TJ Milenio Minarete Rotary Club visit us.
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l to r: Marco Becerra, Heather Johnson, and Al Watson. Marco is holding therecognition certificate for their presentation and Heather is holding a Monkey thatPresident Al gives to outstanding Rotarians because 2011 is the Chinese year of the Monkey. |
On May 17, 2011, Marco Becera, president and Heather Johnson, president-elect of the Tijauna Milenio Minarete Rotary Club visited RB Sunrise Rotary Club. The Tijuana club is an evening new generations club. To get to our early mornng meeting, they had to cross the border the night before and stay on this side of the border. Marco is a pharmaceutical salesman and Heather is a controller for a Swedish company that manufactures inductrial sealing solutions.
Marco and Heather were our speakers for the morning. Marco explained the organizational chart for their small club. Heather presented the ambitious projects this young club has already done. The three major projects this club supports are: the Banati Food Bank, The Childrens' Oncological Center, and a health fair. Banati Food Bank currently provides food for over 47,000 residents of Tijuana a week! The Children's Oncological Center provides world class cancer treatment in a holistic approach that takes the fear element out of the experience of the children and families of their young patients.
The health fair brings together many health care providers for screening examinations and also services such as haircuts and nutirition advice. A major emphasis is screening for high blood pressure and diabetes. Most of the routine medications that the physicians prescribe are dispensed at the health fair. Dental screening exams identify dental health needs. Patients are referred to the dental school in Tijuana. Over 50 sets of impressions were also made for orthodontic appliances that the dental patients could pick up and then be followed at the dental school.
Heather also mentioned a project that Milenio Minared Rotary club has initiated. They have secured permission to buy red tee shirts with the End Polio Now slogan. Their goal is to sell over 10,000 of these tee shirts and then have every one with a tee shirt fill the soccer stadium in Tijuana. This would set a Guiness World record of the largest number of people wearing the same tee shirt at the same time for a nonprofit project. Several members of RB Sunrise bought tee shirts.
Milenio Minarete has two long term goals for fundraising. They want to raise money through networking with clubs in many districts in the United States to get distirct and/or global grants from the Rotary Foundation for two of their main projects. The first is to begin a program to purchase beans, rice and flour for the Banati Food Bank. Currently the food that comes in to the food bank in inadequate nutritionally because too much of it is highly processed. The staple foods their project would supply would make balanced meals wth better protein a reality. Their long term goal is to raise over $200,000.
The second project is to purchase the equipment to make isolated treatment rooms at the Children's Oncology Center a reality. Currently, the center doesn't have the capability for some treatments that their patients need. The hustle and bustle of a normal hospital environment is frightening to the immuno-compromsed young patients. The treatment rooms already exist at the center, but need the equipment and supplies to be activated. The funds needed for this project is in the neighborhood of $50,000.
RB Sunrise has committed to seeking a matching district grant from District 5340 for the Food Bank Project and encouraging other clubs in our districts to do the same. Additionally, our board and International chair, Paul Gorman, has indicated that they would assist Milenio Minarete to contact Rotary Clubs in other districts to do global grants for their Banati project.
Milenio Minarete Rotary Club was chartere about 5 years ago, but you can see that the size of their club hasn't dampened their enthusiasm for doing what Rotarians around the world do. That is - They make a difference for their communtiy.
To donate to RB Sunrise Rotary Club's support for the Food Bank project, click on the button and indicate Banati Food Bank in the memo.
