Rotary Community Heroes of Hope
Introducing "Rotary Community Heroes of Hope" - a podcast dedicated to showcasing the profound impact of Rotary in District 5330 and beyond. Join us as we explore the remarkable stories of rotary heroes and initiatives that are transforming communities and creating hope around the world.
Rotary Community Heroes of Hope
Uniting for Change: Rotary's Global Efforts in Supporting Honduras Communities
Can the spirit of collaboration and service truly transcend borders and transform lives? On this episode of Rotary Heroes of Hope, we share the awe-inspiring stories of Rotarians like Rafael Larios, Jim Weaver, and Melvin Tejada, who have united their local clubs across continents to bring crucial aid to Honduras. Hear how a devastating personal experience with hurricanes inspired Rafael to join Rotary, leading to powerful international partnerships that deliver vital supplies and services to communities in need. Together, these dedicated individuals show us the remarkable impact of compassion and teamwork, addressing essential needs from water and healthcare to the joyful laughter of children playing on a new playground in Yoro.
Beyond the projects, the episode highlights a lesser-discussed but crucial aspect of community support—the vital role retirees play when government support is lacking. By pooling their knowledge and resources, these retirees drive community-driven initiatives that make a lasting difference. Encouraged by the success of these efforts, Rafael considers spreading the word further through a district newsletter, signaling a ripple effect of positive change. With gratitude for all involved, we look ahead to future collaborations that promise to uplift and connect communities worldwide, showcasing the enduring power of service above self.
Welcome to the Rotary Heroes of Hope podcast. I'm your host, judy Zolfakar, proudly serving as the current District Governor for Rotary District 5330. Co-hosting with me is Jamie Zinn, our esteemed immediate past District Governor. Heroes of Hope brings to light the remarkable stories of impact from Rotarians within our district. Our episodes shine a spotlight on transformative community projects taking root in our region and extend their reach to initiatives making waves on a global scale. Each story is a testament to the profound influence Rotarians exert on the lives of individuals and communities we are committed to serving. Join us in this inspiring journey. Dive deeper into the world of Rotary with us and witness firsthand the extraordinary ways in which Rotary touches lives and reshapes our world.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Rotary Heroes of Hope podcast, where hope takes center stage and the heroes are the Rotarians among us turning vision into action. Today, on our Community Heroes of Hope, we have guests from literally all around the world, which never ceases to amaze me about Rotary and how we are a worldwide organization and how we can communicate and collaborate on projects around the world, and we're going to hear a lot about that today. So, jamie, are we ready to have a conversation with our team from Redlands? Rafael and his group, we are.
Speaker 2:Thank you and welcome.
Speaker 1:So, rafael, can you introduce yourself? Tell us a little bit about you and your club and why you're here today.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely. So my name is Rafael Larios. I'm with Redlands Sunrise Rotary out of California and we have a couple of members that were helping us in the Honduras August trip we got Jim. Jim can come on and introduce himself.
Speaker 4:Hello, I'm Jim Weaver. We've been. Our Rotary Club is Lake Wales Breakfast Rotary Club. We've been making trips to Honduras since May of 2013. We've made about 19 trips as of our trip last month, and we principally work right now in the area of El Progreso and a little oceanside city called Tela Awesome.
Speaker 3:And we also have Melvin. Melvin is the president of the Honduras Rotary Club. Melvin, you can introduce yourself.
Speaker 5:My name is Melvin Tejada. I'm the current president of the Lula Rotary Club and also former president from Air Force Rotary Club. I've been 10 years being a Rotarian and working with Jim Weaver for a long period of time and trying to develop projects in Honduras, you know, with our club.
Speaker 1:Awesome, well welcome, and we also have Josue correct from Honduras.
Speaker 6:Yes, hi, my name is Josue Gavre. I'm from the Rotary Club of Uluwatu. I'm the international director for the club and I've been in the Rotary movement for almost 18 years. I started out as a Rotaract. Now I'm part of the Rotary Club here.
Speaker 1:Awesome, great. So, raphael, can you tell us how this collaboration came together? How do we bring somebody from Redlands, california, together with Florida, together with Honduras?
Speaker 3:So back in 2022, our family business is a Honduran restaurant and Honduras had just got hit with the hurricane back-to-back two hurricanes devastated the country. We ended up putting a foundation together to collect some donations. We ended up sending seven containers to Honduras. It was supposed to be a quick turnaround trip. You know go out there, get the donations out. A two, two and a half week trip ended up turning out to be a two and a half month trip and on our last container, we exhausted all of our funds, all of our funds, and we didn't know what to do. We had just run out of funds. We couldn't get the container out. We didn't when we needed to get these containers on, give these donations out.
