Jenny Hetherington, one of two Medicine Hat Rotarians who participated in the 2016 Los Amigo's project last April, gave a presentation about the project.

 

The Project is organized by the Rotary Club of Lethbridge Sunrise, and has grown from 3 vehicles in 2011 to 8 vehicles in 2016.  There were 16 drivers in the vehicle convoy, and over 4000 volunteer hours to acquire and prepare the vehicles.  As the convoy moves south, there are hosted along the way by Rotary Clubs in Kingsman and Tuscon, AZ.  There are a total of 7 driving days, however one is quite short as that is the day the equipment passes through the Mexican border.  This past year, due to some paperwork errors, both in dates and vehicle registration numbers, as well as some uncleared late donations the border crossing took 17 hours.

 

 

Club members may remember that Jenny wore a GPS unit which allowed those following the group to track their progress.

 

Jenny spent some time describing the presentation ceremonies of these vehicles to the respective user groups.  The homes for these donated vehicles are decided by the Rotary Club of Mazatlan, who does most of the legwork on that end of the journey.  The impact of the vehicle, both from a safety perspective for the Fire or EMS vehicles and mobility for those handicapped accessible vehicles is very significant and the donations make the local newspaper and are highly appreciated.  In closing, she emphasized that our club got good value for the investment of $5,000.