The Rotary Club of Fort Lauderdale, Rotary International and Vestergaard Frandsen (the producers of LifeStraw®) are committed to reaching the UN Millennium Development Goal of reducing by half the number of people (1.2B world-wide, or 1/5 of the world’s population) without access to safe drinking water by 2015.

Rotary in conjunction, with the Lifestraw® developers (Vestergaard Fransden,) and the children of various schools, including the W.H. Smith School, (a Syracuse NY Rota kids chapter grades 1 to 7,) we are teaming up raise funds to send an Lifestraw® Filtration systems to initially four African Countries - Tanzania, Kenya, Malawi and Ghana beginning 2nd quarter of 2008.

The distribution of this product will be through the infrastructure of Wheel Chair Foundation (created by Rotary Ft. Lauderdale chapter) which provides wheel chairs for those in need around the globe. This insures successful arrival within the target country, the avoidance of expensive import duty taxes, and the facilitation of delivery to local Rotary Clubs for successful field distribution and training. Rotary will be working closely with the Vestergaard Frandsen field personnel for training purposes.

An appropriate partner, Rotary International is noted for being instrumental in the eradication of polio around the world. As of November 2007, there were 4 countries identified as having polio: Afghanistan and Iraq, to name but two. Rotary international has pledged $100M and with a matching grant of $100M from the Gates foundation - the Rotary goal of eradicating polio will be met. On Oct 25 of this year, Rotary International received the United Nations Humanitarian award for its efforts to combating this disease by making clean drinking water available internationally.

The Rotary Club of Ft Lauderdale together with other Rotary Club are working with organizations such as Vestergaard Frandsen to address the common mission of providing safe drinking water.

WE THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT AND LOOK FORWARD TO WORKING WITH YOU