Busy Rotary Week

Barn Update

Club members pitched in with multiple pickups; the barn is filling and just in time: We are scheduled to open for business the first Saturday in April. Barn sales are our ticket to give back financially to the community and beyond, but sales can’t happen without everyone’s participation – please sign up to help. The good news is that there is something for everyone to do: In addition to pickups, we need people to sort, organize, and sell. So be there!

Teacher Appreciation

Irene Fowle and her leprechauns are continuing to provide pizza and trimmings to the teachers at our area schools. Local merchants have been wonderful in contributing to these spreads, and the teachers have been vocal in their appreciation. We’ve also gotten great coverage in the Register. Thank you, Irene, for imagining this and making it happen, to all her assistants for joining in, and to our merchant friends for their generosity. And a big shout-out to our teachers who have had to pivot and pivot again throughout the pandemic.

Last Week's Meeting

A small but friendly crowd came to the meeting on Thursday, March 10 – plus a few stalwarts called in via Zoom. Ivan de Groote made the technology work – using baling wire and scotch tape – our laptops are clearly not the latest. Various anniversaries and birthdays were applauded, and President-elect Bruce Harris reported a successful President-Elect Training weekend. The event was virtual, and, he said, information-loaded and remarkably insightful. Bruce also said he came away realizing how “together” our club really is. Past presidents agreed that President-elect Training (PETs in Rotary-speak) is a highlight and that our club is one of the best.

Save Passage Update

The evening’s speaker was Marty Helman, bringing us up to date on Safe Passage. This program supports children who live on the Guatemala City dump by providing them with education and more. Marty explained how lack of economic opportunity – coupled with illiteracy and no viable job skills – breeds immigration to the United States and Canada. “Young people in Guatemala basically have three choices,” Marty said: “Watch their families slowly starve to death, join the drug trade, or cross the desert and river to come to a country where they know they are not wanted in order to make a few dollars to send home.” The alternative, she said, is to provide economic opportunity for these young people back home in Guatemala, and essentially, that means providing literacy and job training.

Maine resident Hanley Denning started Safe Passage with $500 in 1999 to help get “dump kids” into school and provide them with a good meal and homework assistance. Chip Griffin brought the program to our club in 2004, and the club and community has been volunteering and financially supporting the project ever since. Marty showed pictures of some of our club projects – a van we purchased; a sports field we paid for. Mike Thompson talked about helping to build a playground, and Irene Fowle was part of a local effort to sew 100 quilts when the preschool opened in 2007. Marty showed a picture of Judy deGraw with her sponsor family and also noted that Chip was on the Board of Directors of Safe Passage for a half-dozen years. Marty and Frank Helman have been involved since they made their first trip to Safe Passage in 2005.

Today, Safe Passage is a $2 million operation that supports 600 children. It has grown from after-school support to a holistic program that includes nutrition, medical attention, job skills, and adult ed for the parents. It has also evolved from helping kids navigate public school to managing and running its own school program. “At some point the Board realized that there was little point in supporting a failed system,” Marty explained.

Public education in Guatemala is by rote, all teaching is “chalk and talk” and not only extremely boring, but the school day is only four hours long. As a result, little learning takes place and the dropout rate is huge. In response, Safe Passage now runs its own educational programs, with its own teachers, all-day classes, world-class facilities, and experiential learning. The preschool and elementary school are up and running successfully; the organization is in the midst of a $1.2-million building campaign for a new junior high (7^th – 9^th grade). Marty said that the naming rights for the library and learning center at the new facility will cost $75,000, and that a number of Rotary clubs are banding together to collectively pay this and create the Rotary Library at Safe Passage. She ended her presentation with a request that our club continue the support and love we have displayed now for 18 years by making a sizeable donation toward the new library.

This Weeks Meeting

This Thursday is St. Patrick’s Day. The clubhouse will be decorated for the occasion and Amy will make an appropriate feast for us. Be sure to wear green and think Irish thoughts!