Humanitarian Efforts Through RI - Bill Chase

Yours truly introduced today’s speaker, past prez of this club as well as Past District Governor Bill Chase, who is now a member and very involved in the Sun Up Rotary Club (District 5330) in his hometown of Palms Springs California. Bill began by mentioning the work he’d been doing preparing for the upcoming 2-day World Rotary Peace Conference scheduled for 2016. Speakers include Anderson Cooper, former President Jimmy Carter, Angelina Jolie, George Clooney, Mallala Yousafzai (young lady shot by the Taliban in September 2012), and Steven Spielberg, just to mention a few. Some 80 breakout sessions are planned and it will take place in Ontario, California.

 

Bill said he would take time today to share with members information that appears in his new book – “In Chase of a Cause”. He has already spoken to a number of other clubs in California and even Las Vegas. His lengthy humanitarian service, thanks to funding through the Rotary Foundation, actually began in 1984 when he traveled to Puerto Princesa in the Philippines. The compound he worked in consisted of 2,500 Vietnamese boat people. He showed the audience pictures of his then 1-room clinic and void of any electricity and running water where he would see about 35 patients a day and finish his day when the sun went down by walking a mile to where he lived while on the island. While there he had issues with a 12 foot tapeworm, he said, living inside his body!

Some eight years later, Bill said, he called RI again and told him he’d rather not return to the Philippines but was anxious to go on yet another trip overseas where they could utilize his services. They told him that that clinic had closed but that there was an opportunity in South America and Brazil in particular and to a city called Santarem. It would the first of 12 trips made there in “Service to Humanity”!

 

Santarem is on the Amazon River where this river and the Tapajos River meet traveling from the Peruvian border west and then 4,000 miles to the Atlantic Ocean. Bill showed us pictures of the original clinic. While primitive, it was much more modern than the one he worked at in the Philippines. When he returned from his first trip there, Bill said that he had visions for the clinic that, once he could raise the necessary monies, he would do just that on his next visit. So, he made a plea, and thanks to Rotarians Mike and Bonnie Roy who came up with the idea to hold a raffle, some $100,000 was raised!  Bill then showed members the newly renovated entrance to the clinic complete with tile floors and a marquis!

 

Volunteers from all over the world go to the clinic every year for one month to provide their skills (Orthopedic and plastic surgeons, ophthalmologists, gastroenterologists, dentists, and medical doctors) to help those less fortunate in this deprived corner of the world. Bill said he really enjoyed meeting so many people who were there for the same purpose he was. He showed pictures of the old reception room and then the new one. The changes were dramatic! He recalls telling Bob Gallagher (PDG himself and is the person who develops all of the presentations given at all RI International Conventions!) who went with Bill on his first trip to Santarem to videotape and photograph the trip that this might be his last visit there. However, on only his second day there while headed for work that day at the clinic he noticed a rather large gathering in front of the clinic only to find that the clinic was now the “Bill Chase Clinic”! He was humbled, he said, to say the least and reinvigorated him to commit to returning every year that he could from that point on. He said that he didn’t deserve this recognition but that the members of District 6400 deserved it. His last trip there turned out to be in 2010. His focus now is to continue to raise money for it.

 

Thanks to the continued support of clubs in Rotary that have both a local Rotary fund and an RI fund, some $2M has been raised to help defray the costs volunteers make to the clinic every month. Thanks to that generosity, medical professionals are able to address cleft palates, club feet, basal and squamous cell carcinomas, etc. in addition to creating a state-of-the-art dental clinic and equipment, patient brushing area, sterilization room, X-ray room, 10 treatment rooms and a full-time staff now of 20! He thanked clubs in particular like ours, the AM Club, Ann Arbor, Dearborn, Deerfield, Grosse Point for their past support.

 

Bill pointed out that much of the work he did at the clinic was due to the diet of the people in that region that consisted solely of farinha (a grain), very high in carbohydrates once it’s dried. This is eaten and “washed down” with Coca Cola and over time causes severe tooth decay and in some cases to other issues affecting their very lives.

 

Bill closed by telling the audience that he had copies of his new book – In Chase of A Cause – that he would be happy to sign if anyone wanted one at the reduced cost today of $20. Bill ended up sending 16 books. Great to have you back in town, Bill!

 

If you would like a book for yourself please contact Bill at: wchase@dc.rr.com or by calling him at 760-835-0941.