September is the start of spring is here on the Gold Coast.
The Rotary theme for this month is: Basic Education and Literacy. A theme of growth, development and hope.
                   
                       
On the Rotary International website is a very interesting article about this, which shows the impact that Rotary has in all corners of the world, an excerpt is below, once again showing Rotary at it’s best.
The Guatemala Literacy Project has worked for 25 years to improve reading rates. In 1997, Joe and Jeff Berninger, brothers from Ohio, were volunteering as English teachers at a Guatemalan school that had no books.
 
                                            
The two launched a project to solve that. The day the books arrived, there was a huge celebration, and a Rotarian dentist volunteering nearby heard the noise and asked what was going on.
“He said this would be a perfect project for Rotary,” says Joe Berninger, now a member of the Rotary Club of Pathways, Ohio, which coordinates the project
Rotarians in Guatemala helped develop reading programs in other schools, and since 1997, The Rotary Foundation has helped fund the literacy project with 48 grants totalling $6.5 million. Nearly 800 clubs in 90 districts have participated, making it one of the largest grassroots, multiclub, multidistrict projects in Rotary. The initiative also receives support from the U.S. nonprofit Cooperative for Education. "There's a lot of push and drive and enthusiasm that comes from Rotary," says Howard Lobb,
Cooperative for Education's director of partner development, also a member of the Ohio Pathways club.
“The GLP is the gold standard of Rotary projects”  2017-2018 RI President Ian Riseley
 
Link for more information: https://www.guatemalaliteracy.org/ and
 
Source: Rotary International and Guatemala Literacy Project Website.