Teen Coastsiders do good in Mexico

from the Half Moon Bay Review

By Stacy Trevenon--[ stacy@hmbreview.com ]
A handful of Coastside young women spent a few days in Mexico brightening the lives of disabled and needy children earlier this month.

The occasion was a trip made by Half Moon Bay High School's Interact club, under the auspices of the Half Moon Bay Rotary Club, to bring wheelchairs to Mexico along with gifts and toys for children.

"It's so amazing, how much they thank you, and they have nothing," said Half Moon Bay Interact President Zoe Galle who, like the other girls, is a junior at Half Moon Bay High School. "It makes you realize how much we take for granted."

On Nov. 15, Interactors Galle, Kristen Ivases, Monica Tolar, Jenni Olivero, Kristin Kalkin and Hanna Ingraham made a presentation to Half Moon Bay Rotary, describing and showing photos of their experiences and explaining how the experience changed them.

Interact, an offshoot of Rotary International, is made up of clubs of teens focused on humanitarian work on the community and international levels. It is represented in Half Moon Bay with an active, motivated Interact club that meets weekly at lunchtime at the high school to plan its busy calendar.

The Half Moon Bay Interactors and Rotary Club belong to District 5150, which spans San Mateo to Marin counties.

Under the caring eye of Half Moon Bay Rotarian Millie Golder, the Interactors have mapped out a busy year that includes working at Candyland in December, supporting local medical institutions and this trip to Mexico.

Accompanied by several parents, District 5150 Governor Brian McLeran, and Rotarians from San Mateo, Foster City and Ontario, Canada, the Half Moon Bay Interactors visited Mazatlan and Rosario, Mexico, from Nov. 9 to 12, in a trip funded by the Wheelchair Foundation and matching grant through Rotary. They brought 500 unassembled and boxed wheelchairs, and toys.

Upon arrival, they assembled the chairs and got down to work, visiting the homes of those who needed chairs and meeting larger groups of people in schools and stadium-like larger assembly places.

"This is an amazing group of young adults," said McLeran. "I tried to assemble the chairs and just got in their way."

The students were sobered and appalled by conditions of poverty they saw, and touched by the graciousness and gratitude of the people they helped.

"We would go from our hotel to these homes, where a lot of people didn't have wheelchairs before and hadn't seen the front of their homes for years," said Ivases. "It made us feel so good we could give them mobility."

"It was a lot of hard work, and it was so sad," said Galle.

One such home housed a mother, who needed a wheelchair, and six children. "The wheelchair was her way of being independent," said Ingraham.

"It was such an eye-opener," she continued, as the photos flashed before the avid viewers. "I couldn't believe people lived in such poverty."

The teens also visited schools, many with dirt floors, flimsy construction and poor sanitation, where they put toys in the hands of delighted children.