Friday, June 12, 2009
Rotary clubs join to help Mexican kids
Have you heard?
JoAnne Poindexter
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More than 100 children in Guadalajara, Mexico, no longer have to have their tutoring and literacy classes in an overcrowded library or recreational activities in a crowded plaza because of efforts by seven Roanoke-area Rotary clubs.
In the spring of 2008, the clubs -- Blacksburg, Buchanan, Lexington, Roanoke, Roanoke Downtown, Roanoke Valley and Salem -- formed a partnership to secure a grant through the Rotary Foundation and matching funds from Rotary District 7570 to provide assistance to the American Hands Aiding Latin American Youth Children's Rights Foundation.
The grant provided money for the children's rights foundation to rent and furnish a building larger than the library to house its educational and recreational programs.
An AHALA representative recognized the Rotary clubs and showed a video of the new facility May 4 during a Cinco de Mayo activity at Unity Church.
Roanoke native Danielle Strickland personally thanked the clubs for their efforts. The clubs involvement came after Joe Obenshain, then president of the Buchanan Rotary Club and now an assistant district governor for District 7570 of the Rotary Club, read of Strickland's work in Guadalajara in a Roanoke Times feature story.
Her program provides educational and support services for child laborers who at that time sold potato chips on the streets and washed windshields at traffic lights.
Obenshain presented the idea of a club partnership at Rotary breakfasts, luncheons and dinners throughout the area, and Skip Lautenschlager, then president of the Salem club, agreed to lead the alliance.
Several of the clubs have pledged to continue the partnership and seek a grant to acquire computers for the activity center and to provide computer training for the children, fulfilling the Rotary International goal, "Make Dreams Real."
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Family Service of Roanoke Valley has received a $1,000 grant from the Katherine Nelson Fishburn Foundation Fund of the Foundation for Roanoke Valley.
The agency will use the grant to provide counseling and case management services to older adults through its Adults Plus counseling program.
That program promotes individual and family health, wellness and personal growth and development through affordable and accessible professional counseling and case management services that include resource identification, educational workshops, mediation and financial management. The services will be provided in residential settings or in the office.
Family Service of Roanoke Valley provides a broad range of counseling, older adult services and youth development programs on a sliding fee scale to ensure accessibility to all.
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Literacy Volunteers of Roanoke Valley has received four grants totaling $27,500 to increase its English literacy services to adult learners.
The Ceres Foundation awarded Literacy Volunteers $10,000, and Verizon and Dollar General gave the agency $8,000 each. The Katherine Nelson Fishburn Foundation Fund of the Foundation for Roanoke Valley awarded Literacy Volunteers $1,500.
