We are excited to once again support Lead with Seeds Society
Lead With Seeds in their annual fundraiser. See the events tab to the left for details.
The 2023 goals are:
1) To set up a women’s sewing project in the Barrio Cacao. This will enable the neighborhood women to learn marketable skills to start their own businesses, get a job, or simply sew their own clothes to save much needed money for the family. Local women have come to us with this request, asking for three sewing machines and an instructor to be added to the facility in the Barrio.
2) To set up another junior high like the current school. The new junior high program will be in the nearby large town of Santa Rita where most students have no opportunity to pursue a junior high education. They have asked Lead with Seeds to provide the curriculum and computers. The local school will provide the teachers and facility.
3) To continue the thriving Barrio junior high program, together with the re-forestation seedling operation and other initiatives.
Our Successes:
After two years of delays and months of planning, the 20th Anniversary Fork It Over Gala was held on a snowy evening on November 5th. While the final tally is not yet complete, we can report over $40,000 raised for our partner, Winnifred Stewart Association and our club. Many thanks for all who worked to make this event a reality and to those who attended.
Club Update:
Our November 2nd meeting was hampered a bit by the first snowfall of the season. Our speakers, Anastasia Sizov and Cole Lloyd, from Students Invested in Health Association (SIHA) joined us by Zoom and spoke about the work they did in Tanzania, including an on-going WASH (water and sanitation hygiene) program and a new Menstrual Health Project. The club agreed this year to fund a menstrual health chamber at a local school, proposed by SIHA. SIHA is currently compiling benchmarks and the interns in 2023 will complete a post construction assessment to determine whether the project was able to reduce the absenteeism for young girls due to lack of facilities when menstruating.
We were also delighted to nominate our own Jeanette Bancarz as a candidate for RI District 5370 District Governor for 2025-26.
The club also approved a maximum of $5000 for travel to East Africa by Dr. Saleh and co-hort. Dr. Saleh is an emergency room physician.
Finally, the club has agreed to support Santa YEG in their fundraising efforts and will accept charitable donations through our charitable society. In addition, we have agreed to cover the merchant services charges that will be assessed on donations.
