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President Anthony provided our invocation after calling upon us to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and The Four Way Test. This writer gave a run down of the upcoming all-virtual Rotary District 5580 Conference from April 26th to May 1st, with more information and a place to register (for free) available at www.bemidji2021.com. Both Buzz Lundeen and Gregg Darling bragged that they had each sold three books of raffle tickets and Mary Pettit expressed her appreciation for these Rounds. Steve Andrews finished off the bragging by telling us he had been out driving his 1957 Bentley. Someone had the audacity to suggest it would be a great car for Rotary to use in parades but that maybe some youngsters like Jake or Anthony should be behind the wheel as our Club's representative -- that way Steve could wave to the crowd. Our program was presented by Jake Hexum who talked about his volunteer efforts through Engineers Without Borders. The organization is headquartered in Denver, Colorado and traces its beginnings to 2001. It now has over 10,000 members, has conducted projects in 38 countries and currently has 493 projects in progress. Chapters are located in every major metropolitan area and also at many different colleges and universities. Jake is currently serving as President of the Minnesota Chapter which has 90 active members. Members come from different backgrounds, including engineering, marketing, and construction. Engineers Without Borders undertake projects both domestically and internationally. Right now the Minneapolis Chapter is working on projects in Colfax, Wisconsin, Minneapolis, Guatemala and Peru. Each project team has 20 active members. Initially the effort is to involve the community in which a project may be undertaken to identify its basic human needs and then the planning occurs with a budget set for which funds need to be raised before construction can commence. Jake has been on projects in both Guatemala and Honduras, with the Guatemala project consisting of replacing a run-down school that only had one outhouse for all of its 150 students and staff. A three room school was designed and built to withstand earthquakes, with the finishing work having to be done by a local contractor as volunteers could not travel to the country because of the pandemic. In Honduras Jake worked on a water project which has now been taken over by Rotary (because of a volatile political environment) to replace a water system for a community of 1500. The old gravity fed system was destroyed by an earthquake and Engineers Without Borders went in and designed the new system, using its volunteers and local workers to construct the dam, a sedimentation tank and a storage tank. With a $150,000 Rotary Foundation Global Grant the final step in the project to pipe the water to every house in the area will be completed. Jake was impressed with the ingenuity and hard working nature of the local inhabitants who helped on the project, but not so much by the poisonous snakes they encountered on their trips up and down the mountain. One of Jake's projects will hopefully become an effort supported by our club in the not too distant future, at least in this writer's opinion. Thanks Jake for your program and being part of our club! |
