Once again, Orange Plaza Rotary partnered with Rise Against Hunger and Anaheim Hills Rotary to package over 14,000 meals to be sent around the world to those in need! This is our club’s largest service project every year and it’s an experience volunteers never forget. Thank you to all of our awesome volunteers!
Category Archives: International Service
On the Ground in Cambodia
We received a couple of nice thank you notes from our partner, Stop Hunger Now, letting us know that our pre-packaged meals were shipped to hungry families:
It is with great pleasure that we announce the destination of the Rise Against Hunger meals you helped package on 1/20/2018. A shipping container, holding 285,120 meals, has been sent to Cambodia for our partner Salesian Missions. If you happen to receive more than one of these announcements, your meals have gone to impact multiple partners.
Salesian Missions is an organization that nourishes lives through food assistance and other services in Cambodia. To learn more, please visit our partner/country spotlight on the Impact Stories tab and click and drag on our World Aid Map at https://www.riseagainsthunger.org/world-aid/.
Ending hunger is only possible if we continue to grow the movement. We encourage you to share the news about this shipment. Since 2005, volunteers like you have helped us distribute over 310 million meals worldwide. We can end hunger by 2030, but we can’t do it without you.
Please visit our website www.riseagainsthunger.org and continue your involvement. Consider making a donation, planning another meal packaging event (at your place of worship, school, company, civic club, etc), joining our advocacy efforts, or even inviting us to speak to a group. Share your experience with us at socal@riseagainsthunger.org.
Keep up the great work and spread the word – #2030IsPossible.
Gratefully,
Joel Boucher, Program Manager
We are proud to work with this organization to fight world hunger. To participate in our next packaging event, watch our calendar!
Medi-Van Delivered to Caborca Mexico
The Rotary Club of Orange Plaza joined with more than a dozen other Rotary clubs to fund a new medical van for the community of Caborca, Mexico. The van is the most recent improvement to public health in that area lead by the Rotary Club of Villa Park.
The “medi-van” was recently delivered to a warehouse in Caborca, where local health authorities will complete the process of outfitting the van with medical tools and supplies. One cubicle of the van will be equipped with a dental unit for treating children and adult patients. The second cubicle will contain a gynecological examination couch and equipment for pre-natal exams and pap smears for the early detection of cervical cancer.
The $81,000 medi-van was funded, in part, by a global grant from The Rotary Foundation. Through the grant-making process and awards to Rotary clubs around the world, the Foundation carries out humanitarian service in six areas of focus, including Maternal and Child Health.
This project was brought to the attention of the Rotary Club of Orange Plaza by the late Tom Davis, a long-time member of the Villa Park club and a well-loved member of Orange Plaza Rotary at the time of his passing. This one’s for you, Tom!
Rising to Stop Hunger Now
For the third year, Orange Plaza Rotary hosted a food packaging event to box meals for hungry families around the world. Working with the organization Rise Against Hunger (fka “Stop Hunger Now”), Rotarians gathered more than 2 dozen community volunteers to assist in the event.
The January 20th event was held in the Orange Public Library community room and attracted even more volunteers as they visited the library! This project is another example of the club’s focus on hands-on service that families can do with their children. Kids as young as five served as “runners” and helped label the completed packages.
More than 11,000 meals were prepared and will be shipped to areas such as the Philippines and Southeast Asia.
The project was funded, in part, by a grant from the Rotary Foundation and Rotary District 5320. Other costs were underwritten from the proceeds of the annual Orange Plaza Car Show.
Building Communities Together
Orange Plaza Rotary members Kristen and Rae were happy to join more than 80 volunteers from the Rotary Clubs of San Juan Capistrano, Anaheim, Irvine, Santa Ana, Tustin-Santa Ana, Placentia and Yorba Linda Sunrise to build two homes in an area just outside the city of Tecate. With slabs and septic systems already in place, the teams quickly built the 16 x 20 wood frame homes, presenting keys to the house and other gifts to 2 worthy families at the end of the day.
Rotary Clubs partner regularly with Corazon, a locally-based nonprofit that works with impoverished communities in Baja California. In addition to the construction program, Corazon provides vocational training and literacy education in Tijuana and Tecate.
We will be doing it again–contact us for more info!
Making Friends Around the World
Orange Plaza Rotary member Kristen Davis traveled to Caborca, Mexico with a group of Rotarians to assist with polio vaccinations in the poor villages surrounding Caborca.
Kristen writes: “Rotary is not only about volunteer service in our local communities, but it’s also about giving back to those in need around the world. This weekend in Mexico has made a huge impact in Kristen’s life… it’s eye opening to see the conditions these families are in but it’s also very special to see how happy these people are and how appreciative they are to see us helping them keep their children healthy. Another special thing about trips like this is the fellowship that is created between all the Rotarians. The Caborca Rotarians opened their clubhouse with open arms to the group of Americans from California, Arizona, Louisiana, Alabama, and Arkansas and the group from Canada. So many friendships and connections were formed this weekend all because of our common interest in making this world a better place!”
Global Scholar Checks In
In 2013, Orange Plaza Rotary was proud to sponsor one of the first Global Grant Scholars funded by Rotary District 5320 and The Rotary Foundation. Joseph Flores studied in Sussex, England, increasing his knowledge in the area of economic and community development.
