High School Interact Clubs And Rotary Club Of La Jolla Join Forces To Build 21St House In Mexico For Needy Families

By Sally Fuller (LJ Light Article) –

Volunteers from the Interact Club at La Jolla High and The Bishop’s School were joined by members of La Jolla Rotary to build the 21st home for an impoverished family in Tijuana.

You may also read the article HERE on La Jolla Light’s website

The home design is 16×20 feet with a small sleeping loft. The homes are unheated, have no running water and no electricity.

 The non-profit Project Mercy manages all the client-side considerations. Clients are evaluated based upon their family needs, legal rights to the property, and other considerations. To date, Project Mercy has arranged construction of more than 1,500 homes in Tijuana neighborhoods.

The total expense is $4,600 for the building materials, the cement foundation, building supervision and two or three local framing carpenters. An outhouse with a septic tank is an additional $900. Funding comes from generous Rotarians, community members and Interact Club fundraising.

Volunteers need to be in good health and must possess a passport or green card. The build day begins with a rendezvous at Mission Bay Visitor’s Center at 5:30 a.m. The home-build begins at 7:30 a.m. and ends by 4:30-5 p.m. Due to unpredictable border waits, return to the visitor’s center ranges from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. At the end of the day, everyone is tired but happy!

Some people ask is it dangerous? Mexico is a developing country with well-publicized problems and attendant risks to visitors. Construction work is potentially dangerous and precautions are taken to reduce the likelihood of injury.

Plans are to build again in early March and late June. To join the effort, visit rotarycluboflajolla.com and click on “contact us.”

Oct. 28, 2014 Speaker: Carmen Chavez, Casa Cornelia – Central American Refugee Children

Beginning last year and specifically in the last few months, there has been an overall increase in the apprehension of Unaccompanied Children from Central America at the Southwest Border.  You may have seen it in the news. An experienced attorney, whose organization provides needed services to these children going through the legal process, will provide an informational overview and background on the issue of children traveling alone to the U.S. from Central America.  Come learn about this current issue regarding unaccompanied children at our border.

Biography

Carmen Chavez was born and raised in San Diego. She graduated from San Diego State University with a B.A. degree in Political Science. While in college she became very involved in community service, especially in the area of human and civil rights.  She continued her dream to service the community through public interest law by attending Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, CA graduating in 1999.  While at Loyola she participated in Moot Court, Public Interest Law Foundation and La Raza Law Students Association.

After passing the California Bar Exam, she began working at Casa Cornelia Law Center fourteen years ago and currently serves as the Executive Director overseeing a staff of 17 and a volunteer base of over 300.  Casa Cornelia is a non-profit law firm in San Diego providing quality pro bono legal representation to victims of human and civil violations eligible for humanitarian protection under the law.

She started her service at Casa Cornelia as the recipient of the Equal Justice Works Fellowship, which allowed her to provide legal services to indigent victims of abuse and those seeking refuge from persecution and torture in their home countries.  As a Staff Attorney and then Associate Director, she handled VAWA, U Visa, T Visa, NACARA, Naturalization, and asylum cases affirmatively and defensively (Immigration Court and Board of Immigration Appeals), Special Immigration Juvenile Status (SIJS) for children and has argued successfully before the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals several times.  During this time, Carmen has given numerous presentations and trainings to the legal community, social workers, law enforcement, students, community groups, faith community, parents and clients in San Diego County and elsewhere. She is a member of the American Bar Association, Lawyers Club and the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association.

September 2, 2014 Speakers: Sarah Adams & Colleen Howard, Voices for Children

One of the first CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) organizations of its kind to be established in the United States, Voices for Children (VFC) is a private, nonprofit organization serving San Diego County. It transforms the lives of abused, neglected, and abandoned children in foster care through a network of volunteers who advocate for the rights and well-being of foster children in the courtroom, in schools, and throughout the community.

