EDWARDSVILLE - Through their mission to provide “service above self,” members of the Edwardsville Rotary Club and the ladies of the Southern Illinois University Edwardsville volleyball team joined together for an excellent project this Saturday morning.
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With the help of Shirley and Bill Beltz of Nicaragua Christian Education Foundation (NiCE), around 45 Rotarians and other volunteers all gathered at the Edwardsville Moose Lodge to package 11,000 meals that will be sent to Nicaragua to feed children and adults for around 30 cents a meal.
The cost includes the shipment from the food and supplies into the country, storage at facilities within Nicaragua and the delivery of items to each location in need. The meals include a rice-soy mix fortified with 21 essential vitamins and minerals, six dehydrated vegetables and chicken flavoring.
Community Service Director for the Rotary Club Steve Grant kept the group morale up with words of encouragement and by playing anything from 80’s rock to top 40s hits over the sound system.
“A large part of Rotary’s mission is to sponsor international projects and a lot of the time, we just send funds out and pay for a project,” Grant said. “This was the first time we could do hands-on work locally and internationally through the NiCE Foundation. A lot of the time, we can’t directly go overseas and help out directly so this is a great opportunity to help.”
Over two years ago, Shirley Beltz came to speak at one of the Rotary Club meetings and shared the NiCE foundation’s mission. From there, Grant and the club’s president Brian Mulhall decided that it would be a great opportunity to get some hands-on work to an international project.
The meals will be sent to schools, churches and remote villages from Christian ministry networks throughout the country.
“Rotary is usually a group of people who individually have loved to help somewhere,” he said. “We find that everyone wants to do this as a collective to help out. In Rotary, we give them that outlet to help both locally and internationally as a group. Our local projects are fantastic and there is a new need and calling that has us working more internationally.”
Beginning as a trip in 1992 after Nicaragua’s civil war had ended, the Beltz family began their efforts in the country providing services as a nurse and a cook. They then realized that the country was in dire need of food and faith and decided to begin providing service to the country through Christian ministries and educational outreach.
“NiCE is somewhat of an accidental ministry,” Beltz said, “but through our work, we have begun building schools, Christian churches and outreach centers for a variety of people in Nicaragua.”
A part of NiCE’s work included building a center to assist women of the country who have found themselves earning a living through prostitution get off the streets and learn skills to keep them away from the dangerous but all too common industry.
“We equip ministries with the goals of fostering independence rather than creating dependency on our organization,” Beltz said. “We give them the framework and ensure that they follow through with their goals and the completion of the buildings and fulfillment of their mission.”
Along with the nutritious meals, the NiCE foundation also collects used school supplies to send over to schools in the country. These items help those children who may not earn more than a sixth grade education due to lack of supplies and operation funding.
The NiCE foundation operates solely from the help of volunteers and organizations like the Edwardsville Rotary Club taking time out of their schedules to package meals. The meals will be shipped out from their warehouse in Highland.
As soon as the packaging party was concluded and all 11,000 meals were stored in their new homes for delivery, the group tried a taste of the food for themselves. Satisfied with their accomplishments and the meal of what seems to taste exactly like “rice-a-roni,” the Rotary Club fulfilled their obligations and hope to work with the NiCE Foundation again in the future.
For more information about the Edwardsville Rotary Club, please visit their website. To volunteer or donate to the NiCE Foundation, please contact Bill & Shirley Beltz directly at 618-882-6090 or visit their website.
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