ShelterBox and Rotary at Home and Abroad

 

On December 2 at the Bellissimo Italian Restaurant in Montvale, members were pleased to welcome Roland Weimer the new ShelterBox ambassador for our District. In April 2000, the Rotary Club of Helston-Lizard in Cornwall, England adopted ShelterBox as its millennium project. It became the largest Rotary Club project in the world, responding to disasters and conflict across the globe and providing emergency shelter to over one million people.

 

A shelter box typically contains a large tent to house an entire family

who spoke about “Shelter Box”.  It also includes such items as a cooking stove, utensils, tools for rebuilding a home, blankets, mosquito netting, watler filtration and more.

 

ShelterBox USA operates out of Florida and has helped victims of tornadoes and hurricanes, including Hurricane Sandy in the US and Hurricane Matthew in Haiti.  Different ShelterBox groups from various countries coordinate their relief efforts among nations.  For example in 2005 after a tsunami  devastatedsoutheast sia, ShelterBox was able to deliver some 22,000 shelter boxes.

 

ShelterBox now has a ‘school box’, which holds the complete contents for a classroom instead of tents.  Typically the school box includes crayons, pencils, dolls, books and the like.

 

Roland passed several photos around the room.  It became clear that a picture is worth 1,000 words as these photos brought to life how much ShelterBox helps disaster victims.