Logan Rotarians enroute to Mexico

Sixteen members of USU's Rotaract Club will spend spring break building an adobe brick home in Agua Prieta, Mexico. They are accompanied by members of the Logan Rotary Club. 

Sixteen members of Utah State University’s Rotaract Club, the collegiate affiliate of Rotary International, will spend spring break (March 3-8) in Agua Prieta, Mexico, building an adobe brick home for two women who use wheelchairs. The home will be modest in size, totaling just 260 square feet, but Sherman Sanders, a member of the Logan Rotary Club, said it will change its occupants’ lives.

“This is going to be a castle for these ladies,” Sanders said. “They kind of live in a shack, dirt floors. This will be easier for them to roll around, be more warm, more secure.”

Agua Prieta is 1,000 miles away from Logan, located just over the Arizona border near Douglas. The Rotarians partner with the Wings of Angels Foundation to coordinate the annual trip, and 2017 marks the group’s 15th spring break service project in the impoverished Sonoran region. In addition to building the home, participants will also deliver an ambulance.

“The ambulance is a unique thing,” said Sanders, “because they have hardly any ambulances there. The nearest could be hundreds of miles, and so they’re really excited to get it.”

Candace Berthong, Logan’s Rotary Club president, said the ambulance was donated to the club by the Cache County EMS Authority. The Rotary Club invested several thousand dollars to refurbish the vehicle and was able to equip it with $4,000 worth of medical supplies, purchased for just $700, from Globus Relief in Salt Lake City.

Berthong played a key role in coordinating the ambulance’s donation to Agua Prieta and will be visiting the area for the first time. She looks forward to serving with the students throughout the trip’s duration.

“I just think it’s powerful to be able to help,” she said. “I think the whole trip is changing lives.”

Several participants, like Sanders, who is traveling with his son, Michael, and his daughter, Ashley, have visited Agua Prieta multiple times. Sanders appreciates how deeply the opportunity impacts the members of the Rotaract Club. Having raised the funds to build the home, these service-minded students will now see the project through.

“The thing about this trip,” he said, “is it’s not so much what they do. It’s the experience they’ll bring back. They’ll see poverty, they’ll see the outhouses, the dirt floors, houses with no windows—they’ll have a wood crate for their window. I mean, it’s life-changing for a lot of them. It builds character for the rest of their life.”

“This is not just a vacation to have some fun on spring break,” Sanders said. “It’s a lot more than that.”

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