Speaker 3:Um, while we were in Honduras, there was tons of people that wanted to help, but with that same help came a lot of shady people and we just didn't. We didn't know what to do. So we someone mentioned to us you know you should work with the Rotarians. So we reached out to a Rotarian in Tegucigalpa, which is a capital of Honduras, and at that moment he already had helped us out with transportation funds and some other stuff. So they were exhausted as well. So then he put us in contact with Melvin when he was in the Progreso Rotary Club and at that point we reached out to Melvin and this was my first first time ever working with Rotary. We reached out to Melvin and said hey, melvin, you know, we're here, we got a container that we need help getting out. Can you help us out? And within a couple of days, melvin, you know, got back to us and got the container out and we started working together.
Speaker 3:Like I said, I didn't know what to expect. This was my first Rotary experience ever. After working together, I had the best experience ever. I mean, I loved it so much that I came back home and joined Rotary. So I joined Rotary because of Melvin and the experience I had in Honduras with them and, like I didn't mention this earlier, but I've only been in Rotary for about a year and a half now. I'm an international chair as well for my club and I'm just ready to go. I'm ready to hit, I hit the. I really just love the feeling of helping other people. Service above self right.
Speaker 1:So Raphael, you're a classic example of people that are out in our world every day, that are wanting to serve, have the heart for service and just maybe hadn't found Rotary and found a great place to be able to do that service at a global level.
Speaker 3:No, and I do love it. I mean, I do find myself putting on my pin on for no random reason, hoping that someone would ask me hey, why do you have that on, you know? And then having to kind of spill them and guide them in the direction of joining Rotary. But, like I said, I did fall in love with Rotary and I fell in love with the people, I fell in love with the purpose and, like I mentioned, I ran into Melvin in Honduras. That's how that spiraled into working with him.
Speaker 3:And when I joined Rotary, the first thing that they asked me was like, what would you like to get out of this?
Speaker 3:I said I want to help people. Specifically, I want to help people international, whether it's in Africa, you know, whether it's in Jamaica, whether it's in Honduras, and I have home ties to Honduras, my mother's Honduran we, obviously we run a Honduran restaurant and that was one of the reasons why we focused on Honduras. So as soon as I joined, I called Melvin hey, melvin, you know I just joined Rotary. Hopefully, you know, we can work something out and right away he gave me an idea of a project that working on some machines that they had to bring down from, I believe, new York or Florida to help with open-heart surgery, and that was overwhelming. I'm like, oh, I can't really. I'm like, oh, I can't. I had just joined literally a month in and I had asked him and I didn't know what to do. Six months later I get put in international chair. I reached back out to him and he says well, we got these projects that we're working with with Jim in Florida.
Speaker 1:So at that moment I'm like.
Speaker 3:Can I get Jim's information? I reached out to Jim. Jim says he's. He said well, we're leaving in three weeks to Honduras. Do you want to come by Get your passport ready? No, well, he just told me. You know we've got a trip in three weeks. Do you want to come by? I mentioned it to a member at my club the following week. When I show up, everyone's saying congratulations, rafael, we heard you're going to go to Honduras.
Speaker 1:I'm like holy crap Be careful what you ask for.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so that was two weeks in. I'm like, oh, so I started talking to my wife, started talking my job. I'm like, hey, I'm gonna go to honduras. I kind of committed myself to this. So within two weeks I found myself in honduras and you know, we found ourselves looking at different projects and, like I said, it was an awesome experience. I can't wait to do it again.
Speaker 3:Um, I was telling my wife when I got back, I I just like I felt like I still have more to give. I feel like I still have more to do. I feel like I, when I got home, I still I don't know I had this energy that I just still needed to be out somewhere doing something. But yeah, jim can speak a little bit more about the projects. We saw the projects that were proposed.
Speaker 3:But that's how I ran into Melvin, that's how I ran into Rotary and that's the position I find myself in now. I recently had been telling my our club president, beth, that I'm not really a person that finds myself in a position where I like to speak out in public, that I like to do presentations. But I, when I joined Rotary, they gave me an option of a noon or they gave me an option of a morning and I said I'm definitely not a morning person, so I'm going to join the morning one, because I'm trying to push myself out of my comfort zone and every time I get asked to do anything I just say yes, even though I kicked myself and I hate myself for doing it, because I'm just not ready for it.
