Contributed photo/Nate Bodenstab
HOULTON — The Houlton Rotary Club learned about the Project GIVE 2017 at the Dec. 21 meeting from fellow Rotarians of District 7810 of which the Houlton Club is a member.
The presenters were Ginny Joles of the Presque Isle Rotary Club, Carl Young of the Fort Fairfield Rotary Club, Josefina Lopez-Aragon of the Fort Fairfield Rotary Club, Gina LeBlanc-Eggert of the Presque Isle Rotary Club and Edward Wright of the Mars Hill Rotary Club.
GIVE stands for Guatemalan Infrastructure Improvement Venture. This presentation served to invite other Rotary Clubs to partner with the group in an effort to fund a special project in Guatemala and would involve a Rotary International Grant.
The project is to improve living conditions in three towns on the coast of Guatemala. The ocean is rising so that they only have three feet of ground surface to the water table. This contaminates drinking water and septic systems. Villagers presently prepare their meals in antiquated open flame cooking stoves and and also heat their water over these open stoves. Behind the villages deforestation is occurring.
The project’s goal is to purchase and install 650 eco toilets to serve the 350 homes in the three villages, 180 eco stoves, and 60 eco water filters. The stoves will help to preserve the forests from deforestation since the eco stoves are enclosed and use less wood than the open flame stoves do.
With the help of other Rotarians in the district the club has three goals for the immediate future. The first is to write the grant. Goal two is to send a team to Guatemala to assess the needs and determine the size of the volunteer Rotary group to do the work. Goal three is to raise between thirty thousand and forty-nine thousand dollars.
The host Rotary Club in Guatemala is a group of young entrepreneurs who will fund fifty percent of the project with the balance coming from the Rotary International grant and club donations. The local NGO to sponsor the project would be Centro Christiano Cultural Group.
