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Rotary club - Fight against hunger

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Written by Eric Pulsifer Thursday, 01 May 2008

Rotary International Members of the Round Rock Rotary Noon Club got their hands dirty last month to help in the fight against hunger. Rotarians gathered early Saturday, April 19 to start construction on 15 additional community gardens at the Round Rock Area Serving Center. The facility, located at 1099 E. Main St., now has 28 gardens on site. Client families with the center adopt the gardens to grow their own fresh produce. Cinder blocks border the rectangular gardens, which yield more than enough cabbage, spinach, lettuce, radishes, peppers, peas and carrots for one family. Extra produce goes toward stocking the facility’s food pantry.

Lori Scott, Rotarian and serving center executive director, said the project gives families in need a sense of pride and independence by teaching them to provide for themselves and give something back to others in the community. “It’s their involvement and participation,” Scott said. “They’re giving back by growing their own vegetables.”

According to Scott, the local club often teams up with Rotary International to do work in communities around the world. For this project, the Round Rock club received a matching grant from Rotary International to partner with a club in Tampico, Mexico to fund the gardens. Partnerships like these are common and key to the 1.2-million-member club’s global efforts. Members of the Round Rock Noon club build a vegetable garden at the Round Rock Area Serving Center.

In Round Rock, there are two clubs: the Sunrise Club and the Noon Club, both named for when they meet. The Pflugerville Rotary Club meets at noon.

The Sunrise Club is currently spearheading a community-wide effort to build a park for children of all abilities. The club is working to rally support from various groups and the city of Round Rock to make the plans a reality. Marge Tripp, Sunrise Club community director, said the concept was born after the club received a grant to purchase special playground equipment for autistic children. The park – which will be located at the Rabb House on Hwy. 79 – started small but plans are expanding as support continues to build up for the project. “We just felt that there should be a place where these children and their families could go to enjoy being at a park,” Tripp said. The Sunrise Club is moving forward with securing funding for the project and looking into what equipment would best suit the needs of autistic and other special needs children.

While the club stays busy in Central Texas, Rotarians are frequently involved in international projects as well. “The overriding theme of Rotary, adopted by the international Rotary, is service above self,” said Doug Cornwell, Round Rock Noon club president-elect. “We want to give back to our community in projects and other places all around the world.” Last November, Beenu Deuja, secretary of the Sunrise Club, spent 12 days in Nigeria as a part of Rotary International’s National Immunization Days. The purpose of the trip was to vaccinate children as a part of the club’s efforts to eradicate polio from the planet. “Most people think polio is already gone. Many young people don’t even know what it is,” Deuja said. “But there are still countries in the world where it is still killing, or at least paralyzing, many people.” She said that the crippling disease still exists not only in Nigeria, but also India, Pakistan and Afghanistan; however, most cases are in Nigeria with 1,122 cases reported last year.

“I think the Rotary is important because in this country we take it for granted that we will have any medicines we need,” Deuja said. “But in many places, people won’t have any medicines without help from organizations like the Rotary Club.”

Pflugerville Rotary Club

Meets at noon Wednesdays at the Pflugerville Community Library, 102 S. 10th St.

Local Projects:

Provides scholarships to PISD seniors
Joined efforts with the community to raise money to build sculptures for the Fallen Warrior Memorial in Pfluger Park
Teams with the police department to sponsor the Pflugerville Bike Rodeo
Donates funds to the Storehouse, a Pflugerville food pantry that collects nonperishable foods for those in need

International Projects:

Donates books for the Uganda project, Libraries of Love, an international effort to build libraries and promote literacy in developing countries.

Round Rock Sunrise Rotary Club

Meets at 7 a.m. Fridays at the Round Rock Medical Center, 2400 Round Rock Ave.

Local Projects:

Adopted Claude Berkman Elementary School
Participates in the Adopt-a-Unit program

International Projects:

Partners with the club in Saltillo, Mexico to teach villagers to sew, garden and farm. The club will soon present this project at the International Rotary convention in Los Angeles in June.