, they have taken risks, made some mistakes but they have also learned a lot.
Dave shared that there are a lot of reasons why we give of our time and money to help others, with quite often the major influence is it makes us feel good. The danger this presents is the desire to feel good can often cause us to unintentionally do more harm than good with our giving.
He encouraged us that if we want to learn more, we should do one or both of the following:
Watch Poverty Inc., on either Amazon or Netflix. It is only about 90-minutes, it is in a documentary format, but it moves along quickly and is interesting.
Or, read Toxic Charity by Bob Lupton. Bob has dedicated his life to helping the poor both is our country and internationally.