Posted 5:34 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 1, 2011
The Holmen Area Rotary Club started a partnership with the La Molina Vieja, a Rotary Club in Lima, to bring water filters to Peruvian families who live along the river. UW-L Alum Dean McHugh, ’89, a member and past president of Holmen Rotary, recalls visiting the project.
[caption id="attachment_571" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Holmen Area Rotary Club started a partnership with the La Molina Vieja, a Rotary Club in Lima, to bring water filters to Peruvian families who live along the river."]
[/caption]One half of children under age five who live by the Rimac River in Lima, Peru suffer from chronic diarrhea. This and other diseases are a result of contaminated drinking water.
That’s why the Holmen Area Rotary Club started a partnership with the La Molina Vieja, a Rotary Club in Lima, to bring water filters to Peruvian families who live along the river.
UW-L Alum Dean McHugh, ’89, a member and past president of Holmen Rotary, recalls visiting the project with four fellow Rotarians in early 2008. There he met several residents including a Peruvian woman with five children who received a filtration system. As they stood inside her home, a dirt floor surrounded by sheets of cardboard and tin, they knew the difference it made.
“I was the only one in the group who spoke Spanish, but I didn’t need it,” says McHugh. “You could hear in her voice and see on her face how appreciative she was.”
[caption id="attachment_574" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="The Holmen Area Rotary Club has provided about 750 Biosand Filters to families along the polluted Rimac River."]
[/caption]Holmen’s Rotary Club started the partnership with the Rotary Club in Lima, Peru in 2007. Today the club has provided about 750 Biosand Filters to families along the polluted Rimac River. Other Rotary clubs in the U.S., Canada, Italy and other places across the world have joined the partnership and collectively clubs have delivered about 4,000 filters.
The filter, three feet tall and a foot wide, is made of concrete. Gravity forces polluted water through three layers of filter aggregate. The filters cost Rotary $100 each, which includes pre and post water testing, and training in proper usage and maintenance. They are primarily for household use but also serve schools, orphanages and churches.
Some of the members will be returning to visit in Jan. 2012. When not involved in water sanitization efforts, McHugh is president of McHugh Excavating in Onalaska.
Want to help?
Anyone interested in learning more about the Rotary project or contributing, can contact Dean McHugh via the Holmen Area Rotary Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/groups/40421468749/) or at McHugh Excavating at 608.783.1404.
[/caption]One half of children under age five who live by the Rimac River in Lima, Peru suffer from chronic diarrhea. This and other diseases are a result of contaminated drinking water.
That’s why the Holmen Area Rotary Club started a partnership with the La Molina Vieja, a Rotary Club in Lima, to bring water filters to Peruvian families who live along the river.
UW-L Alum Dean McHugh, ’89, a member and past president of Holmen Rotary, recalls visiting the project with four fellow Rotarians in early 2008. There he met several residents including a Peruvian woman with five children who received a filtration system. As they stood inside her home, a dirt floor surrounded by sheets of cardboard and tin, they knew the difference it made.
“I was the only one in the group who spoke Spanish, but I didn’t need it,” says McHugh. “You could hear in her voice and see on her face how appreciative she was.”
[caption id="attachment_574" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="The Holmen Area Rotary Club has provided about 750 Biosand Filters to families along the polluted Rimac River."][/caption]Holmen’s Rotary Club started the partnership with the Rotary Club in Lima, Peru in 2007. Today the club has provided about 750 Biosand Filters to families along the polluted Rimac River. Other Rotary clubs in the U.S., Canada, Italy and other places across the world have joined the partnership and collectively clubs have delivered about 4,000 filters.
The filter, three feet tall and a foot wide, is made of concrete. Gravity forces polluted water through three layers of filter aggregate. The filters cost Rotary $100 each, which includes pre and post water testing, and training in proper usage and maintenance. They are primarily for household use but also serve schools, orphanages and churches.
Some of the members will be returning to visit in Jan. 2012. When not involved in water sanitization efforts, McHugh is president of McHugh Excavating in Onalaska.
Want to help?
Anyone interested in learning more about the Rotary project or contributing, can contact Dean McHugh via the Holmen Area Rotary Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/groups/40421468749/) or at McHugh Excavating at 608.783.1404.