At our February 20 club meeting, Springfield Rotary Foundation President David Fowler and Katherine Turner, President of Baja Bridges and a member of the Rotary Club of Baja Mar, Mexico (image above) announced an exciting expansion of our partnership with Midwest Mission to distribute ready-to-eat meals in central Illinois, the Baja Peninsula region of Mexico, and Arizona (see Newsletter article below). The partners originally planned to distribute many of the meals to earthquake victims in Turkey, but the Turkish Consulate put a hold on the shipping of the meals from O'Hare International Airport. At our club meeting, Fowler and Turner distributed a February 16 press release from Midwest Mission describing an expansion of the project that includes sending meals and other supplies to Turkey. This article is paraphrased from Chantel Corrie's Midwest Mission press release. The image below shows Chantel and Dave discussing the project in the Midwest Mission Warehouse.
One of Midwest Mission's Partners, the North Star Foundation, recently reached out to see what Midwest Mission could send to Turkey for disaster relief. The North Star Foundation has a pre-existing relationship with the Turkish Consulate, which allows shipping containers sent via boat to enter Turkey, and they can also send supplies through Turkish airlines. North Star indicated that they needed packaged hygiene supplies including shampoo, toothbrushes, and towels for shipment to Turkey. Midwest Mission already creates and volunteers pack "Personal Dignity Kits" that include shampoo, deodorant, a tooth brush and tooth paste, a razor, a bar of soap, and a washcloth and hand towel for disaster relief efforts. Midwest mission agreed that they could provide Personal Dignity Kits, 2,500 emergency blankets, as well as tents for disaster relief in turkey.
The Rotary-Baja Bridges-Midwest Mission project team is now working out the logistics to also send about $250,000 worth of the ready-to-meals that were originally acquired through Baja Bridges and donated to Rotary for the meal distribution project. Project partners currently need to raise $126,000 to send one large shipping container of humanitarian aid to Turkey. Monetary donations will also allow Rotary and Midwest Mission to quickly buy supplies for kits and address specific requests from partners in Turkey. More shipments will clearly be needed as this project grows from a race to a marathon.
Financial donations for this project can be made to Rotary Club of Springfield Foundation, P.O. Box 615, Springfield, IL 62705 with notation that the funds are for the Disaster Relief Fund. Donors may also go the Midwest Mission Website (midwestmission.org/donate) to make donations.