Dublin A.M. Rotary 1989-2007

International Activities

An early international venture began in 1995 when member Dick Corson, asked Club members to endorse his “Peace is Possible” project in which he solicited not only club members’ signatures on his petition forms for World Peace but also those of members from clubs around the world. Signers agreed to work for peace in our time.

Another early international project was the purchase of a solar-driven distilling unit used to produce pure drinking water for a school in southern India. This was also our first attempt to work cooperatively with a Club out of country and was done with the aid of Sammy Valachany, a former member who was then in India on business and thus able to be our liaison with the Indian club.

Earlier Dave Matthews traveled with a GSE Team and stayed in the home of Dr. R.K. Bhardwaj while the Team visited Nasik Grapecity, India. Later Dave Matthews became Prachi Bhardwaj’s first host when she came to Dublin as a Rotary Exchange Student, the wheel making a complete circle. In 2002 Debbie Lutz used this relationship to develop a multi-year project with Dr. Bhardwaj and his Nasik Grapecity Rotary Club. Dr. Bhardwaj, as a former District Governor, helped us grow this project into our first Rotary International project funded not only by Dublin AM but also by District 6690 and by RI. While our members worked with Prachi, we developed a close relationship with the Nasik Grapecity Club and their work on projects at a school for indigent girls. We were able to cooperate in their corneal transplant program in which over 1,000 operations were performed. Such personal contacts as well as a friendship with a former District Director and his daughter helped immensely and we learned once again how important are Club-to-Club relationships. That relation could have been enhanced had we been able to send additional Club members to see how things were going. That unique insight would occur with our next international project.

Sandy Morckel was, and remains, the driving force behind our involvement with Montana de Luz, a home for orphans with AIDS in Honduras. This project began in cooperation with the Ohio Highway Patrol then under the command of her husband and our member, Ken Morckel. Through Sandy’s professional expertise as a fund raiser, she was able to bring together funds and finally created a matching grant co-funded by District and by Rotary International. Several Interact students, as well as Club and community members spent time in-country building additional facilities for Montana de Luz and becoming familiar with the reality of life in Honduras. This project is still being funded by the Club as well as from other sources.

The Club has from time to time made donations to various projects, often under the leadership of Rotarians from within the District. Dr. Simon from the Gallipolis Ohio Club and our former District Governor has often returned to his native Philippines on medical missions and our Club routinely provided him with financial assistance as well as medical supplies collected from local hospitals. We have yearly supported Operation Smile, a non-profit effort to conduct facial surgery for individuals with cleft palates and other deformities.

Rotary International’s (RI) largest project remains its world-wide effort to eradicate poliomyelitis and we met goals set for us by RI in its Polio Plus Project. In 1985 RI and international health agencies predicted that this crippling disease would be eliminated by the 100^th anniversary of Rotary International in 2005. We then raised over $25,000 in the last fund drive and can expect to be called upon for more help because despite massive efforts by Rotary International and by many other world charities and international health agencies, polio persists in tropical Africa and elsewhere in Africa and Asia. Too often the combined efforts to vaccinate children had been thwarted by civil wars, ignorance, and an illogical suspicion that the vaccine was instead being used to spread HIV. In addition, last year’s outbreaks were thought to have been spread through pilgrimages to Mecca resulting in the further spread of the disease through scattered communities in the Middle and Far East. Though eradication may take longer than the 2005 goal and will require more money, RI remains committed to the goal of eradication and our Club will persist in supporting this effort.

In 2003 President Ann Ralston asked “Pete” Cole to develop a new Project for Peace, the focus of which was to be chosen by a club committee. Cole had recently heard a talk on work the Ohio National Guard (ONG) had done building a hospital and a school in Panama. While the committee was thinking about how we might equip these facilities, an Engineer Unit of the Ohio National Guard was activated for work at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. We then learned their Chaplain David Zerby, wanted to distribute school supplies and winter clothing for children living around the Base. In the first year the club provided some 22 boxes and we have subsequently sent 343 more. When our Ohio unit returned home in the summer of 2004, we began working with their replacement, a NG engineer unit from South Dakota and we are now working with one from Florida. Our Interact Clubs, as well as All Saints Lutheran Church in Worthington and many other individuals such as our dentists have been extremely helpful in finding donors. The South Dakota unit returned home in May 2004 and we began working with another ONG Engineer Unit in Baghdad and now are working with a detachment near Kabul, Afghanistan. They need children’s toys and summer clothes in their own program and the club is again assisting. Our own member, Lieutenant Colonel and State Senator Steve Stivers and his ONG unit were activated in December 2004 and we also expect to be helpful through them as well. The Florida National Guard unit stationed at Camp Phoenix is building roads, schools and other structures north of Kabul, Afghanistan.

In 2001 and again in 2004 Dublin A.M. Rotary Club partnered with the Center for Citizen Initiatives (CCI) of San Francisco, California to host groups of Russian business people to share economic information and cultural exchange. CCI is a non-profit organization dedicated to economic reform in Russia. In the spring of 2001 the club sponsored a group of Russian architects and in the spring of 2004, we sponsored a group of Russian lawyers. Many of the members of the club were involved in pre-planning the Russian guests’ three week visit, home hosting, setting up the educational programs, and hospitality. We received assistance from the City of Dublin in the local transportation needs and providing our guests with access to the City’s premier recreation center. In 2007 we plan to host Russian bankers.