Rotary fills shoe boxes for Nicaragua

Westlake Schools Superintendent Dr. Scott Goggin and School Board member Joe Kraft packing boxes bound for Chinandega, Nicaragua.

Westlake Bay Village Rotary recently sent 890 shoe boxes filled with personal care items, clothing and toys as well as 35 Layette bags filled with clothing and accessories for newborns to Chinandega Nicaragua for “the Children of the Dump.”

The boxes and bags were put together by Rotary Clubs all over Northeast Ohio. The project’s coordinator, Kevin Krantz, who is a CPA based in Westlake, said “some of the smaller clubs will fill 10 boxes for us while other larger clubs may fill as many as 60.” In addition to overseeing the distribution of empty boxes and retrieving the filled ones, Westlake Bay Village Rotary completed 15 boxes.

Chinandega was devastated by Hurricane Mitch in 1998 which led to over 800 children scavenging off the local dump to subside.

Cody Miller, owner of the Westlake-based business RAM Sensors, allows the club to store the boxes on pallets until they can be picked up. Another local company, V3 Transportation, donates a truck and driver to take the cargo to Waterloo, Iowa, the next step on their journey to Chinandega.

Westlake Bay Village Rotary is a service based organization that meets every Wednesday morning in the Community Room of the Bay Village Police Department at 7:30 a.m. 

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Volume 11, Issue 18, Posted 9:12 AM, 09.17.2019