Rotarians Jim Pokorney and Jim Braucher will be receiving Paul Harris Recognition today for major contributions to the Rotary Foundation on behalf of this project.

Jim Pokorney and I worked together at an aid station for the JJ Bike Tour last year and he read a version of the project proposal. When he learned that we were having a hard time getting over a hump in fundraising, the next we heard was that he had decided to pledge his Paul Harris contribution to the project. This was a real momentum builder for us as well as a morale booster. Jim has also offered to share his connections with the biomedical world with us, in the event that the Yendube Children’s Hospital has further needs for its laboratory.

Jim Braucher made his own Paul Harris contribution in a typically low key way, and I only learned of his generosity weeks after the fact, when I spoke with Bob Will about the difficulties in raising money for the lab project. When I asked Jim what motivated him to help out, he said that he realized that we all take a lot for granted when it comes to health care. He just wanted to do his part to give the same health care options to others that we all benefit from on a daily basis.

Whether it was magic, or just coincidence, after our two Rotarians stepped up to the plate, we got two calls from local Rotary Clubs in Farmington and Faribault, letting us know that they’d help out, too. By then, we were on a roll and things were looking much brighter. The fact that the two Jims pitched in and helped out when the outcome was still in the balance made all of the difference in the world.

Nalongue Bomane Cogan will also receive Paul Harris Recognition. Nalongue has been very supportive of all of the time and money that has gone into the work on this project. She’s a nurse and puts a lot of love, caring and hard work into everything she does. She was the first woman from her village to receive a high school degree, and has helped to support the studies of her cousin, who is the second. A lot of you in the club know her better than you know me, from her work at the Northfield Care Center and Northfield Hospital’s Long Term Care Unit. As Ole once said about Lena, "I love her so much, one time I almost told her so".

We'll also award several PHFs to people in absentia, including the following:

1. Arsene Tindame, current president of the Dapaong Rotary Club in Dapaong, Togo. Arsene will appear in the slide presentation later. He is one of the founders of the new Dapaong Rotary Club and will be the first Paul Harris Fellow in the club.

2. Sister Genevieve Carpentier, director of the Yendube Children's Hospital in Dapaong, Togo, which is the recipient of the equipment purchased for the serology lab. She has worked in Togo for many years, has learned to speak Moba and has done a wonderful job of networking with local staff and international benefactors to keep this clinic in a strong position to help the children of the region.

3. Dr. David Bradley and Ms. Wendyl Wason, currently of Michigan. Wendyl is a former Peace Corps volunteer from the Dapaong area of Togo. She and her husband David were working at an international school in Saudi Arabia when they learned of this project in 1998. They decided that a gift through Rotary would help the most people with their savings. The fact that their gift was matched by the Rotary Foundation, increasing its impact, also was very important to them. Their donation was $5,000, which was matched by $2,500 from the Rotary Foundation, amounting to a total contribution of $7,500 (ie. more than 20% of our total funding). It was their generosity that allowed us to also recognize Arsene Tindame and Sister Genevieve, since we sent this contribution in the form of a directed Paul Harris donation, earmarked for the Togo project. David has recently written to tell us that he has had serology issues of his own, and is battling leukemia. Because of excellent health care, he did get an early diagnosis and the prognosis is encouraging. Instead of withdrawing their support when they learned of his health programs, they renewed their determination to support this cause, since they felt strongly that their own fortune in having an early diagnosis should be shared by others.

4. Finally, we also have one special Paul Harris Fellowship in memory of Raphael Bilimpo Bomane, Nalongue's youngest brother, who died of hepatitis B in 1996, right before his senior year in high school. He was the top student in his class at the Lycee of Bassar in northern Togo and had dreams of completing his university studies in the United States. Instead, he died of an illness that shouldn't have been fatal. It was his death that led us to put all of these years into this project. His Paul Harris Fellowship, which is a special version in memory of loved ones, will now hang in the hallway of the new serology laboratory at the Yendube Children’s Hospital in Dapaong.

While the people mentioned above were the key players in making this project come true, especially in financial terms, there are many others whose help has been invaluable:

1. Support was received from the Rotary clubs of Farmington (Dave Armbrust) and Faribault (Kurt Fischer), as well as the Evanston Lighthouse Rotary Club of Evanston, Illinois (Larry Shawver/Richard Moenning). Since their contributions were matched by both their districts and the Foundation, their gifts had a huge impact.

-Farmington Rotary Club: $500+$500 District Share+$250 Foundation match of club gift+$500 match of District Share = Total: $1,750

-Faribault Rotary Club: $1,000+$1,000 District Share+$500 Foundation match of club gift+$1,000 match of District Share= Total: $3,500

-Evanston Lighthouse Rotary Club: $2,000+$2,000 District Share+$1,000 Foundation match of club gift+$2,000 match of District Share= Total: $7,000

As you can see, a gift from any Rotary club qualifies for matching grants that will eventually more than triple it, so this is a great way to leverage our money for worthy causes.

2. Districts 5960 and 6440: As you can see in the formula above, gifts from clubs are matched at 50% of the cash donation. The District Share grants are matched at 100%, so the Rotary districts played a huge part in this project's success to date. Also, the district World Community Service committee, which has members from each club in the district, was very supportive of our project and gave valuable advice as we filled out forms, took the project to the District Governor and did the other things that have to be done before the project moves on to the Rotary Foundation in Evanston. Dave Newman, the WCS District Chair, and Jingle Mahan, the resident District wizard both put a lot of their own time and energy into helping us to reach our goals and gain District support.

