Wilshire Rotarians Take Humanitarian Journey
WILSHIRE ROTARIANS who made the trip are Chase Campen, Ray Schuldenfrei, Dia Schuldenfrei, Elsa Gillham, Margie Christofferson and Alma Sexton
Wilshire Rotarians joined 115 members from Los Angeles Rotary District 5280 on a recent trek to Puerto Rico to take part in humanitarian projects.
“It was a wonderful trip,” said Wilshire Rotary’s past president Elsa Gillham, who was joined by Chase Campen, Ray Schuldenfrie and wife, Dia; Margie Christofferson and Alma Sexton.
Gillham said that the Rotarians were able to meet many of the people who benefitted from the project. “We presented a wheelchair to a woman whose son had had to carry her to her radiation treatments. Deaf children sang to us in sign language, which was beautiful.”
At a dance school for children with Down syndrome, where Wilshire Rotary donated costumes and supplies, “we watched kids who were very shy and uncomfortable transform before our eyes as they danced for us,” Gillham added. “It was amazing.”
The journey was the seventh made by District members, who partnered with Rotary Clubs in Puerto Rico and Rotary International to fund 13 projects of more than a half a million dollars. Past destinations have included El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, Trinidad/Tobago, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic.
On the Puerto Rican trip, the group provided wheelchairs, dictionaries, health and educational equipment for special needs students, updated a mobile recycling center, provided cafeteria and school equipment at a school for deaf children and a computer center for Boys & Girls Club, said Gillham. They also furnished equipment for a hydroponic farm, a geriatric center, aqueduct, an at-risk girls’ home and vocational home for women as well as for a school’s biology and chemistry labs.
After completing their mission, the group visited the El Yunque Rain Forest, Old San Juan and the Barcardi Rum Factory, and went snorkeling and on a catamaran ride.
The trips build goodwill and friendships, said Gillham. “They are beneficial to all of us.”
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