Speaker 3:But that's the purpose of why I also joined. I want to just get myself out of my comfort zone, but, like I said, that's how I ran into them.
Speaker 1:That's amazing.
Speaker 2:So tell us about the project.
Speaker 1:Maybe Jim can tell us about the project I was going to say.
Speaker 2:Jim, you're going to tell us about the project.
Speaker 4:Well, our effort on this last trip was threefold. First of all, we wanted to see projects that we had done. We wanted to check on them. What's the level of completion? Are they totally complete? And they were. Then we wanted to see projects that were under completion or that we have a continuing relationship with, such as an orphanage near El Progreso. And then, lastly, we wanted to see projects to evaluate, to see if we might do brand new projects, and so we ran the gamut. We found what we had done, what we were in the process of doing and what we wanted to do in the future. So we had multiple projects. They ran all the way from uh, furnishing schools, completing classrooms, their computers. Uh, there's a college that needed air conditioning and we put some units into that. There we saw.
Speaker 4:A major project for us was at the fire department in el progreso. You may not be aware, but the fire department furnishes a different function in Honduras than it does in the United States. If there's an automobile accident, you call the fire department, you don't call the police. That makes sense, and it is a focal point for water. Water is such a precious commodity in Honduras and a lot of it is not usable. Well then, you have major institutions such as the hospital in El Progreso that does not have dependable running water, and so the fire department assists in getting water to the hospital, so we're vitally involved in the hospital there in El Preso as well.
Speaker 4:So another project that we saw was a school that we're very close to in Agua Blanca Sur. We had a computer project there, a lab, but we also decided that we wanted to help out and put a partition in between a major, a large classroom and separate the functions from sort of a home ec portion versus working in the kitchen and teaching kids how to do culinary skills. So that was a major deal for us. We also put some money into a health center there. The hospital does not have overnight accommodations, so you're often better off going to one of these community health centers. So we did some improvements in the vaccination area of that Wow you got a lot of projects going on down there.
Speaker 4:Oh, so 18 projects. That's amazing, yeah, and we were exhausted in three and a half days.
Speaker 1:I can imagine that's a lot to do in a short period of time. So, melvin, how important is this collaboration with these clubs in Florida and clubs in California? How does this help you and what does this collaboration mean to your club and your district?
Speaker 5:What does this collaboration mean to your club and your district? Jim, you forgot to speak about the $3.6 million that we are importing equipment from New York. Remember, for equipment hospitals.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yes, thank you. Yes, yeah, yeah, I've been. Actually I've been've been a a dot connector, you know, for Honduras, and my whole life in Rotary has been to connect, you know, all these clubs to come to Honduras and collaborate with our, especially with El Progreso City. We have a huge need. So, and besides that, I'm the executive director of a nonprofit organization in Honduras. We do iCare. I've been in this field for a long period of time, so I think that the cooperation between foreigners clubs and that helps a lot. It helps in a bigger way. You know you see many clubs in Honduras doing. You know small activities, but when you realize that abroad, outside that, there's a lot of money that Rotary Foundation is giving away, you learn how to connect all these people and try to do something bigger, like Water Project, for instance. That is a huge need in Honduras. I've learned how to determine and how helpful it is to connect people like you guys. That's why I work in this way in Honduras.
Speaker 4:Melvin is like the grandmaster in the circus he has a whip and Melvin's in the center, but he doesn't have a whip.
Speaker 2:Keeping you all in straight and narrow right, yeah. So, raphael, tell us there's so many projects, fantastic ones, that you've listed out. Tell us what project specifically Redlands Sunrise is. I am assuming you've got one going that you are the international host club for.
Speaker 3:So we were able to partner up with the Ulua Rotary Club and Lake Wells to be able to see a project. Throughout the tons of projects we saw, I mean we, these guys, landed at 1030 by 12. We were out on the road seeing products. We didn't make it home till like 8 PM. So I think he's you don't understand the amount of work they put in in three days and the amount of effect that Rotary has in Honduras. It's not just creating an atmosphere that helps educate, that helps comfort people while they're giving birth or whatever it might be, or providing water for the fire department or providing water for the hospital. The effects that this is having on the community out there is extreme. It's creating resources. It's creating an environment where people can grow, educate themselves. I mean the community, the computer products that they have put together is amazing. Some of these kids are coming out of those schools and they're able to put their own shops to help repair computers, to help repair projectors. So you know there's just tons of stuff that they're doing out there. I think Jim did a little sold himself a little short, but he's doing. The work that they're doing out there is amazing.
