Placerville Rotary Helps Hurricane Victims
Our
club was struck, like I’m sure all others were, by the devastation caused by
Katrina. We were all
wondering how the money we wanted to donate could be best used.
All major organizations have overhead, so part of what we give goes to
cover those costs. Ed
Mathews, one of our long time members, said why don’t we give our funds
directly to another Rotary Club. That
way there will not be any overhead.
Thus started
our search for the Rotary Club for us to raise funds for. We initially started out looking for a club in New
Orleans. Greg Dixon, one of our
members, had his residency at Tulane University, so he thought he might be able
to find a club there. After a
week’s effort in attempting to track down a club, we decided that we wanted to
find another small club, from a small town like ours to send our money to.
There
was a story on a major network where a reporter was interviewing a citizen of
Pass Christian in front of a tent feeding folks and passing out supplies.
The reporter thought that the tent was from FEMA or the Red Cross.
To the reporters amazement, this was one week or so after the hurricane,
the relief agencies had not shown up yet.
The effort was from the folks of the town helping each other.
Because these folks were helping themselves and not complaining we
decided that this was the place we wanted to help out.
Thus began
our quest to find the President of the Pass Christian Club. One of our club members knows Frank Mosbacher, local employee
of CDF, and a member of the disaster relief team. He as stationed in upper Mississippi. When I contacted him he said he would make every effort to
find the President of the Club, but there was little communication and things
were really bad. About a week
later Frank called me and let me know that he was being sent to Pass Christian
and that he would call me when he arrived.
The first words out of his mouth were “You can’t believe how bad it
is here. This is the worst I’ve
seen. It looks like a bomb went off
here.”. This statement was from
someone who had been working on relief since the disaster happened.
After
Frank attended the town meeting that day he called me and advised me that Dr. D.
H. Short was the President and he would be contacting me that day. D. H. called me later that day. I learned that when Katrina hit the Pass Christian Club had
22 members, afterwards it was down to 21. The
club had not meet since the disaster, but was going to the following Tuesday.
The meeting place was in the driveway of a member’s service station
business that had no building left, just a driveway.
The members all brought chairs and meet there.
One of the things discussed was what to do with the funds that the
Placerville Club had raised for their town.
Prior to the Club meeting there had been town meetings discussing various
aspects of the relief effort and reconstruction.
By now the needs for food, clothing, temporary shelter, and medicine had
been met by the various disaster relief organizations.
Looking towards rebuilding it was decided that the town wanted its
library back. This would
provide a place for folks to go and use computers for school research,
contacting friends and relative,
and other such tasks. In
addition, it would provide a place for kids to do homework and other folks to
borrow books for use as they desired.
A donated
double wide trailer has been secured to house the temporary library until the
permanent replacement can be built. It
is estimated that it will cost approximately $1,000,000 to construct.
In addition, they will need computers, furniture, and books.
The Pass Christian Rotary Club has a 501(c)(3) organization titled the
Rotary Charitable Trust Fund that it started August 23, 1979.
The charitable non-profit organization could be used for those who want a
charitable donation deduction.
To
date our club has raised $11,184. $5,000 came from the club and the balance is
from members and associates. We are
hoping to get other clubs in or region to join in the effort.
D.H. would be willing to fly out and make a presentation and/or members
of our club would be willing to do so.
Frank has
pictures to share, but before he could get them to me he was sent to Florida for
Wilma relief. I will have pictures
by the time the presentation is made.
Donating
Rotary Club to Rotary Club will make sure that 100% of the dollars raised will
go to what the funds were raised for.
Let’s think of this as an American Rotary project.
A library is what the people of the town want that is not going to come
from somewhere else. The
Rotary Club would like to make it happen. With
your help it can!
The
first Rotary Club was organized in Chicago by Paul Harris in 1905. The
name "Rotary" was selected because the club met in rotation at each
member's place of business. The basic objectives of Rotary over the years
have revolved around friendship, fellowship, and service to others. Rotary
International is now represented by over 1,000,000 members around the World.
