Sixteen members of the University High School Humanities and Technology Club spent the better part of Saturday, March 3rd, at their school assembling four Solar Suitcases, in conjunction with the Rincon Rotary Club Foundation, and then assisted in the installation of these items at the Casa de Elizabeth Orphanage located in Imuris, Sonora, Mexico on March 17th. “We have previously placed Solar Suitcases in Kenya (2016) and Peru (2017) as part of our International Service projects and in keeping with the Rotary International motto of ‘Service Above Self,’ said Stuart Katz, Chairman of the Rincon Rotary Club Foundation.
“This year we opted to stay closer to home so that we could involve more of our members in the project,” continued Katz. “We received financial assistance from the Albertsons Companies Foundation as well as the local Rotary District and these funds definitely allowed us to complete the project.”
There is a long history of the Rincon Rotary Club and the Club Rotario Nogales working together across the border to benefit the lives of not only children but adults as well. “We did a project with them about five years ago where we assisted in the installation of drinking fountains are five of the schools in Nogales and before that we provided inhalation equipment to the Nogales Fire Department as well as automated external defibrillators) to six of the Cruz Rojo units in the State of Sonora, Mexico,” related Wendy Hobbs, Foundation Treasurer.
The Solar Suitcases were obtained from the We Share Solar organization and Alan Jensen, an Associate Member of the Rincon Rotary Club, is the instructor who led the assembly and installation project. “This is part of the S.T.E.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) program now being conducted in the schools throughout Tucson and most of the country,” said Jensen. “To watch the students just take on the instruction booklet and the almost 65 pieces that are part of each suitcase is remarkable.”
