MP Evening Rotary raises funds for ventilators in India

MT. PLEASANT - For Mt. Pleasant's Evening Rotary Club, serving communities around the world is just part of what they do.

'When you see you can do something to help, you realize there's a big need and if you can help with that, it's very gratifying to be a part of making a difference,” incoming club president, Cal Litwiller said.

Litwiller explained the club has just completed several projects with the Rotary Club of Rajkot Midtown in Gujarat, India, with which Evening Rotary has a long-standing relationship.

'Rotary has what they call a global grant program and basically what it does is it pairs a U.S. Rotary Club with an international Rotary Club and both organizations can donate to whatever the project is that they identify,” Litwiller explained.

The club member said donating through Rotary International is especially beneficial because funds generated from a club for a project gets matched twice - once by the club's district and again by the Rotary International Foundation - before reaching its final destination.

'It many times comes out, you put a dollar in and it gets matched with four dollars by the time it's all done. It's really a good program,” Litwiller said

To date, Mt. Pleasant Evening Rotary and Rajkot Midtown have joined forces on at least four projects, which have included relief following the 2001 Gujarat Earthquake and more recently, the purchase of computers for public schools in the region.

In total, the computer project raised $89,000 for 8 schools in Gujarat, supplying 30 laptops per school, including servers, routers and headphones. The project began in May of 2018 and saw groups from Mt. Pleasant, Burlington and Fairfield collaborating for the project.

'They've had [the computers] since about fall of 2019. It's intent was to help proficiency in math and English. What Rotary International requires is a needs assessment to make sure you're addressing a need that the local people think is necessary. That's what these local people did,” Litwiller added about how the club came up with the project.

For Litwiller and his wife, the collaborations have led to relationships with Rotary members from India. In particular, the couple have worked closely with Vikram Sanghani, a member of the partner club.

'What's neat about it is it becomes a connection between clubs and between people,” Litwiller added.

Now with the coronavirus pandemic, Evening Rotary is again collaborating with their partner club and have finished another project that will help fund 86 ventilators for 12 government hospitals across northwest India.

'Rotary has made it known that they will expedite any project that relates to COVID-19,” Litwiller explained.

The club member said he received an email from Sanghani the first week of April about a project to purchase ventilators.

'His area is an area of 61 million people and in that area they had 2,800 ventilators. The Indian government had designated a certain company and they were supposed to develop ventilators and that company told Rotary that they would sell those ventilators to us at cost of materials only,” Litwiller explained.

The project was approved within two weeks and the project ultimately raised $120,000.

'In a recent email, it sounds like it'll move within the next week or two and it's addressing a need that everybody knows is there,” Litwiller added.