During our Harvest Festival, we always get excited about bringing in our farm animals. Sometimes it's pigs or alpacas and even one year there was an elephant!
If you were lucky enough to stop by during October, then you got to meet our furry friends. This year, we got a visit from two Oberhasli goats named Cypress and Ivy, and Clara the sheep (baaack for another visit!). We also had a gang of chickens and ducks too!
Two years ago we met the owners of our animals, Tineke and Torsten Jacobsen. They offered to "rent" us their darling critters for our annual Harvest Festival. When it came time to settle up, Tineke shared that the money would be the seed money for their Rotary project in Uganda. Active members of the Concord/Clayton Sunrise Rotary, the Jacobsen's were spearheading the construction of a medical center for Antenatal, Maternity, Family Planning & HIV Counseling and Testing. Today, that project is complete and for the very first time, the people in the area have access to excellent medical care and counseling.
This year, when we agreed to renew our arrangement we found out that Tineke and Torsten were involved in a huge undertaking in San Felipe, Baja California, Mexico. Along with the San Felipe Rotary Club, in support of The San Felipe Cancer Society, they are hoping to promote early detection and improved hospice care.
The community of San Felipe is located 125 miles from any medical center. Supplies, medical care and access to pain medications is precarious at best. Many of the homes in this rural area don't have conveniently located restrooms, and if so, not as cleanly as they should be.
Initially, the Concord Clayton Sunrise Rotary donated a mammogram machine but because of the location, many patients don't have the luxury of early detection and therefore, competent humane care is all that's left for them at the end of life stage.
Their goal this year is to raise the $60,000.00 necessary to expand the current location and add a hospice facility. There, pain management could and would be used with the supervision of a doctor and an anesthesiologist, and a patient would be able to face a less painful and more dignified end of life situation.
We are more than happy to partner with Tortsen and Tineke and support them in their endeavors with the Concord Clayton Sunrise Rotary to make a better life for all those they reach out to. We are honored to be a small part of such a great gift to the people of San Felipe!