Our club has 2 grant applications in-process:
- Dave Newman is working on a District Grant “LIFT – processing center update and rent” for supporting a community in Nicaragua that is paired with a Global Grant that Stillwater Sunrise is working on for the same community. There has been a significant development related to the government of Nicaragua requiring Rotary International to work with the Department of Interior. Rotary International will not agree to those terms. In addition, Rotary International has decided in order to comply with sanctions applied by the U.S. Government to Nicaragua it is not possible for The Rotary Foundation funds to be sent to Nicaragua. Our district and our club are in the midst of figuring out what these means to the overall LIFT project, projects that are supporting other efforts in Nicaragua and to the folks in Nicaragua that are relying on commitments we have made.
- Don Martin is working on a Global Grant “Ear & Hearing Care (EHC) for Liberia” which will provide instruments for 7 hospitals in Liberia for hearing testing. The fundraising portion of the Global Grant was met in October! That is a milestone! We can thank 20 clubs that pitched in from $100 to $5,000 in support of this grant. The next step is authorizations by the presidents of the Host club in Liberia, and the International club (us), as well as DDF authorization from the districts. Once that is accomplished, (finally) The Rotary Foundation will review the proposal that was approved by our district back in August.
We continue to evaluate requests for funding. At our meeting in October, we considered:
- A water project in Kenya from Forest Lake
- Additional funding for an ESL project from Columbia Heights – Fridley
- The Guatemala Literacy project from Rice Lake (Wisconsin) for $500
The first 2 projects were already fully funded by the time we offered support, so we have withdrawn our offer of support.