Recently, Joseph wrote to us with an update and a proposal to work with Rotary clubs in Guatemala, where he currently working for Pomona Impact. More about Joseph from their website:
Joseph is an investment and development professional who possess a diversity of experience and is currently a Frontier Market Scouts (FMS) Fellow with Pomona Impact. He previously spent many years managing fixed-income assets for institutional clients and high-net-worth individuals. He subsequently served with the Peace Corps in the Republic of Macedonia in an international development capacity, and his work focused on community and business development. Joseph holds a Master of Arts in Globalisation and Development from the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex, Brighton, UK, and was a Rotary Foundation Global Grant Scholar. He received professional certification in Impact Investing and Social Enterprise Management from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS).
We are so happy to see Joseph continue to Do Good in the World! To learn how you can support the Global Grant Scholar program, visit Rotary.org.
Kids Around the World Will Eat Tonight
Orange Plaza Rotary was grateful to see so many volunteers at our second annual food packaging event. Working with “Kids Around the World“, we packed 14,040 dehydrated meals for shipment to hungry families. Our volunteers included friends, neighbors, our own children and 40 students from El Modena High School. Many of these students are participants in our “Mentor Meals” program, now in its fourth year.
The project was partially funded by a $1,500 District Grant made possible by donations to The Rotary Foundation Annual Fund.
An awesome day of service!
And This Little Piggy Conquered Polio
Once upon a time, a little Rotary club joined with 20 other volunteers to build a home on the outskirts of Tijuana. At the end of a rewarding day, the volunteers caravanned back to the international border and waited in line for approval to cross into the USA. The volunteers told jokes and stories and communicated with the car of friends behind them by waving, making faces and other amusing gestures.
But the group was distracted by 1) the urgent need of a certain member to find a nearby restroom, and 2) the many fine wares being hawked by dozens of Mexican vendors along the route to the border. So, the certain member was dispatched with a Mexican guide to find relief, only to return with the announcement that he had located the perfect souvenir of the group’s experience: Rotunda, the Polio Pig.
Much haggling ensued before Rotunda was purchased, but when the transaction was concluded, Rotunda was immediately delivered to the club treasurer, traveling in the car directly behind the SUV filled with generous pig-loving Rotarians. Dolores’ expression when receiving this gift was not glee, exactly, but more of a look of astonishment and woe. Nonetheless, Rotunda occupied a place of honor in her office for many years and occasionally attended a Rotary meeting, car show or other special event.
Alas, little piggies do not live forever and the time came to slaughter Rotunda for market. With all the pomp and circumstance we can muster, Orange Plaza Rotary threw Rotunda a going-away soiree on August 17th. As you can tell by the photos, Rotunda enjoyed the proceedings immensely, even after we performed surgery to extract over $98 dollars from her posterior. Although Rotunda did not survive the surgery, her sacrifice will change the lives of children around the world who receive vaccinations through Rotary’s campaign to End Polio Now. With only three countries left on the list of “endemic” regions, Rotary and its partners are truly “this close” to eradicating polio from the face of the earth. The polio campaign is just one of the programs of The Rotary Foundation, which celebrates its 100th year of service this year. Want to know how you too can change the world? Join us!
John Boyd Award Caps Banner Year
Orange Plaza Rotary received numerous honors for its work during the 2015-2016 Rotary year. The club was recognized for its activity in all areas of Rotary service, including its international service project partnering with the nonprofit organization “Stop Hunger Now”. For its efforts in organizing a food packaging event that sent more than 40,000 meal servings to Vietnam and the Philippines, Orange Plaza Rotary was honored with the “John Boyd International Service Award” presented by fellow Rotarians of the Rotary Club of Brea on July 11th.
The Rotary Club of Orange Plaza Rotary was recently named “Best Small Club” among the 45 Rotary clubs in District 5320, which includes all of Orange County and parts of southern Los Angeles county. The “Best Club” banner was awarded at the May 2016 District Conference in Newport Beach by then-Governor Kevin Padilla of Placentia.
On behalf of Rotary International President Ravi Ravindran, Governor Padilla also presented the prestigious “Presidential Citation” to Orange Plaza for the Rotary year ending on June 30th. In making the award, Rotary International noted the participation of more than 75% of Orange Plaza members in “hands-on” projects in the community, praised the group’s sponsorship of a student service organization (El Modena High School Interact) and thanked the club for its financial support of The Rotary Foundation, the charitable arm of Rotary International.
Orange Plaza Rotary (widely known as the organizers of the Annual Orange Plaza Car Show) also received the “Quality of Life” Award from the Orange Chamber of Commerce on June 16th. The award, shared with two other Rotary clubs in the city, recognized the club for outstanding service by a nonprofit organization. OPR’s local service projects include quarterly food drives for homeless veterans, design and installation of custom wheelchair ramps for the disabled, and guiding high school students through the signature project, “Mentor Meals”.
The Rotary Club of Orange Plaza plans another busy year of service in the next twelve months, expanding successful programs and adding new community-based projects in the City of Orange.