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Springfield News-Sun reporter Tom Stafford has covered the area for more than three decades, telling unique stories about the community.
In the past five years, the Springfield Rotary Club has leveraged $60,000 in local pledges into more than $224,000 to give AIDS- and other orphans in the African nation of Lesotho a chance at a better life.
The first club-initiated international project in its 99-year history is “on a scale I could only dream about,” said Wittenberg University Professor Scott Rosenberg, who has done work in Lesotho since his Peace Corps service in 1989 and who has advised the club on its work.
Rotarian Pete Noonan said it all began in 2008 when "some of us said we ought to think about" having the club live up to its Rotary International name.
Noonan, Rotarian Cathy Crompton and Rotarian Lin Erickson, wife of then Wittenberg University President Mark Erickson, searched for options and heard about Rosenberg’s annual trips to Lesotho (La-SOO-too) with Wittenberg students.
With Rosenberg’s contacts and advice, “we realized we could hit the ground running,” said Rotarian Steve Neely, who helped to firm up the project with Andy Bell and Crompton under the leadership of then club president Charlie Patterson.
Bell describes Lesotho, which is surrounded by South Africa, as “a physically beautiful country,” which has the highest average altitude of any nation on earth and soaring needs to match.
“It’s a very poor country, full of orphans because of AIDS,” Bell said.
But having HIV has not kept them from possessing an enthusiasm he calls, without irony, infectious.
Even with HIV, “they’re so positive and thankful for all we do for them,” he said.
What the club was trying to do nearly quadrupled with the support of the late Hans Berkle, then governor of Rotary District 6670.
In a breakfast Neely said must have been one of Berkle’s most expensive, he first promised $15,000 in matching funds, then $25,000 and eventually came up with $75,000 in district funds, which, in turn, helped the Springfield club to get Rotary Foundation grants.
The original proposal built a dormitory for 56 children at an established orphanage in the village of Motsekuoa, added showers and modern bathrooms to replace outhouses that were among the worst Rosenberg had seen in his travels in Africa, then renovated an existing dormitory housing 142.
The project got a boost from shifting exchange rates, which made a dollar go farther; a good working relationship with Ashley Thorn, who owns a supply store near the orphanage; and Neely’s enthusiasm.
While many deserve credit for the Rotary success, Rosenberg said, “I have to say that Steve’s passion and how he’s embraced this has been amazing. Five years ago he didn’t know where Lesotho was. (It’s surrounded by South Africa.) Now he eats, breathes and sleeps it.”
The result is an orphanage that has expanded to meet the soaring number of orphans caused by the HIV crisis; an orphanage that mixes HIV-and non-HIV orphans, lessening the stigma that can come with isolation; and an orphanage that has a built-in health clinic to make sure the children keep up with their care.
“Having everything in one place like that doesn’t often happen,” Rosenberg said.
With the help of Rotary International and the Maseru Rotary Club in Lesotho’s capital city, the program has added Kick4Life, an AIDS awareness program built around soccer, and a project to help orphans learn the hospitality business by training them in a working bed-and-breakfast.
The Springfield Club has collaborated with Rosenberg and his students, with two Lesotho Rotary Clubs and forged a successful relationship with a Canadian nun, Sister Gisele, who operates a girls school, a housing program for the homeless and seniors, near the Maseru airport.
It also has developed the patience required in working on projects done at the pace described as “Africa time,” slower than those in this country are accustomed to.
Clark County youth also have been drawn into the effort through the Interact Club, Rotary’s club for high school students.
Those students have collected and packed books and clothing to fill an overseas shipping container that was delivered to remote mountain villages in Lesotho, including some afflicted with AIDS and leprosy.
Interact also had a fundraiser that paid for blankets for all the orphans at the school in Motsekuoa.
Clark County Interact students also helped students the Maseru High School form their own Interact Club, a club that is now raising chickens, pigs, rabbits and cows to help feed the orphans at their school.
Antigone Petroff, wife of Rotarian Sam Petroff, saw the program on a March trip to Lesotho, the first for both of them, and described it as “the most heartfelt thing.”
There have been other benefits: Rotarians brought the late Paul Morolong back for surgery at Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus, then established a scholarship in his memory; the Ericksons are trying to establish a program to bring a double orphan from Maseru High School to a two-year college in Bethlehem, Pa.; and Rotarians quickly raised $3,500 to provide a prosthetic leg for a Motsekuoa orphan who lost a leg in an auto accident.
Noonan said the reach overseas is not at the exclusion of local Rotary efforts.
“We do $70,000 (of work) a year here with people with disabilities and hand out a lot of money for scholarships,” he said.
“You sort of come to the conclusion that people are people,” he added. “And whether they’re in Lesotho or over here, they have challenges.”
Just as this has led club members to have a greater affinity and connection with people in Lesotho, the project has led Rosenberg to appreciate what people close to his home have been willing to do “for a place I care for so deeply.”
“There are wonderful people in this community,” said Rosenberg.
And the man who has been involved there for more than 20 years know the benefits that may come from the next generation of Springfielders’ involvement through the Interact Club.
Said Rosenberg, “You never know how this kind of exposure at 17, 18, changes your life.”
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