The Rotary Club of West Chester

Veterans Viet Nam Restoration Project - 2009 Update

Our Club provided $2K last year in support of adding 3 more classrooms. Click on the headline to read the 2009 newletter and learn how our money was used.

District 7450 Inbound Exchange Students

These are our district Inbound Youth Exchange Students, including Anri (Japan) with Rob Newman (Kennett at Longwood), Linda Messer (Glen Riddle) and Geoff Baker doing a community service project Saturday afternoon of the district conference at the food pantry in Kennett Square PA. Students are from France, Spain, Romania, Brazil(2), Chile, Japan. Students from Taiwan and Austria are not present.

International Student Picnic 2009

The 2009 International Student Picnic at West Chester University is now in the record books as a successful well attended event. There were approximately 40 international students and 30 Rotarians and their family members in attendance. Students collected autographs from the Rotarians and were given prizes according to how many autographs they collected. Ed Malet was the Rotarian that organized this event for the club and there were dozens of prizes provided by several club members

ROTARIANS HONOR RYLA PARTICIPANTS

The Rotary Club of West Chester honored three high school students who were chosen to attend the annual Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) Convention at Valley Forge. Among the attendees were (from left) Alex Ritrovuto and Lexi Leone from East High School and the West Chester club’s exchange student, Anri Izui from Henderson High School. During the weekend, students developed and ratified a security plan for the United States, after discussing freedom, liberty and security issues.

Veteran's Viet Nam Restoration Project

July 4, 2008 - A Dot Commune now has a new, beautiful 4-classroom kindergarten, including a kitchen, teacher’s office, two bathrooms, and electrical / plumbing / septic systems.
Last year the Rotary Club of West Chester contributed $2000 to the Veteran's Viet Nam Restoration Project in support of construction of this school. Read the complete story and view additional photos in the VVRP Newsletter.

Veterans Viet Nam Restoration Project

A team of Viet Nam Veterans will be traveling to the A Shau Valley where it will help build a four room school house. Last year's team traveled to the Valley where it built a three room school house in the town of A Luoi. The impression the team members made on the local people let Vietnamese to invite the VVRP to send another team to this remote tribal region, which until the arrival of the team had been off limits to foreigners. In 2008 The Rotary Club of West Chester approved a grant to support this humanitarian effort. For more details on the project CLICK HERE (3 meg file)

Honduras Blood Lab

Greetings from the team in Honduras.
We made it safely (although Carol Schaffer got redirected through San Salvador and Belize!) and are learning a lot by being here. The blood lab project is going to be much better from this experience. In addition to visiting the Manos Amigos dental and medical clinic (temporary site, before the new facility is built), we have spent the day at various blood labs, health clinics, etc. A Rotarian from our partnering club, Santa Rosa de Copan, has been with us and they are also scoping out the situation from the Honduran perspective. So valuable! It's easy to see the need down here. The public health center has toilets, but no sink to wash hands. They are sterilizing instruments in bottles of alcohol. People are happy for help. Unemployment and illiteracy are showstoppers for so many....
Best,
Carol Metzker, Carol Schaffer, Pete Thompson, Eric Metzker, Anita Trump and Cristina Combee
For the complete trip report and additional photos, Click Here.

Outbound Exchange Students

Hello over there in the States! I hope all is going well, because over here, in France, it is perfect!

My holidays here were of course quite different from those in Pennsylvania, but I had a lot of fun. First of all, I visited Fiona, the French girl who was in my house last spring, at her house, in Strasbourg. For those of you who don't know, Strasbourg is in the north of France, just across the Rhine River from Germany. And it is quite the winter wonderland kind of city. So, it was really awesome to see my "French sister". It was a weird experience because last spring, we always spoke English together. But, now, after 6 months passed, we were chatting away in French!

Another thing during my vacation: the holiday season's food. Fois gras, which is kind of like a meat spread, is a Christmas time delicacy. I guess I'm not a real French girl yet, because I did not enjoy it at all. But I also tried the escargots (snails). That was quite an experience...They were.. I'll say interesting.

