In the 2006-2007 Rotary year, the 24 Districts of Zones 29 and 30 teamed up to fund a dairy project in Romania and a water project in Niger.
The dairy project was a critical follow up to a 3-H Grant completed in the last few years between the Rotary Club of Little Rock, Arkansas D6150 and the Rotary Club of Cluj, Romania. The 3-H Grant provided dairy cows to rural farm families in cooperation with Heifer International/Romania. Soon after, Romania joined the European Union, which requires that all dairy milk sold for human consumption must be collected by machine and refrigerated from the time of collection until it is processed and sold.
The Matching Grant application was submitted on December 14, 2006. The project was approved on January 31, 2007 and funds arrived in July. Work began immediately, reports were filed and The Rotary Foundation certified the project closed on Junuary 4, 2008.
Matching Grant 61683 funded the purchase of 24 milking machines and 4 cooling tanks, which will allow the farmers to continue to grow their dairy operations. The host partner club was Rotary Club of Cluj Napoca, Romania. The international partner club was the Rotary Club of Maumelle, Arkansas, D6150. Twenty-one Rotary Districts in Zones 29 and 30 provided funding, as did District 2241 (Romania) and The Rotary Foundation. Project Size was $52,000.
Rotary Club of Maumelle, Arkansas D6150 President John Craft cutting the ribbon at the dedication ceremony in June 2007.
DGE (at that time) Bob Warner of D6150 visited Romania in June 2007 to attend the dedication ceremonies.
DGE D6150 Bob Warner (R.), then (L.-R.) D6150 Rotarian Gary Parrish, D2241 DGE Ovidiu Cos, Cluj Napoca Rotarian veterinarian Ovidiu Spinu and the Spacic family.
The Spacic family has been featured in The Rotarian magazine and the Rotary Video Magazine. They have two cows now and have passed on two more to new paroject participants. From the additional income coming from the milk production they have repaired the hole in their roof that allowed their house to flood in every rain storm. Also, they have been able to lease about 5 acres of pasture land for the cows to graze in. They are, along with all the other project recipients, continuing to donate milk to local schools to help improve children's nutrition. The original 3-H grant continues to bear fruit. There are now 200 profitable farm families benefiting from that project.
Project beneficiary Ioan Cornea watches as his cows have a drink of water after returning from a day in the pasture.
The new milking machine is used to collect the milk.
The milk is much cleaner and the collection of it is faster with the machine.
Ioan takes the freshly collected milk to the central collection point, where the cooling tanks are located.
The milk is measured so each farmer is given credit for their production.
The fresh milk is poured into the cooling tank.
The fresh milk is tested (tasted??) for safety and cleanliness.
Ioan washes the milking machine, preparing it for the next milking session.