Speaker 3:Like I said, I fell in love with what they were doing out there. I came back praising what they did and one of the opportunities that they presented to us that we saw that we, you know to get our feet wet was we put a playground together. I don't want to butcher the name. Maybe Josue can help me out with this. Josue, the school that we did in Yoro, the elementary, for the playground. How do we pronounce that?
Speaker 6:It's the Proeco, proeco.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would have definitely butchered that. So Proeco was the elementary school that when we arrived, we arrived in a bus. We arrived to kids just waving American flags and a hundred flags and they just they, right as soon as we got there, they pressed play on the music and they started dancing and say welcome, welcome, and they had snacks for us. They had families there and it was a project where where the goal was to help elementary kids, students where they had the school. I mean, all they were asking for was a playground. They needed more than that. All they were asking for was a playground. They needed more than that, but all they were asking for was a playground, a playground, because all they had was just grass and a little bit of cement patch. They wanted to put the playground on the cement patch so that the kids have some entertainment and they can develop those physical education needs that they have. Aside from that, that school also had I mean, there was a classrooms that were perhaps, I don't know 10 by 20, with 30 students in there, two grades, one teacher, but that's all they were asking for at the moment. So we were able to come in as a Sunrise Rotary and participate in that program and put that playground for those kids.
Speaker 3:As soon as we got there, I leaned over to another. I'm like hey, how do we get involved? And she's like speak to Jen. So I go to Jen, how can I participate in this program? He's like go for it. I mean, as soon as I walked in, I like maybe like 10 minutes in, I just I felt the need to help. I thought I said to myself well, I'll commit to this, whether we do it one way or another, we're going to with this, and just said go. He just gave me the paper and we said okay. And then we said we're committed to it. And when we announced that we were going to do it there, and then the the principal, she just started crying. The kids were celebrating. Everyone was like excited with emotion, uh, to see that we were going to put the playground. Um, but I mean, uh, jose can pause, speak a little bit more to the effects that we have that Rotary had in those districts, in those areas too.
Speaker 6:Yes, Thank you, rafael, and that's particularly something I was looking into this week to the, the impact that the help that the Rotary Clubs in the States give us, the amount of impact it has is even bigger than what a Rotary Club in the States believe it is. I just so happened to contact a club up in Denver and I started telling them you know, you look, we usually have a lot of projects here. Would you like to pitch in one? We have a various amount of projects and they were like sort of shy and they were telling me, like yeah, but we can't give more than $1,000. Like maybe, I mean, I know $1,000 is money, but the amount of money it represents here in Honduras is.
Speaker 6:And I'm going to go back to another story. In the February trip that Jim and the guys from Florida made, there was this small community here that they only got water once a week because they live on the outskirts of the city and to be able to solve this they needed a well to be drilled. And then, um, I remember jim asked like how much is? Like, is it so expensive that it that it can be done? And then they told us, like all we need is 800. I think it was 850 or 900 to be able to make the well and have water 24 hours a day. So that's, that's the amount of impact that a thousand dollars can have. You know down here Like you can change hundreds of lives with a simple gesture of gifting a thousand dollars.
Speaker 1:That's the true power of Rotary, right? And then I love the energy that you have, raphael, for doing these projects, and I hope that you're bringing your fellow Rotarians along. So tell us a bit about how somebody can get involved with the Sunrise Redlands Rotary, how they can come alongside with you and work on these projects together.
Speaker 3:Definitely. If anybody wants to have some breakfast at our meetings, I would invite you.
Speaker 1:It's good breakfast, I'm allowed to say.
Speaker 3:We definitely invite all of you to come check us out.
Speaker 3:We have dinner on Wednesday mornings at 7 am. It's an amazing venue. I would recommend that you guys all check us out whenever you have time or any visiting Rotarians. We'll welcome you as well. But if anyone's interested in joining our Rot rotary, I would definitely reach out to us. You can Google us, revellyn Sunrise Rotary, or you can reach out to me directly, rafaelalarios, at gmail, and we can put something together where we can work together as a club or as a community to see how we can impact either local or international lives, because that's the goal.
Speaker 3:The goal is my. Our goals should always be how can we help? And I I stand behind that service above self. I love that and I love the idea of what that represents. Matter of fact, we have a gym, has a grant put together for another well project that that is supposed to impact a large community. I don't know, jim, you want to speak to that, but it's a well that's being put together that still needs some funds. I know other community, other Rotary clubs, other districts can participate as well. Maybe they can address some of their DDF funds to it. I don't know, jim, you want to speak a little bit towards that project. But yeah, we're looking for some more support in that as well.
