News for November 2010
Fund Raising
In an effort to find funding to continue our mission we have initiated an ‘Adopt a Community’ program. The first District 6600 Rotary Club to take advantage of the opportunity is the Rotary Club of Hicksville, Ohio. The program has many advantages. It:
- Provides the needed funds to outfit a community Resource Center
- Involves Rotary Clubs in our District 6600 to become active in an International Project
- Enhances the probability of a Resource Center being sustained by having a Rotary Club monitor their adopted community over time.
December Mission to Belize
This December a team of 9 people will travel to Belize to open 4 new sites. The new sites in the Cayo District will be Bullet Tree Falls, Billy White, Duck Run 1 and Duck Run 2.
The equipment and supplies necessary to open the new resource centers are scheduled to be shipped from Camden, Alabama on November 6th. Originally the consignment was scheduled to be sent from the MESA warehouse in Findlay, Ohio, but because of the change in shipping locations we are unable to ship everything. Therefore we will be fabricating tables in Belize and will ship down the rest of the furniture when we return in March. All of the educational materials, computers systems and children’s chairs are being shipped, so there will be no problem in completing the December mission.
At our November 16th meeting we set up a schedule for working at each of the 4 communities. Bullet Tree Falls and Billy White will be the first two communities where we will do training. The following week we will conduct training at Duck Run 1 and Duck Run 2. Simultaneously Gail Odneal will be available to give health education classes at the 4 new sites and also the three sites previously open. Another health educator, Jasmine Martinez has agreed to make the trip to Belize and will be helping Gail as well as doing basic training. Jasmine is our latest team addition and is fluent in English and Spanish. Also joining the team for the first time is Denise Pheils, Professor of Computer Science at Owens Community College. Four individuals from our first mission last March are returning: Mel Honig, Project Coordinator; Justin Kendall, Computer scientist; Judy Riggle, Librarian and Elana Honig, Elementary School Teacher. Finishing out the team are new team members is our engineer, Jeff Gast, and Sheila Ross a Librarian who specializes in computers.
March 2011 Mission
Looking ahead to March 2011 we are already assembling a team to return to Belize. The dates for the mission will probably be March 3rd to the 12th when we will be establishing four or more new centers.
-Mel Honig, Project Coordinator
