District Governor Jeremy and Michelle Hurst official visit to Eleuthera

Posted by Jacqueline Gibson

Wonderful weekend with President Robyn and the very active and engaged board and members of the Rotary Club of Eleuthra. Satruday started with a breakfast board meeting at the club's meeting room at PP Sean's home (the ground floor is purpose-designed for Rotary meetings and fellowship!). The mimosa's and conch stew with Johnny cake went down a treat! The club is organised and focussed as testified by the wide and ambitious range of projects taken including help in coordinating construction of two fire stations, support for the SEEP programme, Ocean Hole environmental clean up and a very effective Alternative Sentencing Programme for youth called 342, where they get paid for 3 days work in return for putting in 2 days of community service such as those mentioned above.

The club designs intelligent projects such as the Casuarina pine removal pilot programme to stem coastal erosion, which provides work to local men and the timber from which is use...d to make benches and signs.

DG Jeremy was delighted to hand over a US$5,000 District Grant to be used for the club's breast cancer screening programme, which is now planned for massive expansion through a very substantial proposed US$800,000+ Global Grant to buy a mammography and ultrasound machine to increase early detection of breast cancer in a community which has a genetic proprensity for the disease with around 24% of its women being affected as opposed to 4% globally. The club is very adept at partnering and their unofficial motto "The Future of Eleuthra is in Rotary's hands" shows the significance and prominence of Rotary in this 10,000 population island.

A highly enjoyable evening saw the club and its active Rotaract and Interact Clubs all receiving the 2012/13 RI Presidential Citation and the day ended as it began with great fellowhip at a bbq with dancing and some fine aged malts!See More