-Members of the World Community Service Committee: Bill Cupp, Jerome Appledoorn, Alene Fink, Jeanne Daniels. Everyone read drafts of this project and added comments and feedback and suggestions. For that matter, the WCS committee had to approve the project before it could go to our club’s board for adoption.

-The Jesse James Bike Tour is our main fundraiser and helps with everything that we do! Just about everyone pitches in to help on this event.

-The Turkey Run, organized in principal by Robert Bierman last year, was the major club fund-raiser for our project and contributed about $2,500 for the Togo Lab Project. Since this was matched by the District and the Foundation, the eventual impact was huge! This is where our club donation, which was matched by the District and then matched again by the Foundation was drawn from, in its majority.

-Joe Hargis worked hard on a press release for this project for the Northfield News and took my 10,000 words of verbiage and whittled it down to a lean, mean and effective press release that people would actually have time to read. Hats off to Joe for his help! As you can see, he didn’t have time to work his magic on THIS document.

-Keith Anderson pulled all of the strings he could find in order to get the Turkish Rotary Club that we partnered with on our old beekeeping project to submit their final report. It took a lot of work, but they did come through and this cleared the way for our Togo project to go straight to the Trustees of the Rotary Foundation for approval. Otherwise, we might still be waiting for that old report. Mange tusand tak to Keith!

-At the very end of last year's fundraising efforts, we were within sight of our goal and President Pat reached into his pocket and helped (with an undisclosed, but significant, amount). This gift got us across the finish line, at the same time contributing enough to help us to dedicate the last Paul Harris Fellowship in memory of Raphael Bilimpo Bomane, which is not something that we had thought that we could afford to do.

-This project was originally proposed way back in 2000, but it took time to get everything in place. Begun under the rule of President Bob Will, carried forward by President Rick Esse, and eventually launched and funded during the reign of President Pat O'Neill, it will be during the reign of President Brett Reese that the Yendube Children's Hospital will finally benefit from everyone's hard work. Hopefully, the reigns of future leaders will see still more wonderful collaborations of this sort in the years to come. There are already projects waiting in the wings.

We have all heard of the concept of six degrees of separation. In bringing together the funding for this project, several Northfield residents helped out with valuable contributions. Each of them connects in some way with Rotary as well as with people who worked on the Togo project, but the bottom line is that they stepped forward and did something to help:

-Meg Otten, Mills Town Trail Committee and regular volunteer for the JJ Bike Tour. Meg helps to run the admissions office at Carleton, but found time to help us in this project as well, both with moral support and a generous check.

-Craig Rice and Ameeta Sony. Craig works at St. Olaf College and has flirted with the idea of joining Rotary but cannot often get away at lunch time; Ameeta's father is a former President of his Rotary Club in Chiang Mai in Thailand. Ameeta taught as a visiting professor at St. Olaf a couple of years ago, before joining the Rice family and bringing her energy to the Northfield community, where she has worked to organize cultural gatherings (the Thai Songkaran-New Year- ceremony of this year is just one example) and has lent her services to the care of elderly residents at the Northfield Care Center. Craig and Ameeta made a generous contribution to the project.

-Family members of Rotarians, some who contributed money (mothers, sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts), others of whom (esp. our kids) just put up with having a little bit less extra pocket money around the house, while that money was being donated to help strangers living thousands of miles away.

There are some members of this and other partner clubs who are interested in visiting Togo this fall and taking part in the National Polio Immunization Day (NID) and visiting the Yendube Children's Hospital in Dapaong.

We have been invited by the President of the National Polio Plus Committee for Togo, and have been asked to help with fundraising associated with their Polio Partners project to help with their "cold chain", which helps them to conserve the polio vaccine as it moves around the country and in and out of areas with electricity. The District has agreed to send a copy of our email to the presidents of all of the Rotary clubs in our district, in order to see if other clubs would like to help with fundraising and also send members to the NID.

At present the estimated dates for this trip are November 15-25, though the NID may be as late as the first week of December. This can be finalized once we have the exact dates for the immunization day, which will be within two weeks.

The cost of a plane ticket is not cheap and this will be a trip that each traveler has to cover for her or himself. The best estimate at this point is that a ticket will cost $1,500 to Accra (Ghana), which is within three hours of Lome, the capital of Togo. A direct flight to Lome, Togo looks to be more in the range of $1,750. Those who have frequent flyer miles may be able to use them for this trip. Expenses in Togo should be modest, partly because the cost of living is low, partly because we will be lodged and entertained by Togolese Rotarians. The main expense may be gifts for friends and family members.

There are immunizations required before travel to Togo, including Yellow Fever, Hepatitis B, as well as some malaria medication. We will make sure that everyone knows what shots and pills to get before we leave the USA. Information can be found at the State Department website at www.state.gov

If we get together a group of travelers, we will certainly make this trip and vaccinate some children and see the serology laboratory and meet the Togolese Rotarians who have worked with us on this effort. Maybe we'll even see other possible projects for the years to come. The magic of Rotary is often in the connections that we make with people around the world, so this could be a great experience.

We also have some interesting World Community Service projects under consideration. We should have plenty of momentum to carry us to the Rotary Centennial and beyond!

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