Rotary Foundation - Bi-District

The bi-district conference was held in El Paso and was attended by about 100 Rotarians from 30 clubs in Texas, New Mexico and Northern Mexico. Pam Lillibridge, President Brad Beasley and Brian Parks attended from the Las Cruces Rio Grande Rotary Club.

Village of Sicache Guatemala	Ramp for Community Center
Small Ramp for Home	Pumping Station in Guatemala

On Friday night, we heard 23 presentations from Rotarians about projects that they wanted to do in their local community. Under the new Rotary rules, the projects must be at least $30,000 to get matching international funds. They must be sustainable, which means they need to continue beyond this year. Each group was allowed 10 minutes to explain how their project would benefit the community, and the financial part, such as the cost of the project, the amount they were donating, the amount they needed from other clubs and also and other organizations that were supporting their project. That night, we graded the projects but we had many questions for the next day.

On Saturday morning, each of the presenters had a table with brochures, videos or demonstrations of their projects. That gave Pam, Brad and me a chance to talk to each presenter and each of us had many questions for all the presenters. At the conclusion of the questioning, we sat down and each of us presented our favorite projects and discussed the plusses and minuses of each. This was very difficult because we really liked many of the projects.

We had $5000 to spend so oond sobviously we couldn’t give money to everyone we liked. Below are the projects we supported:

Juarez Integra has a project called “Learn to Heal”. This project was going to help poor single Mothers in Juarez by providing nursing school scholarships for them. This project has multiple benefits because Juarez has a big shortage of nurses and takes poor woman and gives them a lifetime skill and a sure income. We gave them $1500.

El Paso Rotary club has a project called “Ramps for the Community”. The project helps handicapped people in wheelchairs get into their home or get in two community facilities. The ramps are built by Rotarian volunteers and other volunteers, such as UTEP student athletes. They find those in need from local social workers. We gave them $1000 and they gave us $500 for our dictionary project.

The Saltillo Rotary Club had a project has a project called “a new life for battered women”. This project provides new equipment and modernization of existing training equipment. They train women on computer skills, hairstyling, medical and legal secretary skills and also give them physiological treatment to help them get out of this lifestyle. They also have a place for 16 families to stay. We gave them $1000.

Santiago de Monclova Rotary Club called “purified water for schools”. Monclova is located northwest of Monterrey Mexico and is one of the hottest cities in North America. It has 150 days per year where the temperature goes above 104 degrees and the schools have no air conditioning. They will supply the equipment to supply purified water to schools and we really like the fact that they got the school district to match each system we supplied. We gave them $1500 and they are giving us $500 for our dictionary project.

Sante Fe Rotary Club has a project to help a remote village in Guatemala get water. The village is in a mountainous region and all water is carried up by hand. The water near them was very contaminated and would make the villagers sick if they drank it. They are providing pumping and purification equipment to resolve this problem. We gave them $1000 for their project.

The sad part was the projects that we couldn’t support. Just a few of these were a project to support cleft pallet, one to teach young girls about having babies when they are so young, surgeries for babies born with heart defects, a rest home for poor seniors, a project to build bridges in rural communities, and a project to get gang kids off the streets.

Saying we had no more money to these people with these great projects was very difficult for us, so don’t be surprised if we come up with fundraising projects, so we have more money next year!