Moraga Rotary has made a commitment to improving our community and our world.
We do so by raising money to provide dictionaries, books, supplies, shelter, and meals, and by using our hands, to build play-sets, make Christmas stockings, paint maps, pull weeds, and participate in events that provide opportunities for the children in our community to have fun as well as learn.
Our thanks is the smile on a child's face, the thank you from a parent, and the handshake or hug from someone in need who has been helped by our contributions or our hands-on labor.
We would like to take a moment and show some of the projects that Moraga Rotary has participated in. The list is far from complete, and will continue to grow, so please, visit often.
Our Effort to Help the Katrina Effort
On Tuesday, September 13th, 2005, fifteen Moraga Rotarians, along with Alex Toohey from Campolindo High School, and Eilidh Tait, our youth exchange student from Scotland, came together at a local church to make fleece blankets for the people affected by the Katrina hurricane and subsequent flooding. Together we prepared 50 blankets for distribution through a local Rotary club in the affected area.
As a byproduct, we weaved together the remnants to make fleece play toys for the cats and dogs at our local animal shelters.
And, the Moraga Rotary Club has raised $2,900 in club member contributions, $10,000 in community donations, and an additional $500 in Red Cross donations.
The contributions provided 3500 pounds of dehydrated food products, and a number of survival kits, with each survival kit providing food, water purification tablets, and shelter for ten people.
The remaining money was sent to a Rotary club in the affected area to be used to help with shelter, food, and for the rebuilding process. Using local Rotary clubs provides the means to get the most out of a donated dollar, with 100% of the contribution going to the Katrina effort.
Providing dictionaries to the 3rd grade students in Moraga and Canyon: Each year Moraga Rotary gives each third grade student in the Moraga School District, Saklan School, and Canyon School, a new children's dictionary to use for their school year.
Each year Moraga Rotary receives letters from students, teachers, and parents, letting us know that the dictionaries are an important part of their education.
Many students have brothers and sisters who have received dictionaries from Moraga Rotary in years past, and how they were happy because they now had a dictionary of their own.
Teachers have told us that they look forward to the new dictionaries each year, building homework and study assignments that engage the student encourage them to use the dictionary.
A dictionary for every third grade student. A goal, and a commitment from Moraga Rotary.
A little bit of Christmas for the kids at the Juvenile Hall
Track and Field Day for 3rd-5th grade students of the Moraga School District, held at Camino Pablo Elementary School
Playground train at the Moraga Commons
Playground Train and Train Station at Rancho Laguna:
On an overcast day in October 2004, Moraga Rotarians and members of the Miramonte and Campolindo Interact Clubs came together at Rancho Laguna park in Moraga to build a playground train and train station. The playground equipment is a gift to the children and community of Moraga.
The train station came complete with a real schedule, and by the hands on the clock, the train is on time. A great deal of effort was made to provide a sense of history, by researching the train station that was in Moraga where the Albertson building now stands.
United States map at Donald Rheem School: Moraga Rotary has been focused on the children in our community since our inception in 1967. It was the Orinda Rotary members who lived in Moraga, and wanted to make a difference in their community, that lead to establishing a Rotary club in our town.
As part of the ongoing commitment to the children of our community, Moraga Rotary embarks on projects that improve the schools here in Moraga.
A request came to us from a Donald Rheem Elementary school teacher, who had a class project that studies the history of the United States by "traveling" through each state, and studying it's history and the contribution it makes to our country.
The teacher thought it would be a great idea to have a map of the United States painted on the school grounds, so the students could have the visual impact of a large map. With the support of the Moraga School District, the Donald Rheem Elementary school Principal, and the teachers, a project was born, the template and paint ordered, and a map created.
Playground-Set in Ladrillera - Los Algodones, Mexico: It was 1992 when Yuma Rotarian Dave Hossler first laid eyes on the small village of Ladrillera, the brickyard. A poor shanty town of shacks, built from castoff wood and cardboard, with old torn sheets covering the windows openings, most of which have never had a window in them. Windows in Ladrillera are a luxury. Dave found a place and a school very much in need of the attention and support of Rotary.
Dave's first focus was the children, and his goal was to improve the small run down school they go to each day to learn. Over the course the next ten years, Rotary Clubs worked to improve the school at Ladrillera. Rotary built bathrooms with running water, replacing the old outhouses, and they built a new classroom, bringing the total to three, and qualifying the school for Mexican Federal monies.
It was Moraga Rotary's opportunity to help. Moraga Rotary, in conjunction with the seven Rotary Clubs of the Yuma area worked together to build a modern playground, and to provide school supplies and teaching aides to a school that could not afford a pencil for each child. A school where teachers need check paper out to students on a single sheet basis, out of necessity. A small and poor community. Rotary making a difference.
Saklan Valley School project: Moraga Rotary, in conjunction with the Madera Rotary Club, removed playground equipment that no longer meets the safety standards in the United States.
The Madera club refurbishes the playground equipment, and in a cross-club project, will work with the Moraga Rotary Club to re-install the equipment at schools in Mexico.
Delivering Wheelchairs - Hope in Mexicalli: 2003 has provided Moraga Rotary with a great opportunity to give to those who are the silent ones. The people who have disabilities that inhibit their ability to be mobile. We are talking about the handicapped who require wheelchairs in order to move around, and to be a part of their society.
Moraga Rotary visited Mexicalli, Mexico in April, 2003, to deliver 200 wheelchairs to the people of Mexicalli and the outlying villages. Many of those who received wheelchairs had little or nothing to assist them in moving around. Broken crutches, skateboards, walkers held together by duct tape. By providing a new wheelchair designed for the rugged environment they live in, Moraga Rotary offered 200 people an opportunity to be a bigger participant in their village, and the world they live in.
Ladillera 2003 - One Year Later: It was one year ago that Moraga Rotary visited the small village of Ladrillera, the brickyard, to build a playground set at a school with six classrooms, each 12'x12'.
Moraga Rotary gave the children of Ladrillera an opportunity to play. To have a place where they can, for a moment, forget the terrible poverty in which they live. Lives lived on dirt roads, no sidewalks, cardboard on the windows, outhouses, no running water, in many cases no electricity, and for most, no hope.
But, for a moment they have the chance to be kids. They have a playground almost as good as the kids their age in this country, and better than most of the kids in theirs.
One small village, one small gift, one days labor, and small lives made happier. That is the focus of Moraga Rotary.
US Map at All Schools in the Moraga School District In keeping with our focus on the schools in our community, and as part of our goal to paint the US map on each of the schools in the Moraga School District, we have painted a US map on the Los Perales, Saklan School, and Donald Rheem school ground.