Kootenai Valley Rotary returns to Guatemala for school, water projects
Kootenai Valley Rotarian Breeanna Runyan was popular with the Guatemalan students during a recent trip. (Courtesy photo)
Members of the Rotary Club of Kootenai Valley spent a week in Guatemala to work on school and water projects.
Those on the trip from Libby were George and Linda Gerard, Mark Radzwion, Breanna Runyan, Pat Neils and Eileen Carney.
They first visited a small village where Rotarians had built two rooms in a school to be used for storage but that are now being used for classrooms. The school is 25 years old and has 350 students. There are 60 new students so they need more classrooms than what they have.
They currently have two classes in each room which makes it difficult to teach. Money has been gathered for this project and work will begin soon. Rich Powers, a Rotarian from Anaconda, gave $25,000 of the $37,000 necessary. He visited the town last year and will visit again next year.
The group visited Nueva Esperanza where Rotary put a new roof on a school. Before and during the rainy season, students could not use the classroom because water would fall through the roof. Now they are six classrooms for 165 students.
The school is very remote and most of the students live in the mountains. Some must walk two hours to get to school and two hours to get home after classes. Rotary will build a new kitchen at the school so students can have some good food they might not get at home.
The Rotarians visited La Vega where they finished a water project and now all 350 houses have water. The system can expand to 100 more homes. Roy Beekman from Kalispell, who is the director of the project, likes to keep in touch after it is finished to make sure things are going well and to help solve any problems that arise. It’s too easy to walk away after the work is done, but the system still needs maintained.
Rotarians also visited two villages where water systems are needed. They will wait until other projects are done and the Rotary can raise the money.
The group also went to a town where a project begun last year. It’s very high up in the mountains and difficult to access. They have located a spring but it is further away than would ordinarily be feasible, but it’s the only option. About half the money has been raised to finish the project.
Beekman is confident the goal will be reached in a year and can be finished in two years.
It’s hard to believe there are billions of people in the world that do not have access to clean water, one of the most basic human necessities. The local Rotary coalition is working diligently to make sure that at least a few of the billions can drink potable water in the future.