Comstock Park Rotary Club Eyes New International Project

• 884 million people in the world do not have access to safe water. This is roughly one in eight of the world’s population. (WHO-UNICEF)

• 1.8 million children die every year as a result of diseases caused by unclean water and poor sanitation. This amounts to around 5000 deaths a day. (UNDP)

• The simple act of washing hands with soap and clean water can reduce diarrheal diseases by over 40%. (UNICEF)

• Providing water and hygiene education reduces the number of deaths caused by diarrhoeal diseases by an average of 65%. (WHO)

• Water-related disease is the second biggest killer of children worldwide, after acute respiratory infections like tuberculosis. (UNDP)

• The weight of water that women in Africa and Asia carry on their heads is commonly 40 pounds, the same as the average airport luggage allowance. (UNDP)

• Water and sanitation infrastructure helps people take the first essential step out of the cycle of poverty and disease

Todd VandenToorn

Just a few of these facts alone were enough to have the Comstock Park Rotary Club explore partnering with Living Water in order to provide water and sanitation skills to a poverty stricken community elsewhere in the world.  Club member Todd VandenToorn explained how Living Water International, addresses this most basic of needs by helping deprived communities acquire safe, clean water. Their goal is to substantially ease the global water crisis while addressing root causes such as injustice, oppression, and abject poverty. As this happens, communities and worldviews are transformed—both among those in desperate physical need, and among those who have been blessed with much.  The Rotary club is looking at raising enough funds to drill a new well, provide enough man power to help drill it, and provide training for sanitary skills. 

Members listened attentively

District Governor candidate Jim White from Lowell presented past President Sharon Steffens with several citations

Jim White also dropped off gift packages of salad dressing. Litehouse Foods is donating $40,000 of salad dressing product with 100% of the proceeds from the sale of product being used to implement Hydraid BioSand Water Filters in Honduras, Ghana and the Dominican Republic. This is is support of Rotary District 6290’s Thirsting to Serve project, and is its leading promotion and distribution initiative.