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Rotary projects around the globe - April 2023 By Brad Webber

United States

Members of the Rotary Club of Kaka‘ako Eco, Hawaii, tossed 5,000 mud balls filled with beneficial organisms into the Ala Wai Canal in Waikiki as part of a rehabilitation effort to make the waterway fishable and swimmable. The healthy bacteria in the genki balls — made with soil, molasses, rice bran, and water — digest and oxygenate sludge at the bottom of the canal (genki means healthy in Japanese). In March 2022, more than 200 volunteers, including club members and friends, made the balls, advised by the Genki Ala Wai Project.

Three weeks later, they threw the fermented genki balls into the waterway. Donors paid $5 per ball to defray some of the cost. “A lot of kids came out and we had canoes come through the canal to help throw the balls,” says Club President Jenny Do. “We blew the air horn and then hundreds of balls just went into the Ala Wai Canal.”

Canada

Guelph, Ontario, is one of 25 Canadian municipalities to sign a pledge with the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, to welcome people who have fled countries such as Afghanistan, Syria, and Ukraine. In December, the Rotary Club of Guelph Trillium launched a drive to collect winter clothing donations for refugees.

“People were so generous,” says Club President Anne Day. The club placed a bin at a mall, and donors loaded it up with more than 70 coats, 109 hats, and 52 scarves — many of them with the price tags still attached. The club also teamed up with appliance company Danby to collect furniture and household equipment for the newcomers.

United Kingdom

One coin at a time, a whimsical contraption celebrates a legendary Scottish locomotive while raising thousands of dollars for charity. Ken Wilson, a past president of the Rotary Club of Inverness Loch Ness, led the effort to commission and install the Flying Scotsman Automata in a local shopping center in 2016. A contribution of about $1 activates the complex mechanism, which depicts a kilted train conductor in an engine on a track trailed by bobbing carriages. Inside are characters that include a couple knitting and drinking tea, a pilot flying a plane, and Nessie, of course, whose tail spins to the musical accompaniment.

The club has maintained the device and collected about $27,000, allowing it to disburse more than $350 in grants each month. “It has enabled Rotary Loch Ness to help nearly 60 local charities,” says the mall’s former manager, Jackie Cuddy, “which is amazing.”