Did You Know that Rotary has a theme, every month?  Our theme this month of September is Basic Education and Literacy.

In 2001, Rotary International was embracing its Future Vision Plan which promoted larger, sustainable international projects that impact greater numbers of people in all facets of their lives.

Through Sandy’s guidance and hard work, our club worked closely with the Rotary Club of Calcutta, Metropolitan to successfully be approved for the Model Village project.

With $6,400 from our club (matched to about $12,500 within Alberta) and $12,500 from the Calcutta club, a total of $25,000 of seed money produced another $300,000 of funds through all final levels of matching grants.

Four separate but closely located villages in India of about 53,000 people in total were affected in a life-altering way. Huge improvements were made in literacy programs, sanitation, health and infrastructure. All of this was done in the context of an interconnected model village.

For its part, our club’s contribution was more closely associated with a primary school in one of the villages. It took until about 2009 for the entire project to be completed.

Rotary International was so impressed with the project that it commissioned a video called “No Small Plans.” Sandy and our club received considerable publicity as did his counterpart with the Calcutta club. The best part was that it showed the Rotary world just how successful a project like Model Village could really be and inspire others to do similar work.