This year Clover Park Rotary raised money to purchase stoves for an entire village in the jungles of Guatemala.  Families there cook on the dirt floors of their very modest dwellings as they have for hundreds of years.  Living and breathing the smoke from their cooking all their lives.  The village of Nuevo Santiago could not be any more remote.  It takes 14 hours over the worst roads in the world to get to this village high in the mountains.  The homes there are about 15 X 20 with dirt floors, maybe a few wood logs or stools and a few cooking pots with a fire on the floor in the house.  Of the 80 families in the village, we were able to give and install each with a new metal stove designed to vent outside the house and consume 10% of the fire wood used in the traditional 3 stone cooking fire.  No longer will the kids and adults have to live in the constant smoke of their fire and the related health hazards.

During the installation of their stove, one member of the team would sit and read from a children’s story book in Spanish to the family and present the book to the family upon completion.  This is the only book any of these families has ever had and in many of the homes the young children were the only members of the families able to read.  The wonderful people of Nuevo Santiago welcomed the team into their families and made their stay with them a wonderful experience.  Clover Park Rotary looks forward to partnering with other local service clubs to bring them clean water and other necessities of life in the near future. 

The district newsletter is now online.   Click on here to view.

Articles in this issue.

• 5020 District Governor Bob Martin Looks Forward to His 2010-2011 Year of Service

• Essential District Leadership Links

• Royal Oaks Rotary Helps Transform the Homeless

• Cumberland Centennial Provides Child Car Seats for Deserving Families

• Our Rotary World 2010-2011

District Governor's Message

RI President Ray Klinginsmith's Theme for 2010-2011 is particularly descriptive of what Rotary does. In that sense "Building Communities - Bridging Continents" is something every Rotarian can identify with because it is what we do every day around the world. RIP Ray has placed Polio eradication number one on his list of priorities and we have certainly Bridged Continents in accomplishing a 99% reduction in this disease so far. We now must work harder than ever in finishing the last 1% so that polio will forever be gone from our communities. We currently have four remaining countries with polio; Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, and Nigeria. These countries spell PAIN and that is what it is going to be to complete the eradication of Polio.