Members of the San Benito Rotary Club are seen here during the celebration of its 93rd anniversary. Rotarians marked the occasion at Blanquita’s Mexican Restaurant #2 in San Benito, where they regularly meet every Thursday. (Staff photo by Heather Cathleen Cox)
By HEATHER CATHLEEN COX
Staff Writer
reporter@sbnewspaper.com
“Ninety-three years ago, Brownsville Rotarians got on board a train to San Benito,” explained Rotarian Rolando Monsevalles; thus begins the story of the Rotary Club of San Benito, officially chartered in 1919.
The Rotary Club was founded in Chicago, IL in 1905 when it became the very first service organization. Today, it is an international organization which strives to improve local communities by facilitating year-round community involvement projects such as Polio Plus, which is an effort to eradicate polio from the planet and for which the group is universally known.
Rotary Club President Lionel Betancourt is known for spearheading the Save Dolly relief efforts, which have recently received acclaim Valley-wide and beyond; however, Save Dolly is just one project behind which the group stands in support.
The Rotary Club of San Benito created the Adoption Awareness Picnic after seeing a need for a program to help match adoptable children with parents. “Adoption awareness is a children’s program, sanctioned by state of Texas,” explained Betancourt. “It started in San Benito. I originated the original charter in 1998. The rotary is the only organization in the state of Texas that is allowed to have a picnic or outing for children in foster care that enables prospective parents who would like to adopt a child to come and visit with the children and interact with them, see their personalities, basically the make-up of the child to see how well they would fit in their family. Based on that, there have been more adoptions in the state of Texas than any other state,” said Betancourt.
Betancourt explained, “Interested parents must first show an interest for adoption through the Department of Family Protective Services. Every county has an office for abused and abandoned children in their care. If parents wish to adopt, they go to them and background checks are conducted.”
“That’s the beauty of this whole set-up,” said Betancourt. “Older children that are generally overlooked for this process are given a chance to find families. Those kids need homes too. It opens a major door for children of all ages.”
“It’s a wonderful program, and it’s exciting,” exclaimed Betancourt of the program’s 40 percent match rate. No locations or times can be provided regarding the next Adoption Awareness picnic, due to the sensitive nature of the children’s need for utmost privacy.
San Benito Rotarians have also teamed with Harlingen Rotarians and the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) to begin a project called Adopt a Highway. Rotarians have been designated a two-mile stretch of highway for which they will provide road clean-up two to four times per year. Harlingen Rotarians are said to be cleaning up a similar stretch of highway, meeting San Benito Rotarians at the bordering city limits signs.
This Saturday, October 27, the Rotary Club invites one and all to meet in front of San Benito Funeral Home at 8 a.m. to help clean up the highway.
The group also invites members of the community to join them at weekly meetings. “We’re always looking for new membership,” said Monsevalles of the group, which meets every Thursday at 12 noon inside Blanquita’s Restaurant #2 in San Benito. Additionally, Save Dolly meetings are held at 5:30 p.m. every Thursday inside the Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center on 225 Stenger St.
Betancourt shared, “We just want the community to know the Rotary Club consists of a group of community members interested in making San Benito a better place to live. We are letting the community know we care. Anything we can do to further the community we will continue doing.”
Read this story in the Oct. 24 edition of the San Benito News, or subscribe to our E-Edition by clicking here.
Recent Comments