This past weekend the Lake Forest Park Rotary Club, with the help of Shorecrest High School students and other volunteers, loaded three freight containers full of clothing, housewares, pots and pans, school books, desks, medical supplies, sheets and towels, bikes, computer equipment and more to be sent by boat to the island of Taveuni in Fiji of about 20 villages, eight schools and 12,000 residents.
Typhoon Ami had swept through Fiji this past January, practically obliterating the islands.
“Here was one island that needed our help,” said Craig Sternagel, a member of Rotary who had spent his honeymoon 20 years ago in Fiji. Sternagel helped organize a drive for these supplies and items over the past several months and has gathered free toothbrushes from dentists, unclaimed bicycles from the police department, surplus desks from the school district, sheets, towels and soaps from hotels and more.
Sternagel was moved when he heard about the typhoon from long-time Seattle resident Bob Goddess, who ran a travel company specializing in scuba diving expeditions and had traveled there 32 times before he retired to the island six years ago.
“When I bought a house on the island, I realized what a tremendous need there was there – because the people are so poor – to build a school, a library and a medical clinic, so we formed a Rotary Club in Taveuni in February 2002,” Goddess said.
Goddess came back to the states this past November with the intent of helping Rotary put together a freight container full of medical equipment and books for a library, when the island was hit by the typhoon.
“All of a sudden, the needs became much greater,” he said. “Many villagers lost their whole homes and all their possessions, several medical clinics in the northern group of islands were destroyed, this became a massive undertaking, so I sent out a broadcast e-mail to Rotary Clubs in Seattle, and I immediately got a reply from Craig” with the Lake Forest Park Rotary.
Great Harvest Bread at Towne Centre donated warehouse space as did the Shoreline School District at the former Kellogg Middle School site, and what had started as a simple project quadrupled in size.
This past weekend three freight containers were filled with supplies and shipped to Taveuni.
The island is about the size of Lake Washington, Goddess said. It has one road and is mainly an agricultural society. People live in villages and feed themselves from the sea and from their farms.
“It’s a wonderful feeling to do this for these people, everything means so much to them,” he said.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
