Frank Ortiz and the Sri Lanka Project

President David opened the meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance led by our guest Frank Ortiz, the invocation by Jude and new Rotary song led by Syd.

Our visitors were Frank and Scotty Ortiz from Santa Maria, and Loretta Butts from Atascadero.

Dave was the jokester as well as the person who assessed the fines, which brought us money from twelve members – the Mad Lib (remember those), was not as funny as hoped for…   An "A" for effort tho!!

Chuck Clark was presented a beautiful basket full of goodies in appreciation of his 17 years of service as Club Treasurer.

We are still looking for volunteers for the Fish Fry and the Margarita Festival .... Signup clip boards were passed around...... Again…

Frank Ortiz, our guest speaker, started by saying he is very involved with a Rotary-sponsored project in Sri Lanka.    There are six areas of focus in the project.   Of the six, he prefers Basic Education and Literacy because these areas are a worldwide problem and can really make a difference in the quality of life in every country.

Sri Lanka, which was devastated by the tsunami in 2004, is just south of India and has a population of 20 million.   There are 14,000 preschools and 400,000 preschoolers, but many, too many, about 25% of the teachers are untrained. 

In 2011, the Rotary Club of Morro Bay partnered with a Club in Colombo, the major City in Sri Lanka, to provide a model preschool in a rural area of Sri Lanka.  Mr Ortiz, who visited there in 2013 said the primary focus used to be the children in preschool, but now the focus is to make sure the teachers are trained correctly, which will ultimately help the children most.    Fifty-four Rotary Clubs partnered to raise $160,000 which will pay for the education and training of 1,000 teachers who go to school 7 hours a week for one year.   Those teachers will impact approximately 20,000 children.  

Those who choose to go to the teacher’s school, sign a Promissory note to pay the fees back if they do not complete the class.   So for them, it is definitely a lifelong commitment to the local culture.

Our Rotary Club gave $58,118 to this project in 2005, $10,000 in 2011 and $4,234 in 2012, which proves that "Together we can do Great Things."

Next week’s program will be the about the SLO Rotaract Program.    Next Wednesday there will be an Interact meeting for our local High School Club from 12:20 to 1:00 at Morro Bay High School.