In the spring of 2005, The Freeport Rotary Club embarked on a multi-year effort to bring hundreds of water filters to the villages surrounding the city of Santa Barbara, Honduras, thanks to the compassion and motivation of members Bob Hanson and Gordon Glover. Freeport Rotary partnered with Pure Water for the World to help make this project a reality. But in the Spring of 2006, the Freeport Club joined forces with the Portland Rotary, 16 other U.S. Rotary Clubs and 3 Rotary districts to expand the scope of the project to a total of $163,000 to provide clean water to nearly 1900 families or nearly 12,000 people in the Department of Santa Barbara, Honduras.

The need is great and the task is monumental. In the U.S. we take pure water for granted every day. In many other parts of the world, however, pure water is simply not available. In Honduras alone, over 50,000 children die each year from drinking contaminated water. A simple $75 household filter unit, made with local labor and materials, provides a lifetime of pure water for an entire family with minimal maintenance. It's a very sustainable and simple solution to this widespread problem.

The planning for this expanded project began during an information-gathering trip to Honduras in April of 2006. Curt Combar (Freeport) and George Crockett (Portland) worked with the Rotary Club of Santa Barbara, Honduras, Pure Water for the World, and local officials to plan the project. Subsequently, Jim Dawson (Portland) and Curt Combar developed and submitted the matching grant aplication in July of 2006. The grant was approved by the Rotary Foundation in November of 2006.

Led by the Freeport and Portland Rotary Clubs, the two-year project will provide the material and labor resources necessary to build and distribute at least 1875 household filters to as many families in the mountain villages surrounding the City of Santa Barbara. Execution of the project began in March of 2007 and will last for two years with many Rotary-sponsored work trips to Santa Barbara planned during that period.

More Pure Water information

Pure Water Santa Barbara Weblog with photos and current project info!
Press Release Announcing the project
Background on Santa Barbara
Spring 2006 Trip to Honduras

Related documents

Matching Grant Application (with addendums requested by Rotary Foundation - 3.6MB PDF)
Santa Barbara Trip Information Guide (206KB PDF)
Freeport Rotary Pure Water brochure (298KB PDF)
Trip Report for Feb. 2007 trip to Santa Barbara (2.9MB PDF)

Pure Water Events

~ 2007 ~

March 20 - Members of South Portland/Cape Elizabeth Rotary have recently returned from a trip to Honduras where they participated in a Sustainable Harvest International project and visited Santa Barbara. A trip report and photos will be posted as they become available.

February 12 - Members of Portland and Freeport Rotary returned from a trip to Santa Barbara where they installed 18 family filters and tested 30 others as well as helped to upgrade the sand wash operation at the filter factory in the city of Santa Barbara. This trip marked the official kickoff of the project with the Rotary Club of Santa Barbara and Pure Water for the World employees/volunteers. A full trip report (2.9MB PDF) is available. Watch here for photos and VIDEO from this trip to come soon!

~ 2006 ~

November 1 - Our matching grant application has been approved! Planning will begin shortly for one of the largest matching grant projects District 7780 has ever undertaken. Watch this space for updates on project progress.

October 20 - The first project work trip to Honduras has been planned for February 3 through 11, 2007. A team of 7 has been assembled so far for the trip. A trip information guide has been assembled for participants of trips to the Santa Barbara area.

July 31 - Due to the herculean efforts of Jim Dawson and George Crockett of the Portland Rotary and Curt Combar of the Freeport Rotary, the matching grant application totalling $163,083 has been submitted to the Rotary Foundation. The Foundation Trustees will meet in October to decide whether to honor our matching grant application. View the application (3.6MB PDF).

April 24 - The Spring 2006 Freeport Rotary and Interact trip to Honduras for Pure Water was successful! The group learned about all aspects of the Pure Water filter, installed filters in homes, confirmed the sister-city relationship with Santa Barbara, Honduras, and began the Rotary matching grant process with the Rotary Club of Santa Barbara to bring pure water to families in the surrounding rural communities. After seeing the great need first-hand, the Freeport and Portland Clubs decided to work with other clubs to increase the matching grant to a $150K competitive grant!

View slides online from the trip or download the PowerPoint (28MB) or Compressed PDF (8MB).

March 22 - In the spirit of World Water Day 2006, Freeport Rotary has now raised enough funds to purchase 84 filters towards it's short-term goal of buying the first 100 filters as soon as possible. Special thanks to Tom Wilbur for raising enough to buy over 3 of the $75 filters at his St. Patrick's Day celebration on March 17!

~ 2005 ~

October 4 - The Town of Freeport has adopted Santa Barbara as a sister city. The purpose of this adoption is to make people in Freeport aware of the needs of others in a developing country and to help the Freeport Rotary raise funds to purchase filters