Speaker 4:Yes, thanks. We're trying to put a well in a community called Las Brisas, the breezes. It is a very core community. There are a lot of squatters in that community, and so it is a community desperately in need of attention. A community desperately in need of attention. It doesn't get a lot of communication with the Honduran education department. That school had not been visited in 12 years, the teachers had not been paid in six months Wow. And it hadn't had running water in four months Wow.
Speaker 4:So it was neglected, it was abandoned, and you've got this community of hundreds of people that are very interested in education and in getting their children educated, and so a well does a lot of things for a poor community. People get well, their stomachs don't hurt, they go to work, they're productive, they can go to school. So a well is a vital part to any community. So we have a well that we're planning to put into Las Brisas. We are, I'd say, 25% along the way to do that, and there may be additional funds that we can get. Rafael was talking about perhaps finding some DDF assistance for us, and, before I close out my remarks, I think every trip ought to have somebody like Rafael on it, because Rafael is the Energizer bunny. I mean, he is all over the place. He is excited about whatever it is we're doing. He wants to do more.
Speaker 2:I would concur with that, wouldn't you, judy?
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, Absolutely.
Speaker 1:So, a few thoughts. If you have a global grant for any of these projects and this goes for you, melvin and Josue as well if they're a global grant that are already in process, make sure you get them to Rafael so that he can share them with our district, because we have many of our clubs. Again, we have 60 clubs in our district that are looking for projects to fund. So if it doesn't have a global grant attached to it, still get the information to Raphael. There's other opportunities and other things that clubs would like to participate in. So we are here to help you. We love that. This collaboration. This is the perfect example of you know what Rotary does and the impact that we can make around the world. So we're so excited to connect with you today and look forward to doing more projects with you in the future.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you very much. And since we do have some worldwide listeners, maybe Jim and Melvin can share how folks can get in touch with your clubs as well to participate in this. So, jim, why don't you share that? And then we'll move to Melvin and Josue.
Speaker 4:Well, I'll be specific about our project. It's the GG Global Grant 246-1947. That's very specific. That's the grant Las Brisas. Well, Perfect.
Speaker 2:And what about if people would like to be Rotarians In Florida? Uh-huh.
Speaker 4:Well, we welcome all comers. The Breakfast Rotary Club Lake Wells Breakfast Rotary Club.
Speaker 1:We can Google it and find it, and we have three major emphasis in our club.
Speaker 4:Two are camps for underprivileged boys and underprivileged girls, and then there's Honduras. So we're kind of a three-legged stool, and my portion is the international dimension.
Speaker 2:Well, that's a great stool to have, wouldn't you say, Judy?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I really think that's you know. A lot of times people are like well, we want to do stuff in our own country. Well, rotary does that. We do a lot of local projects, support a lot of local things and we have the opportunity to support others around the world. So it is a really good balanced stool of giving back to our communities. So, melvin and Josue, how would people get in touch with you to work with you and to support your clubs and or your projects?
Speaker 6:So you can find us on Facebook as the Rotary Club of Ulua. We're also on Instagram and we currently don't have a website, but you guys can reach me at gaviriehosue at gmailcom. I can give you that email because I know it's a little tricky and this way we can talk and any amount helps. Trust me, as I said, any amount of money comes a long way here. Rafael can be a witness to this. A playground, I mean. I can't recall how much that project was, but you know it's small things that people usually take for granted and it's a day, a normal day, day to day thing comes a long way here because there's a lot, a lot of poverty here in our country. As Jim said, governments don't usually support our communities. So it's our job as retirees to look out for these communities and try to help out. So you can just reach us through Facebook or by email and we'll be glad to present you with any type of projects that you could help us with.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, I encourage you, rafael, to maybe write an article so that we can spread this around to the district with our district newsletter, and thank you everyone for joining us today. This has been a great conversation and I look forward to talking more about the next project that you go on.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you so much, and we're here to support you in any way that we can, and we look forward to the next projects and getting it throughout our district. I think we have a lot of clubs that would be happy to help. Yes, absolutely so, thank you all.
Speaker 6:Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1:So that wraps up this episode of Heroes of Hope. We are so happy that we have an audience out there listening. We want you to subscribe, share and tell your friends about the Rotary Community Heroes of Hope, because that's how we get the word out about the impact we're having in this.