A desire by members of the Middle School Interact Club (sponsored by the Rotary Club of Sycamore) to do a water project culminated with $2,000 in local funds helping pay for a well for the remote Guatemalan town of Churunel.  The well will cost over $200,000 and will bring safe, clean water to the village of 147 households.  Residents currently need to gather water from a spring outside of town and transport it in buckets to their homes.  Rotary Club of Milwaukee member Jerry Stepaniak was this week’s speaker and explained how they partnered with the group Engineers Without Borders and students from the Milwaukee School of Engineering to be project leads.  He said they are also working with a local agency in Guatemala and labor donated by Churunel residents.

 

Interact member Vivian Meier, a seventh grader and two-year club member, said it was a student driven idea to be involved with a global water project.  Past District Governor Steve Kuhn found out about the Milwaukee Club’s water well initiative and passed the information along.  Sycamore Rotary club member and Interact Sponsor, Julie Sgarlata, said the students organized a “loose change” collection and ended up raising $1,000.  This was then matched by Sycamore Rotary.

 

Stepaniak said the country of Guatemala suffers from debilitating poverty.  He said much of it stems from the aftermath of the country's civil war from 1960 - 1996 where an estimated 200,000 people died.  Complicating any recovery is the multiethnic base of their population according to Stepaniak, where some people still have direct ancestral links to the Mayan culture that predates Spanish settlers.  He says this accounts for the large numbers of Guatemalan residents immigrating to the U.S. to escape poverty.

 

Stepaniak is optimistic that additional training about maintenance and future expansion of the well system will ensure sustainability of the water system once it is complete.  Stepaniak expressed thanks for the support of the project and being able to share its impact with the Rotary Club of Sycamore.

April 25 - Jim Stoddard, Attorney

October 9, 1940 – British rock singer-songwriter John Lennon is born in Liverpool, England.  Among his famous songs are “Strawberry Fields Forever,” “Help,” and “Imagine.”

 

October 10, 1900 – Helen Hayes, nicknamed the “First Lady of the American Theater,” is born in Washington, D.C.

 

October 11, 1884 – Eleanor Roosevelt is born in New York City.  She marries her fifth cousin, Franklin, and famously carries out the duties of First Lady when he becomes President in 1933.  Following Franklin’s death in office, Eleanor remains active in political and social causes, including serving as a U.S. delegate to the United Nations and being affectionately called “First Lady of the World.”

 

October 14, 1890 – Dwight D. Eisenhower, who becomes 34^th President of the United States and serves as Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe during World War II, is born in Denison, Texas.

October 12, 1492 – Christopher Columbus successfully navigates across the Atlantic by ship landing in the Bahamas and leading to the opening of colonization and trade from Europe.

 

October 12, 1960 – During a debate over colonialism in the United Nations, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev takes off his shoe and pounds his desk repeatedly.

 

October 13, 1884 – Greenwich was established as the universal time from which standard times throughout the world are calculated.

 

October 14, 1947 – U. S. Air Force Captain Chuck Yeager became the first person to break the sound barrier flying in a rocket-powered research aircraft.