After graduating from VFC’s “Advocate University,” CASAs become sworn officers of the court and are assigned by VFC to advocate on behalf of children who have become dependents of the San Diego County Juvenile Court system. CASAs lead their case children through the complex, confusing foster care system, striving for resolution in a way that best serves the needs of each child. They are fact-finders, reviewing all records, and interviewing teachers, doctors, and others with special insights about the cases. They speak in court on behalf of their children, offering objective recommendations to the judge in terms of each child’s particular needs. Most important, they become a supportive friend and mentor to their case children, in many cases, the only adult in these young lives that are not paid caretakers.

By all accounts, CASAs make a significant difference in the lives of their case children. Foster children with CASAs are healthier and happier than those without CASAs. Foster children with CASAs do better in school and are more likely to graduate than those without CASAs, and are less likely to become delinquent or abuse drugs. In addition, foster children with CASAs get more help while in the system and are more likely to find safe, permanent homes.

Click HERE to visit Voices for Children’s Starry, Starry Night benefit page. Buy tickets and support foster children of San Diego.[divider]

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Sarah Adams

Sarah Adams is the Director of Volunteer Recruitment for Voices for Children, working toward their vision of providing a volunteer Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) for every child who needs one. She has worked on nonprofit volunteer programs for over 13 years, spanning the gamut from small grassroots efforts to large structured programs—proving to her that there is nothing volunteers can’t do! Sarah serves on the Volunteer Administrators Network Council and leads trainings on all things volunteer-related.

Outside of work, Sarah is a Master’s student at USD, volunteers for Surfrider Foundation, and serves on the board of HandsOn San Diego. [/one_half] [one_half_last]

Colleen Howard

Colleen Howard is retired from a long career in sales in the financial industry sector. She moved to La Jolla eight years ago from Northern California, although she was “born and raised in Texas.” Her son is now 29 years old and getting married next summer in La Jolla at the Seaside Forum. In May of 2012, Colleen became a CASA and has been with the same child, who lives in a group home, ever since. She writes, “Playing tennis, golf…and bridge…is great; however, giving back to others in a meaningful way helps balance me. I’m excited to share my experience of being a CASA with everyone in hopes of inspiring others to add this opportunity to enrich their lives as it has mine.” [/one_half_last]

May 13, 2014 Speaker: Kelsey L. Dowdy – Climate Change in the Arctic: A Rotary Scholar’s Research

Kelsey L. Dowdy, B.A. is an incoming PhD graduate student at UC Santa Barbara and a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellow. Her research is focused on ecosystem ecology and climate change, specifically how carbon cycling and microbial communities in soils and waterways respond to environmental change, and how these changes affect larger ecosystem processes and feed back into the global climate system.

As an undergraduate studying Biology at UCSB, she received the Florence Riford Scholarship for Science three times and used this funding to pursue studies and field research early on in her undergraduate career in extraordinary places, including the cloud forest of Costa Rica, the Northern Greenland desert, and twice to the Siberian Arctic tundra and larch forests.

January 28, 2014 Speakers: Rotary 4-Way Test Student Speech Contest

[custom_frame_right shadow=”on”][/custom_frame_right] The Four-Way Test is a nonpartisan and nonsectarian ethical guide for Rotarians to use for their personal and professional relationships. The test has been translated into more than 100 languages, and Rotarians recite it at club meetings

The purpose of the 4-Way Test Speech Contest is to help youth, Rotarians and the community-at-large to more completely understand, encourage, and foster the principles of Rotary and the objects of “Service Above Self.”

Today, Rotary Club of La Jolla plays host to local high school students who will seek to express the ideals in our 4-Way Test. The topic for the speech is to be the student’s choice, however, the speech must show clearly the practical application of all four points of the Rotary Four-Way Test.

Of the things we think, say or do:

1. Is it the TRUTH?
2. Is it FAIR to all concerned?
3. Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
4. Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?