This week’s main program focused on Rotary’s humanitarian and overseas service work, highlighting how Rotarians engage in sustainable, community‑driven projects abroad.

Past President Michael Woolnough shared how a Rotary contact first led him and his wife, more than 20 years ago, to volunteer at the Angkor Hospital for Children in Cambodia, a foreign‑funded facility that sees about 500 children a day.
That experience grew into ongoing involvement with Sustainable Cambodia, a Rotary‑linked group based in Florida that offers 10‑day trips into rural Cambodia, where volunteers see “the real Cambodia” beyond tourist areas—supporting schools, scholarship students, water wells, and village projects.
Michael also highlighted the long‑running Project Amigo in rural Mexico, where Rotarians have returned for about two decades to help with reading programs, English practice, and enrichment activities like taking children swimming, often for the first time. He emphasized that these trips combine meaningful service, deep relationships with local communities, and rich cultural experiences, and invited interested members to speak with him about upcoming opportunities in Cambodia and Mexico.

Next up was Sandra Lowe - 

Sandra delivered a heartfelt presentation on her 15 years of humanitarian work in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Nicaragua, sharing both inspiring successes and honest lessons learned from projects that didn’t go as planned. She described starting “on a dare” from her children and different families and being transformed by relationships with families where severe poverty and malnutrition showed her that helping even one child can change many lives.
Sandra emphasized “asking, not assuming”—using asset‑based community development to let local people define their own needs, rather than outsiders deciding for them—and illustrated this with candid examples of well‑intentioned but flawed projects (goat farms without business plans, garbage cans that became rain barrels, chaotic boot and food distributions, and water filters without replacement parts).
In contrast, she highlighted sustainable successes such as roads that reduced disease, solar lights for children to study at night, mattresses for families, literacy for elders signing their names for the first time, a community washroom with a locally funded caretaker, a modern medical‑dental clinic, safe electrical wiring, sewing co‑ops, and eco‑stoves that protect women and children from smoke.

Sandra closed by stressing that good humanitarian work is about dignity, respect, humility, and partnership—putting away cameras, playing by local rules, accepting that some projects will be “hijacked,” and always asking, “What is our legacy and our lift after we leave?”