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Rotary International organizes districts together in
groups of 12 or 13 districts called a Zone. Usually two
neighboring zones meet together annually and hold training and
informational sessions.
The twenty-four Rotary Districts in Zones 29 & 30 decided to
work together in the 2006-2007 Rotary year to fund a dairy project in
Romania and a water project in
Niger.
The dairy project was a critical follow up to a 3-H
grant done recently between the Rotary Club of Little Rock, Arkansas and
the Rotary Club of Cluj, Romania. The 3-H grant provided dairy
cows to rural farm families in cooperation with Heifer
International/Romania. Soon after, Romania joined the European
Union, which requires that all dairy milk sold for human consumption
must be collected by machine and refrigerated from the time of
collection until it is processed.
Matching Grant 61683 funded the purchase of 24 milking
machines and 4 cooling tanks which will allow the farmers to continue to
grow their dairy businesses. The official project Rotary Clubs was
Cluj Napoca, Romania and the Rotary Club of Maumelle, Arkansas, D6150.
Twenty-one Rotary Districts in Zone 29 and 30 provided funds, as did
Romania District 2241.
Rotarians invested $52,000 via our Rotary
Foundation in this project. |
Rotary Club of Maumelle, Arkansas President John Craft cutting the
ribbon at the dedication ceremony in June 2007.
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D-6150 DGE Bob Warner visited Romania for the dedication events.
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D6150 DGE Bob Warner, D2241 DGE Ovidiu Cos, Cluj Napoca Rotarian Ovidiu
Spinu and D6150 Rotarian Garry Parrish with the Spacic family in June
2007.
The Spacic family has been featured in The Rotarian
magazine and the Rotary Video Magazine. They have two cows now and have
passed on 2 to new project partners. From their new resources coming
from the milk production they have repaired the hole in their roof that
allowed their house to flood in every rain storm. Also have been able to
lease about 5 acres of pasture land for the cows to graze and also
contribute back some milk to the partner institutions to improve
children's nutrition. The original 3-H grant continues to bear fruit.
There are now 200 profitable farm families benefiting from that project.
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Project beneficiary Ioan Cornea watches as his cows have a
drink of water after returning from a day in the pasture. |
The new milking machine is used to collect the milk.
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The milk is much cleaner and is collected faster than when milking by
hand.
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Ioan takes the reshly collected milk to the central collection point.
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Milk is measured, so each farmer is given proper credit for their
production.
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The fresh milk is placed in the cooling tanks.
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The milk is tasted for safety and cleanliness.
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Ioan washes the milking machine, getting it prepared for the
morning milking.
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