This article has been reproduced from Rotary Club of Santa Barbara Sunrise’s website, edited by Karen Kawaguchi.
District Governors Elect Scaria Jose from Kerala, India and Shehzad Ahmed from Lahore Garrison, Pakistan, visit the Rotary Club of Santa Barbara Sunrise.
At the International Assembly held in San Diego in late January for District Governors-elect from around the world, RI President-elect Ray Klinginsmith announced the 2010-11 RI theme, Building Communities — Bridging Continents. The President-elect described how his 50 years of Rotary experience have contributed to his focus on communities at home and abroad. It is this new theme Building Communities — Bridging Continents that also summarizes a relationship with two District Governors-elect from India and Pakistan who visited District 5240 following the International Assembly. For it is through building communities and bridging continents that this friendship began and continues to thrive.
Building communities. It began many years ago when E. Russell Smith (RC Santa Barbara Sunrise) and DGE Scaria Jose (D3211, RC Changanacherry, Kerala, India) met and began working on their first matching grant wheelchair project. The wheelchair project sponsored by the Rotary Club of Santa Barbara Sunrise provides wheelchairs for the impoverished disabled in developing nations often surviving with post-Polio paralysis, living in the streets and dragging themselves on the ground. In 2005, E. Russell and four other Rotarians (DG Luz Maria Ortiz, Janet Napier, Connard Hogan, and Karen Kawaguchi) traveled to India and distributed a container of 550 wheelchairs in Scaria’s home state of Kerala, visited some of the communities and people who received this life-changing opportunity for mobility, and also participated in Rotary’s National Immunization Day (NID). It was during that visit when five friendship trees were planted in Scaria’s garden in honor of these five Rotarians. Since then, E. Russell and Scaria have collaborated on many wheelchair shipments to India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Iraq, and Pakistan.
Bridging continents. While attending the Rotary International Convention in Birmingham, England in June 2009, Scaria introduced E. Russell and DG Luz Maria to another Rotarian, District Governor-elect Shehzad Ahmed (D3272, RC Lahore Garrison, Pakistan). “You must meet my brother, my friend, Russell Smith, and do a project during your year as District Governor,” said Scaria said to Shehzad. And there began another Rotary friendship and the opportunity of building communities and bridging continents for thousands of people in need in Rotary’s newest District in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Following the International Assembly, Scaria and his wife Sumam and Shehzad and his wife Maimoona visited Santa Barbara. On January 26, 2010 two friendship trees were planted at the Rotary Club of Santa Barbara Sunrise Centennial Picnic Area at Elings Park in Santa Barbara in honor of DGE Scaria Jose and DGE Shehzad Ahmed. The planting of these friendship trees reciprocated the planting of trees in India and celebrated the ongoing relationship between three Rotary Districts and three nations.
Following the friendship tree planting ceremony Rotarians gathered for a celebration at the home of DG Luz Maria and E. Russell where an Indian oil lamp was lit, as it was in Kerala, to honor the friendship. Robert Dibley and Laurie Yttri, from the Rotary Club of Santa Barbara have also collaborated on wheelchair projects, were also in attendance. The visit also included official proclamations presented by Santa Barbara Mayor Helene Schneider to DGE Scaria, DGE Shehzad, and DG Luz Maria and E. Russell, a harbor cruise hosted by Stan Darrow (RC Goleta), and a tour of Direct Relief International (DRI), an organization that provides medical assistance to improve the quality of life for people affected by poverty, disaster, and civil unrest at home and throughout the world and with whom D5240 has collaborated on matching grant projects.
As many D5240 Rotarians may recall from their official visits from DG Luz Maria, she shared a moving story of an extraordinary Rotarian, an amazing collaboration between two Rotary Districts, and the friendship trees that were planted to honor it. This is the story of Scaria, Luz Maria and E. Russell.
Photo: (Left to right) Shehzad Ahmed, Gary Jensen, Maimoona Ali, Bill Abel, Janet Napier, Sumam Jose, Connard Hogan, Sally Torgeson, DG Luz Maria Ortiz, Robert Dibley (RC Santa Barbara), E. Russell Smith, Scaria Jose, Bill Boyd, Karen Kawaguchi, Diana Washburn, and Steen Hudson from Elings Park.
