Helping the Children of Playa del Carmen
Founded on April 24, 2012, Rotary Club of Playa del Carmen Seaside was conceived as a way to encourage fellowship and provide opportunities for meaningful and productive service within Playa del Carmen’s English-speaking community. Chartered by Rotary International on September 6, 2012, Seaside Rotary now has 25 members, each dedicated to upholding the Rotary ideal of “Service Above Self”.
Seaside Rotary’s core mission is to help improve the daily lives and prospects of the children within its service community, Solidaridad. The club activities are centered on fundraising and volunteer support for well-established, local charitable organizations that have demonstrated a direct, measurable and positive impact on the children and families within our area of service.
The club strives to provide assistance to community-based, non-profit, volunteer, public service, or charitable organizations with programs that benefit children and youth through family support, education, improvement of infrastructure, and access to health benefits within the communities of Solidaridad.
Since 2012, Seaside Rotary has contributed grant monies, scholarships and charitable gifts to support many local organizations and service groups including:
The KKiS Project
KODOMO Center for Autism
DIF (Desarrollo Integral de la Familia)
Good Intentions
El Hongo Community Center
A Pasión Arte Teatro
Casa Yoliguani
Leyendo
Centro Atención Integral PDC
Friends of Puerto Aventuras
Transformar Educando AC
Ajal Comunidad AC
Contando con un Amigo AC
In addition to raising funds and distributing grants, the membership of Seaside Rotary is also active in the community, participating in a variety of initiatives.
The members have worked together with Leyendo, repainting and repurposing an unused schoolroom to create a cheerful library stocked with books for children in a local public school. Seaside Rotary has worked together with the local Municipal government to administer Hepatitis testing and coordinated with Global Dental Relief to bring local children dental checkups and procedures, free of charge. We have also helped DIF to collect Christmas gifts for needy children and distribute food baskets and essentials to at-risk families during the coronavirus crisis.
Fulfilling Rotary’s commitment to clean water and sanitation, Seaside Rotary has installed clean water filtration systems in several schools outside of Playa del Carmen so that children and families have access to safe drinking water. The club is always looking for new locations to install these life-sustaining systems and welcomes help from Rotary Club partners from around the world to help support these efforts.
The club members run an ongoing project, Kicks4Kids, which collects new and gently used sneakers and distributes them to children who cannot otherwise afford them. We invite friends and visiting Rotarians to bring shoes and sneakers in their suitcases each time they travel to the Riviera Maya to help support this program.
Seaside Rotary also maintains an inventory of medical equipment such as crutches, wheelchairs, walkers and shower chairs, which are delivered to low-income hospital patients who are being released with no resources so that they may recuperate more comfortably after an illness or injury.
One of the most important ongoing community initiatives is Feeding the Future, the Seaside Rotary Feeding Program in Torres de la Paz. Here, the club supports a small school that provides nutritious and filling meals to 95 children six days a week. In this remote settlement where most of the children are living in households with little or no income, these are often the only meals they will regularly receive.
In 2014, with the support of several Rotary clubs in the United States and in coordination with Project C.U.R.E., the Rotary Club of Playa del Carmen Seaside delivered of over 500,000 USD worth of essential medical equipment and supplies for the newly built Red Cross Hospital.
The success of this project encouraged club members to “Dream Big” and in 2017, Seaside Rotary embarked on The Big 6. Our most ambitious project to date, “The Big 6” would bring over 3 MILLION USD worth of medical equipment to six hospitals within our Rotary District 4195. In collaboration once again with Project C.U.R.E., our international Rotary partners and with a Global Grant from the Rotary Foundation, we have already been able to provide over 1.5 MILLION USD worth of equipment to hospitals in Quintana Roo, Campeche and Veracruz. We are looking forward to completing the final three deliveries this year.
The Rotary Club of Playa del Carmen Seaside conducts weekly meetings in English and welcomes both men and women. The membership convenes for lunch meetings every Tuesday from 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM at Restaurante La Vagabunda 38 in Playa del Carmen. Visiting Rotarians and anyone curious about Seaside Rotary is welcome to join us. For more information, email info@playaseasiderotary.org.
