Founders of Project Amigo Address Redondo Beach Rotarians

(REDONDO BEACH) May 8, 2013 -- Project Amigo began in the late 1980s when founder Ted Rose came to visit the area’s volcano, and instead found a poverty-stricken rural village a great need to support the literacy campaign.  A few years later he and his wife, Susan Hill, moved to Mexico and set up shop to help the children of poor villagers.  There they joined the Colima Rotary Club.

Colima, Mexico is an agricultural town which attracts many other residents from different regions of Mexico. Currently the population in Colima is approximately 2,000 people. Project Amigo is enabling the poor children of Colima to achieve their highest potential by providing educational opportunities, material support, enrichment activities, medical and dental services.  

How successful are they? Well, they currently have 34 university graduates (including two lawyers and one doctor), 100 youth enrolled in higher education and 200 in elementary school that have benefited from Project Amigo.  Noe and Mireya (pictured below) are two great examples of the success of the University of Colima. They both graduated from there and both returned to Colima to continue to improve the conditions of this town and also to ensure the literacy campaign continues to strengthen. There are several humanitarian service projects that are ongoing through Project Amigo.

Ted and Susan are also here to reach out to other clubs in hopes of gaining support for scholarship programs for young students in Colima. For more information visit www.projectamigo.org

Thanks to Rick Mendoza, PDG, for bringing these Rotarians and their story to us.  President Nancy donated $250 club funds to Project Amigo.