Service Projects

WCSC stands for World Community Service Committee and is made up of the 6 Area 3 Rotary Clubs and our Rotaract Club: Niles, Fremont, Mission San Jose, Fremont Morning Club, Newark, F.U.N. Sunset, and the Rotaract of Greater Fremont.

In 2013, the Area 3 Rotary Clubs decided to combine forces and to pool their District Designated Funds (DDF) funds so that we would be able to maximize the use of our DDF. Combining our resources would make it easier for our Area 3 club projects to qualify for matching grant funds available from The Rotary Foundation (TRF) for World Community Service Projects. It also makes larger or multi-year projects more achievable, and any club in Area 3 may propose an international project for consideration. However, the WCSC can, at its discretion, support a project that is not suitable for a matching grant from TRF. In a case like this, the group can hold a fundraiser for this purpose, or it can allocate DDF funds without any matching funds.

Each participating club contributes time and effort to the success of the selected project (s), which may require grant writing, research and analysis, project reporting, project oversight and other tasks required for TRF grant approval and project completion. The club that proposed an adopted project generally takes the lead on the grant application and project execution.

Each Club appoints two representatives to serve on the Area 3 WCSC each fiscal year, and each Club has one vote on the WCSC. Generally, one of these representatives is the board member who is responsible for international service. The committee accepts proposals for projects, reviews the budget and plans, and determines which project(s) they will fund and support for the upcoming Rotary year. The following projects reflect some of whom have benefitted from WCSC support: the Melghat Surgical Hospital in Melghat India which was approved for a Global Grant, the DSES Public School in Ballia, India to rebuild the school due to an earthquake, the Matibabu Hospital in Matibabu, Kenya to ship operating equipment and supplies to the hospital and Breathing for Life, in Nejo, Ethiopia a Global Grant Project to fund oxygen tanks and the equipment to refill the tanks in a rural hospital, Sight Now bringing top quality eye care, including cataract removal and glasses to the people of Tamil Nadu, India.

Article Written by Audrey Kearns

Rancho Higuera – Mission San Jose & Niles Rotary Clubs Fencing Project

In the Fall of 2017, Mission San Jose Rotary along with Niles Rotary have taken on the project of building a fence to protect the Adobe building located on Rancho Higuera Road in the Mission District of Fremont. This Adobe building has a rich history of early settlers of Fremont and some connections to many of our members that hail from the Azores. This longer term project was comprised of a series of work days where smaller groups helped flag the fence lines, dig post holes (with professional machinery), set the fence posts and finally place the hog wire fencing around the building.

This was needed because the City of Fremont will allow grazing nearby to reduce the fire hazard risk associated with the grasses in this area. The City of Fremont has agreed to fund the cost of the materials in supporting our Rotary Clubs in protecting this precious historical gem.

Work Dates:
August, 2017 – Measure & Stake Fence Line (Completed)
September 9, 2017 – Post Hole Digging (Completed)

While we had a post hole digger at the location, about 50% of the holes needed to be hand drilled to break through the hard caked clay based soil at Rancho Higuera.

The holes needed to be 24 inches deep to make the posts secure. Here we can see Rich Godfrey using his favorite new toy on September 9th. Paul Andrus & Rich took turns putting their weight into it to get the holes going.

Hard Work & Sweat Video of Richard Godfrey Here

Larry Anderson, Rotarian Lead from the Mission San Jose Rotary Club of Fremont, did a great job and was a trooper working from before 7:30am until 12 noon in the hot summer heat on all the work days at this site. Many Niles Rotarians got involved and by the end of the project Niles Rotarians had put in a cumulative 99 hours worth of hard work.

September 23, 2017 – Fence Post Setting with Cement – This was a hot & heavy work day. Below you can see Padma Magadala hard at work. We don’t go light on our new members and she jumped right in. Big thank you Padma for being so excited to get involved!

Careful, she walks softly but carries a big stick! Featuring New Member Padma

Below is a picture of Paul Iannaccone working with Padma in getting the posts placed, aligned and cemented. We were the fastest working team on the site that day! Go P3 (Padma the two Pauls).

October 7, 2017 8am – Installed Hog Wire Fencing
October 21, 2017 8am – Finished Installing Barbwire, Fence Post Topping and the final gates.

Here you can see the crew from the last day of work – a couple of them escaped before the photo – Thank you Niles & Mission San Jose Rotarians!

This was a historically meaningful project, thank you for coming to support. This project was open to inviting non-Rotarians, friends, family, high school students seeking volunteer hours and other community leaders. Please reach out to us to learn more about other community projects we have coming up in the future.

Project Chairs – Larry Anderson – Mission San Jose & Paul Andrus – Niles Rotary

On Aug 19th LEAF ( Local Ecology Agriculture Fremont ) held a work event to construct a 6ft high no climb fence that was approx 250ft long to enclose an area next to our C.R. Stone garden that ACWD has generously allowed LEAF to use to expand our operations in serving the Fremont community.

The Niles Rotary was very generous in supplying both the funding and manpower to make this project happen.

Thank you to Manuel Franco, Steve Landon & Guillermo on getting the T-posts set ahead of time which made it a lot easier on the work event. Also thank you to the team that help build our tractor port/garages. It will be really nice to have them protected from the weather.

We got a lot accomplished that day and we could not have done it with out Niles Rotary helping LEAF get it accomplished so Thank you very much.

Steve LeGraffe, LEAF Board Director

Niles Rotarians assist LEAF with growing food

In observance of Arbor Day, a dozen or more Niles Rotarians and Rotaractors (Silicon Valley & Fremont chapters) and other LEAF volunteers brought their skills and labor to one of LEAF’s gardens on April 29th. They built five planter boxes and planted fruit trees in them as part of a ground-breaking on land LEAF (Local Ecology and Agriculture Fremont) recently acquired, via an agreement with the Alameda County Water District. The land abuts the C.R. Stone Garden, where LEAF grows veggies for donation to the Tri-City Volunteers Food Bank. The Stone Garden land was provided by Dr. Chris Stone, owner of the adjacent Mission Valley Veterinary Clinic.

As LEAF’s president, Mia Mora, likes to say, “It takes a village,” and certainly a lot of generous people were involved in this effort to provide healthy food to our neighbors in need.

You can find out about opportunities to volunteer with LEAF at www.fremontleaf.org

Event Chairs : Richard Godfrey & Paul Andrus