For several years, Puerto Vallarta Sur Rotary Club has worked with area Sawyer water filter representatives and non-profit Proyecto Aqua Limpia to identify communities lacking purified drinking water sources and to announce and organize water filter distributions. The water filters are financed by Rotarians around the world. The specific filters are Sawyer brand (sawyer.com) designed for ease of use in poor areas without access to clean drinking water and can last for up to ten or more years at a current quoted cost of $55 per filter, including bucket and assembly supplies. Access to clean water will not only improve area residents' health, it will also decrease health related school and work absenteeism, thus improving their economic well-being. In many of these areas, soda costs less than drinking water, thus there is a high incidence of obesity and diabetes, not to mention parasitic diseases.
It is our goal to provide the funds to Puerto Vallarta Sur Rotary for purchase of the filters and supplies and ideally, for some members of Foothills Rotary to travel to the area to participate in the filter distribution sometime in early 2024. We have provided funds for filters to be distributed in this area in 2017, 2019 and 2023 and we had volunteers from our club assist with the 2017 and 2019 distributions.
The Puerto Vallarta Sur Rotary Club will coordinate the project. Our contacts are Malcolm Laird, mjalaird@hotmail.com and Sandra Stolz, slstolz@hotmail.com, both of whom are residents of Puerto Vallarta and members of the Puerto Vallarta Sur Rotary club.
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