October 30, 2014 Meeting of West Bay Rotary
Patrick Manley of Masons on a Mission spoke to the club. He specializes professionally in wood-fired ovens, and has built them throughout the midcoast at places like The Edge and Cafe Miranda. Masons on a Mission was founded in 2000.
Worldwide, there are millions of families that burn open fires in their homes for heat and cooking. This is very dangerous, and being unventilated, they are also very unhealthy. In Guatemala, they have built over 100 vented stoves at a cost of $150 for materials, with volunteers going to build and teach the locals how to build these simple, efficient wood-fired stoves. His next annual trip will be his 16th. He raises money year-round and takes a group of up to 30 volunteers that works in groups of 3 to build each stove over 5 days. They build as many as 40 stoves per trip. He usually has 20 repeat volunteers, including honors-program college students.
Family members help with mixing the mortar sand and mud at their homes. The bricks are local wood-fired bricks. She showed slides with images of the January 2014 trip.
The mission trips have also resulted in a generous volunteer helping a child with cerebral palsy with surgery and rehabilitation in the US.
Skip Day is organizing the club's support for the Camden Area Food Pantry. Donations are welcome in November of both food items and funds. The items listing will be published for the club in the bulletin.
Next Wednesday, November 5 at 7:00a at the Anderson Inn at Quarry Hill the board meets. All members are welcome.
There was good participation at last weekend's Polio Walk.
Next week's speaker of West Bay Rotary will be Alan Hinsey the new station manager at the VSTV.
Doug Sensenig was the speaker at the Knox Suntrise/Union Rotary club. Next week will be a club assembly and Veteran's Day breakfast, Tuesday at 7:15a at the Masonic Hall in Union.
Donations to Hospitality House in honor of Tom Tarbox are being suggested.
5th Annual Frozen 5K on December 6 at Pt. Lookout, 9a registration and 10a race up Pt. Lookout. Tom Chester is looking for volunteers, runners, sponsors. There is a Facebook page for the event.
The Annual holiday celebration will be at Cappy's on Tuesday December 9, 2014 and is being organized by Barbara Heard. Save the date, details to come.