Our Rotary club is known for supporting area charities by raising and donating thousands of dollars, as well as participating in activities to benefit the charities. Our club and the Rotary Club of Ardmore are the only two among the 51 clubs in District 7450 to receive this prestigious RI Foundation award for 2025.
Among the projects the International Service Committee (ISC) of our club has arranged is construction of a roofed pavilion for a school in Las Brisas, Costa Rica, and full electrification of six island schools, located in destitute locations in Tigre, Argentina, which included providing education equipment, water purification, copiers, a Braille typewriter and printer, a refrigerator and freezers. They also provided hospital equipment, a first-aid collapsible pavilion, neonatal jaundice beds, a respirator and COVID supplies.
Of note, our ISC created, structured and secured external philanthropic funding for CORS (Charitable Orthopedic Rehabilitation Strategies) for some of our projects. CORS grew rapidly into an organization far exceeding the feasibility of being run by our volunteers. Accordingly, in 2021 the Club transferred CORS to a consortium of academic surgeons, who continue its charitable work.
The ISC provided funding for CORS/Orthopedic symposium and local doctors training, including travel and lodging, for several USA surgical academic teams in La Habana, Cuba. In Managua, Nicaragua, Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzanian, and Kigali, Rwanda, CORS provided transportation to Philadelphia of children with amputations and their mothers, including travel and lodging for treatment at Shriners’ Children’s Hospital. They also provided full funding for technical school tuition, and room and board for a CORS patient, including supplying a laptop.
Another major project was securing funding to provide for the provision, boring and installation of potable water pumps in eight villages in Senegal, Africa!
Other international projects supported by our club include Hands Across the Sea, providing funding of books to school libraries in the Eastern Caribbean. They provided full funding of high school tuition for a disadvantaged young girl in Belmopan, Belize, and funded sheltering of abused women in a Women’s Support Center for villages in Armenia.
The collection and delivery of used eyeglasses for repurposing in destitute areas through VOSH (Volunteer Optometrists in the Service of Humanity) was a project in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
“The RI Foundation took on the eradication of polio as far back as the 1950s,” commented Ernest Zlotolow, a longtime member of our ISC.
The RI Foundation considers its 1.2 million members worldwide, as People of Action, who pride themselves in funding sustainable projects, and using their skills and resources to solve issues. “When we connect local action to global vision, we strengthen Rotary’s ability to make lasting change,” said Francesco Arezzo, president of Rotary International.
“Reaching the $1 million level was from a great number of small donations given over a number of years from a number of different members” explained Mark Sammarone, co-chair of our club’s 2025 RI Foundation Committee. “The magic was the culture passed down from leader to leader for the past century, encouraging every Rotarian to give something to the RI Foundation every year. If you keep taking those small steps every year, you will eventually reach your destination,” he added.