One of the best Rotary Club Presidents I have worked with is my friend Woody Fridae who I sponsored into the Winters Club in 2005.Woody has served in many capacities including Mayor/City Councilmember, 5th grade Teacher, Civil War Lieutenant, labor representative and golf course hustler. He brought an amazing can-do spirit and was a key to taking us “international” in the projects we do.
Tim and Monique were UC Davis Professors who spent 3-5 months each year in a remote village in Tanzania. Tim was a “cheetah” guy and Monique was an anthropologist. Usevia was a small town with many needs but mostly for better sources for water versus lugging it in buckets from the river, streams and holes. The key issue was basic sanitation! The first ask of our Club was to help drill basic “pump” wells in the village.
This gave rise to my “Water for Water” campaign where we sold bottles of water at Winters street fairs and events. In total, we fund raised and received grant funds to install almost 60 wells in the greater Usevia area. Success!!!!
Our relationship with the folks in Usevia and Tanzania was tremendous. Their next and much larger ask was help in the construction of a building to host a “girls school” and youth center. In recent years, Chinese business interests had built a great highway which went by the village and the fear of being a truck stop and experiencing human trafficking was issue one. Can we help them!
Woody convened a strategic planning session for our Club and on the international side, the girls school became our quest. Our team eventually included the Rotary Clubs of Sumbawanga, Tanzania and Edinburough, Scotland, a local NGO and a Scottish Foundation.
The project eventually included a solar array for power, computers and a full compliment of educational materials. An example of taking vision to reality!
Check out this amazing project! https://jdonlevy.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Katavi-Youth-Center-Usevia^J-Tanzania.pdf