After his presentation, DG Dan Gensler (left) smiled with Don Weeks.
DG Gensler had thought he met a living angel when he heard Sister Ethel Normoyle’s speech. She grew up in Ireland, became a Catholic nun in her mid-twenties, and supported the poor in South Africa in 1972 during Apartheid. She had nothing but her faith, compassion and love. She saw pain and strife and hate. She tried to help poor families and got stabbed in the back by gang members. She gave up her own bed, clothes on her back or her own food to help others’ suffering. Over the years, she established Mission Vale Care Center providing human basics needs. She helped young children with education to break the poverty cycle.
Since then, Rotary became involved and assisted this MissionVale Care Center with education, humanitarian needs, and children’s shoes. During the shoe delivery, DG Gensler was there with other Rotarians and volunteers. The poor children’s feet were in bad condition. These kids were small for their age with fourteen year olds looking much younger The children were so desperate to fit into the shoes, they kept trying to keep a pair even if they didn’t have the right size. In the end, all the children received proper-fitting shoes and excitedly played on a nearby playground.
When DG Gensler heard about a prosthetic clinic in Ensenada, Mexico, he decided to visit it with his Coronado Rotary group and heard about some nearby land. The land would prove useful as a prosthetic workshop. One Rotarian contractor jokingly offered to build the workshop if a Rotarian architect provided the plans. The plans were quickly provided. The surprised architect built the workshop. It was exciting to see a ten-year-old boy double amputee receive his first prosthetics. He could play basketball with the other children! That workshop is going strong today, and that young man is now 17. He used those first prosthetics so well that he could ride his bicycle wearing them. Once he got his new, larger pair, the double amputee could do stunts on that same bike!
Rotary showed him all the wonderful people, both in the United States and in the world. There is always someone available to help others in need.