Charleston Vandalia Rotary Club

Signature Projects

Rea of Hope House

The Charleston Vandalia Rotary Club adopted Rea of Hope House as one of our signature projects because it was needed in the community and it had leaders willing to go the extra mile to see it to completion.

Rea of Hope Fellowship Home is dedicated to providing a home for women 18 years of age and older, who are recovering from drug and/or alcohol addiction. Their primary mission is to provide a safe and positive home environment where mutual support and caring will be provided as a link in the recovery process.

Rea of Hope will celebrate two years of operation in May, 2007. Since opening dozens of women have been served. All residents are actively working or seeking employment, or educational opportunities. Currently the house is full, serving 10 West Virginia residents.

Feel free to stop by the home on Charleston's East End for a tour. For more information or to make a contribution, contact Rea of Hope Fellowship Home: 1429 Lee St., E., Charleston, WV 25301; or (304) 344-5363.

FINCA Village Bank

We are more than a club; we are also a bank. The Vandalia Rotary Club paid $5,000.00 to fund a village bank in Haiti through the Foundation for International Community Assistance, or FINCA, a nonprofit international organization that provides financial services to the world's poorest entrepreneurs.

FINCA offers loans, at market rates of interests, to low-income persons to provide them the capital they need to begin small businesses. The loans are borrowed, invested and repaid, after which the money can be used to stimulate another fledgling business.

Village bank members form groups to manage and collect repayments on the loans, and decide on how to reinvest the income. The borrowers guarantee one another's loans, giving them a stake in the success of all involved. More about the organization can be found at www.villagebanking.org.

Queretaro Water Project

Projects sometimes come to us out of the blue. We were privileged to have an unexpected visit from Jorge Mejias, a member of the Club Rotario de Queretaro, Mexico in 2006. Señor Mejias explained how his club was supplying water to villages in his district, and we decided to help.

In many villages, women carry water great distances for drinking, washing and cleaning. The Queretaro Rotary club helps villages to set up basic water delivery systems. The Queretaro Club organizes villagers to raise funds for and construct a tank pedestal and piping system for a gravity water system. The club purchases the tank to hold the water and helps set up a system for maintaining the water system in the future. The Vandalia Club has provided financial assistance for this worthwhile project.

See pictures of the projects or visit the Queretaro Club web site.

Dictionary Project

The Rotary motto is "service above self" and to embody that principle the Charleston, Vandalia, South Charleston and St. Albans Rotary Clubs worked together to provide a dictionary to each third grader in Kanawha County. The project was a success on many levels. The children seemed genuinely excited to receive the dictionaries - for some, it was the only book they have ever owned. The clubs got a chance to work together on a project, reinforcing our common Rotary purposes and goals. But perhaps the greatest effect was on those club members who delivered the dictionaries to third graders. Those who participated universally acknowledged receiving much more out of the project than they put into it.

Paul Harris Fellowships

One of the conditions of joining the Vandalia Rotary Club is that each member will make an annual contribution of at least $100 per year towards becoming a Paul Harris Fellow. Paul Harris Fellowships, named after the founder of Rotary, are awarded to each person who has contributed at least $1,000 to the Rotary Foundation. The money is used for Rotary projects, including Rotary's primary goal of eliminating polio worldwide.

Salvation Army

The Salvation Army runs a summer camp, Camp Happy Valley, for children who otherwise would be unable to experience the fun of a week at a camp. The Vandalia Rotary Club contributes to the operation of the camp. At Christmas, club members serve as bell ringers, and the club contributes money to the Salvation Army Gift Giving Program.

Rotary Scholarship

The Vandalia Rotary Club has funded a scholarship program that will help a student in the southern West Virginia area to attend college. The scholarship fund will provide at least $1,000.00 each year to a student who meets the criteria that will be established by the Club's Board of Directors. The scholarship will be administered by the Kanawha Valley Foundation, but scholarship recipients will be chosen by the Club Board. An application form will be available on the club website in the near future.

Immunization Project

Young adults sometimes fall through the cracks of our health care system. That is particularly true of those living at or near the poverty line, who don't qualify for public assistance after the age of 18, and whose jobs may not provide health care benefits. The Vandalia Club has obtained a Blane grant from Rotary International, and has tripled that with its own funds, to pay for immunizations by the University of Charleston and the Kanawha County Health Department. Persons who could not otherwise afford vaccinations will have them paid for by the Vandalia club.