Dear Rotary Club President:
 
Congratulations on the beginning of a new and hopefully successful year of Rotary Service as a Club President.  I sincerely hope it is a wonderfully productive and satisfying experience for you. 
 
The purpose of this correspondence is to announce an upcoming trip to Cote d’Ivoire, West Africa in November 2015 to participate in a polio immunization exerciseattend the 10th Annual West Africa Project Fair, and engage in a hands-on work project.  Attached is detailed trip information.  Please feel free to share this information with the Rotarians in your club as soon as possible as we have a limited amount of space and expect this trip to be filled in the next week or two.
 
Trip Dates:                         November 10 – 19, 2015
Travel to:                            Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, West Africa
Per Person Price:              $1,779, double occupancy
Program includes:            Hotel accommodations, transfers, most meals, polio immunization exercise, hands-on community service field work, West Africa Project Fair registration, special Rotary and fellowship events, sightseeing, etc.
 
In November 2015, North American Rotarians will travel to Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, for a life changing experience.   Have you ever heard a Rotarian speak about their personal experience participating in a polio eradication exercise, a cleft lip/cleft palate mission, or work on a humanitarian grant?  These trips have a profound effect upon the individual.  For those of you who have gone on one of these trips you know, and for those of you who have yet to enjoy this experience, you should.
 
The experiences you have stay with you forever.  You get up early in the morning, travel with local Rotarians to a village, health clinic or impoverished neighborhood, and for the next few hours, you change.  Small children come up to you to say thank you.  Mothers and fathers smile at you knowing that you are giving their child a chance for a better life.  You meet with the leaders in the village to learn of their needs and their hopes.  It is hot; it is dusty; it makes you uncomfortable; it is exquisite.  
 
The West Africa Project Fair is endorsed by Rotary’s Reach Out to Africa Committee (ROTA), who is trying to generate greater connectivity between the African and North American Rotarians to generate greater support of the projects of Africa.  Your involvement, or your club’s involvement, in this Fair would not only provide an opportunity for project support, it would also help your members to grow and to understand the benefits of being a Rotarian.  Involvement in Rotary gives the ordinary Rotarian extraordinary opportunities to do things that they could never do anywhere else.  This trip is just such an experience. 
 
Even if you are unable to join us this year, please feel free to announce this program in your club over the next month, get it on websites, and get it in newsletters.  Encourage your members to participate – help them to Be a Gift to the World.
 
Let us know if you have any questions.   We hope to hear from you soon.
 
Brad
 
Bradford R. Howard
Rotary International Director,
Zones 25-26, 2015-2017