Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
The Rotary Club of Sweet Home, in cooperation with the Rotary Club of Greater Albany, is preparing to make its fourth shipment of textbooks, medical and dental equipment and computers to the Philippines.
The ongoing project is directed at the area around Laoag City in the Province of Ilocos Norte in northern Luzon, one of the larger islands. The Rotary Club of Laoag City receives the shipments and distributes the supplies to local schools and hospitals.
The project, along with a project to drill 10 community wells throughout the area, has captured the interest of Ilocos Norte Gov. Michael Keon, and he sent a representative, Jay S. Ramos, to Sweet Home last week.
Juan and Donna Ulep, who have organized the two projects, hosted Ramos, who was in Oregon last week.
“He was in Hawaii, and we enticed him to come here,” Juan Ulep said Thursday. “Today, we went over to our holding area for the equipment that we have.”
Later that evening, the Rotary Club hosted a dinner at the Point Restaurant, where Rotary members could meet and speak with Ramos.
Ramos is a former Laoag City councilor and is now serving as the governor’s consultant on community and civic affairs.
“One of my objectives here is to finalize and, of course, familiarize (myself with) the project of the Rotary Club of Sweet Home and the Greater Albany Rotary Club.”
He has been involved with the Laoag City Rotary Club, he said, and he was chairman of the committee on education.
“In the Philippines, particularly in Laoag City and Ilocos Norte, we have very limited resources,” Ramos said. “So we were grateful when we learned that Juan and Donna Ulep and Rotary International would be sending the first and second shipments.
“The mayor and even the governor himself were happy to learn of the first two shipments,” Ramos said. “We’re very much elated, thankful if someone makes a donation like that.
“We’re very much in need. We lack upgraded educational materials. We have a lot of schools there, if you describe it, it’s like 20 years back.”
They lag behind, especially in technology, Ramos said. In Sweet Home and the United States, elementary classrooms have computers. The opposite is true of the Laoag City and surrounding areas.
At home, “they’re not even aware of what a computer is,” Ramos said of the elementary classes in his area. “It’s a big help. That’s why the governor was very interested, and that’s why he met Juan (during a visit to the Philippines) before (Ulep) came back to Oregon.”
The Uleps, with local Rotary Club support, have been gathering old textbooks and equipment from all over Oregon for the past few years. The supplies have been stored at an abandoned fire station in the Scio area before being shipped off to the Philippines.
The next supply shipment will go out when paperwork is completed, Ulep said. The estimated value for customs purposes is $20,000.
Some schools don’t even have electric fans in an area that gets very hot, making studying difficult, Ramos said. “There’s a lot of things to do yet. These things are helping.”
Anyone who wants to donate or get involved in the shipment project should contact Ulep at 367-5222 or Rotary President Kevin Strong.