Let's hear it for Rotary Club!

Last week we had two friends from Iowa on campus, Bob Rennebohm and Russ Hill from the Rotary Club of America in Des Moines, Iowa. Their club, in association with the club La Paz-Sur in Bolivia, are sponsoring the construction of a recycling center. The center will collect and process garbage from Campus Manning, the community and the high school, and serve as a training center for students of all ages.

The week started with a ground-breaking ceremony with the biship of Coroico Monseignor Juan Vargas, the community president Willie Aliaga, and students from the college.


Photo: Bob and Russ at the construction site.

Later the members of the La Paz club came and we spent the afternoon sharing stories and visiting the highlights of campus.

The rest of the week they toured the campus, eyes open for other possible projects in the future, and soaked in the atmosphere of student life.

We were very grateful for their visit -- seeing the college with your own eyes is an experience unto itself, and we see ourselves in new ways when visitors come and share their experience. And grateful for their generosity: the recycling center is college dream, ignited by Franciscan missionary Alexandra Hoch during her service in 2002-2004.