Rotary Log: July 19. 2012 (water for Haiti)

Another southern-California type Rotary day with a variety of guests, including one from beautiful southern California. We began our meeting with the now-weekly Rotary Tidbit. John St. Pierre introduced the Thunder Chicken Road Race Committee. Bob Davis gave us a lot of fun facts that we are willing to bet many Rotarians didn't know about the road race. For example, George Pierce, one of the original founders of the thunder chicken road race 20 years ago, always ran the race. In his last year running, he came in 136/300 and now, whoever comes in 136th in the race is awarded the George Pierce Award (a gift certificate for dinner and a rubber chicken). Butch Ricci has been a major sponsor of the race in honor of Anna and Erminio Ricci. Thank you, Butch! Living Innovations has been the other major sponsor for all these years for which we owe a debt of gratitude to past president Neil. Our costs to operate the race are about $10,000 and our net revenue is about $10,000! This Committee not only raises money but results in community outreach at the same time.

Ben Wheeler announced that the golf tournament raised approximately $20,000. Congratulations are due to the Golf Tournament Committee! Well done!

Dick had a happy dollar because Piscataqua Savings Bank is 135 years old today, July 19, 2012. Walter correctly pointed out that the happy dollar should be 135 happy dollars. Rick Paige had a happy dollar because his son, a pilot in Afghanistan, survived the crash of his aircraft! There cannot be a more happy dollar than that!

We welcomed a new member today, John Ratigan. John is from Exeter (which at least one of our members was willing to overlook). He has three children and makes his living as a financial planner. He likes to play golf and run. Welcome, John!

The program:

As we all know, member Leonard Seagren has been very actively involved in Haiti and their troubles there. Recently he has become involved in trying to get clean water to a hospital desperately in need. In Haitian, "Konbit Sante" means "working together". That is exactly what our club, along with many other individuals and organizations, has done. The city of Cap Haitian has a 300 bed hospital that is attempting to serve 750,000 people off a single well with contamination in the water and inadequate plumbing. The hospital's well generates 3 to 4 gallons of water a minute. This would be an average for a typical Portsmouth home. Adding to the lack of an adequate well were leaking pipes which sucked in contaminated groundwater along with contamination from local cesspools. Since only 30% of the area's residents have access to toilets, outdoor cesspools and outdoor bathing and the resulting water contamination is rampant. This manifests itself in a cholera epidemic hitting the city center with 700,000 people coming in for help and 7000 deaths associated with the outbreak. Leonard and the organization, Konbit Sante, set out to change all of that.

Konbit Sante, among many other things, installed new electrical systems, replaced water pumps, installed new pipes, drilled new wells (Including a well with a hand-pump in case they lost power) and replaced vile outdoor latrines and showers with new, well lit and clean latrines and showers.

Leonard and your Rotary club are to be commended for the literally life-saving work that he and we have done and that is what Rotary is all about!

Ben Wheeler won the $128 raffle but there was no match, so next week should be somewhere around $1300!