Recent Programs - Honduras Project 2007

Hope in Honduras 2007

by Bob Augustin Jr.

     Rotarians Charles Brewer, Bert Spearman, Dean Erwin, Jim Sasser, and Rick Copeland and Honorary Rotarian John Pillow presented  the program at the February 16 meeting of the Lawrenceburg Rotary Club.  The Rotarians gave a report on the humanitarian aid project sponsored by the Lawrenceburg Rotary Club to provide electricity to the remote mountain village of San Juan Cito, Honduras.   The Rotary Club raised over $56,000 in monies and materials through its own fund raising projects, donations from other Rotary Clubs and private citizens, a Rotary District Simplified Grant  to aid the people of San Juan Cito.

     Virgil Crowder, Charles Brewer, Polly Marsh, Bert Spearman, James and Marilyn Johnston, Dean Erwin, Neal Beard, John Pillow, Jim Sasser, and Rick Copeland from the Lawrenceburg club, along with five members of the Madison, Alabama Rotary Club and one member of the Dyersburg, Tennessee Rotary Club, traveled to Honduras in late January of 2007 to bring electricity to the town of San Juan Cito.   The team contracted with a local electrical contractor to install over 3,000  linear feet of high voltage lines, transformers, street lights, and service drops.  The men of the town of San Juan Cito dug the holes for the power poles and help set them.   The Rotary team wired twenty-eight homes, two buildings at the church, and three buildings at the school, providing electricity to an entire town. 

            At the school in San Juan Cito, the Rotarians donated books and supplies, hung blackboards, rebuilt desks and chairs and made other repairs.  Rotarian Bert Spearman, who is also Treasurer of the Lawrenceburg Gideon Society, distributed Bibles in Spanish to the populace.  Team members also poured the concrete foundation for the first of ten dormitory buildings and wired the main building at the orphanage at San Marcos, a few kilometers from San Juan Cito.

             Each of the five Rotarians spoke on their personal memories of their experiences in Honduras.  The common denominator in each to their presentations was the people of Honduras and their unparalleled friendliness, their deep and sincere gratitude, and the unfathomable poverty in which they live. 

        Click Here    to view the photo album of the Honduras Project 2007.