I also got to see at the sights in Northeastern France. I visited my first castle too! That was beautiful, Haut-Koeningsberg.

I can only hope that my next 6 months will be as awesome and interesting!

Best wishes,
Hannah Eberts - January, 2008

Outbound Exchange Students

Madeline(Maddie) DeSimone, is a Junior at Westtown School, and will be spending her year in Monterrey, Mexico. Her family hosted Francois Dellis, from Belgium, this past year.

Hannah Eberts, is a Junior at Henderson High School, and will be doing her Exchange year near Saint Marcellin (famous for it's cheese), France, which is in the southeastern corner, approximately 2 hours from Marseilles, on the southern coast. Hannah's family hosted our Inbound French student Fiona Baldinger,earlier in the year.

Ukambani, Kenya Water Project

Our Rotary Club participated in a water project in Ukambani, Kenya in conjunction with Nairobi South Club. To read more about this story. [ MORE ]

PDG Puru's Visit

Rotarians host PDG Puru from India on a whirlwind tour of several of West Chester''s projects: the Good Will Fire Company, Chester County Cares Food Pantry and the WC Area Senior Center. After a breath of springtime and visit to Longwood Gardens hosted by the Rotary Club of Kennett at Longwood, Rotarians from our district laud Puru at a dinner of Japanese food . [ MORE ]

Exchange Student Ski Trip

Francois took some video of the Youth Exchange students skiing at Bear Creek on Monday. It's not a bad effort, and has some funny shots. Video opens in YouTube. Enjoy!
CLICK HERE to view.

Exchange Student Holiday Gathering

Exchange students and friends from Westtown School gather to bake cookies and for a Holiday meal. ... [ MORE ]

Youth Exchange Student

Francois Dellis, our Youth Exchange Student from Belgium, dressed up for "Pirate Day" at East H.S. . He also used this costume to go Trick or Treating - his first Halloween experience, and reported that he only went for the treats!! Click on photo for larger image.

Medical Books Reach Nairobi

Rotarians Charlie Lyddane and Vic Abdala helped to coordinate the shipping of books to Dr. Michael Johnson in Kenya. They drove a truck load of medical books to Atlanta to be shipped to Nairobi. The books came from various sources including Chester County Hospital, Penn Medical School Library and Johns Hopkins University Library. We are happy to report the books did arrive safely. Dr. Johnson, shown in photo, is also working with our club on the Wikya-Kilalani Water Project for A Prepared Place.

2006 Gundaker Student Grants

The Gundaker Foundation of Rotary District 7450 is currently seeking applicants for grants available to college students who will be in their Junior or Senior year in September 2006, or who will be full time Graduate students. In recent years, grants have been awarded in the amount of $1,000 to $9,000. Eligible students must be a resident of District 7450 or attend a school in our District. Successful candidates will have outstanding college grades and must exemplify the Service Above Self ideal through active participation in Community service activities. Financial need will also be considered. Applications may be secured by visiting www.Rotary7450.org and clicking on Gundaker Foundation. Go to Foundation Programs and then click Undergraduate Grants. Each club is able to nominate two undergraduates and two graduate students. Applications must to be returned to Gary Hess by February 1, 2006. Feel free to call Gary with any questions.

Gerardo from Chili Arrives

Gerardo Soto from Santiego Chili arrived on July 15th for a short-term exchange student visit. For more information and photos, click here.

Rotarian's Daughter Wins International Poster Contest

Katie Metzker, daughter of Eric & Carol Metzker, was one of the top 34 winners in the world for Rotary's 100th year anniversary poster content. She was inspired by the initiatives of Rotary including trips to places like Africa and India to immunize children; and locally through projects like Operation Warm, a program that gives coats to children who need them.

The poster shows what Rotary does, but the contestants were not allowed to use words. The poster contest was for celebrating . Click on the poster to view a larger image of the winning poster.