Charitable organization makes presentation to Rotary
By GREG COLLINS

Patty Toronto, Catherine Wood, and Karen Moss with President David. They are from a Rotary club in Oregon.

Publicity Director

Three women with Bright Futures Foundation, a charitable organization formed by a Rotary Club in Grants Pass, Oregon to bring health care and education to Nepal, were guest speakers for the Kilgore Rotary Club on Wednesday.

Catherine Wood, the president of the foundation, was joined by Patty Toronto and Karen Moss to speak about their work in Nepal, work that has been going on since 2000.

Bright Futures Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded on personal connections and the belief that the volunteers can work together to provide a meaningful change for people living in far less abundant circumstances.

The Grants Pass, Oregon Rotary Club joined with a Rotary Club in Katmandu, Nepal to find an abandoned building in the mountains and renovate it with a Rotary International and Rotary District Grant of $50,000. The building allows a severely depressed area to have a full-time medical clinic and school. The health clinic runs on $24,000 per year (this includes paying a doctor and buying medical supplies) and the school students are assisted by scholarships to attend the private classes.

The Nepal public education system is severely lacking, so the students who enter this school sign a contract to make good grades, to not violate or harm women in any way (these horrendous acts are acceptable in Nepal) and to use their education to find ways to help others in their area.

The vision started by the Grants Pass Rotary Club eight years ago has grown to a program of 18 scholarships for Nepali students and to support health care in a rural clinic serving 50,000 people.

In 2007, Bright Futures Foundation adopted a new project to help a day care center is Botswana expand its program to care for and educate AIDS orphans.

The women are taking their message of care around the country. They pay their own expenses on their yearly trips to Nepal to check on the clinic and school, and they pay their own expenses when they travel to talk about the facility. That way, over 95 percent of the money raised by fund raisers and charitable contributions each year go to the school and clinic.

In other Rotary news, the installation of Sammy York as Rotary president is set for June 24. Steve Brown's installation as district governor is June 28. Both events are scheduled for Meadowbrook Country Club.

This coming Wednesday, Nick Holda, back from a year as an Ambassadorial Scholar in Scotland, will be giving the program.