Community Corner

Rotary Club Returns to Guatemala, Builds Fish Tanks for School

The Lake in the Hills Rotary Club first traveled to Ak' Tenamit in March 2011 to build tilapia tanks, which provide a sustainable and healthy food source for a school in Guatemala.

A remote community in Guatemala is starting to reap the benefits set in place by Lake in the Hills Rotary Club members last year.

About 50 rotary club members from the area, including six members from the Lake in the Hills Rotary Club, returned to Ak' Tenamit in recent weeks to build tilapia tanks and vegetable beds meant to provide a sustainable and healthy source of food for Ak' Tenamit's Father Tom Moran Education Center. The school provides vocational training to 500 young Guatemalans.

The Lake in the Hills Rotary Club members who traveled in recent weeks to Ak' Tenamit are: Bob Huckins, Jim Wales, Steve Swanson, Ron Magrini, Dwight Koch and Jim Siewenie.

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Members from the Lake in the Hills Rotary Club first  to build two tilapia tanks after learning of the school’s need for a source for protein and vegetables.

Fingerlings grow in the tilapia tanks and mature. The waste from the fish is filtered into gravel beds in the tanks, enabling plants to grow.

Before the tanks were built, students ate mainly beans, rice and corn tortillas. 


Since they have been built, students have been utilizing the tanks, said Steve Swanson of West Dundee, a Lake in the Hills Rotary Club member who helped organize the effort. 

“By June and July, they had taken 200 tilapia from the units,” Swanson said.

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District Rotary Club Adopts Project

The efforts by the Lake in the Hills Rotary Club in 2011 did not go unnoticed.

The Rotary Club's district, which consists of about 70 Rotary Clubs from the area, adopted the project this year. This means that members from Rotary Clubs throughout the area could volunteer to help. 

“The more people, the better," Swanson said. 

Two groups traveled to Ak' Tenamit in January and February to work primarily on the tanks and to begin construction on a computer lab. A third group left on Saturday to finish building the computer lab, Swanson said.

In total, 50 area Rotary Club members have traveled to Ak' Tenamit this year. 

Global Grant, Expert Assesses System in Ak'Tenamit

The Rotary also has hired an expert to assess the tanks and create a curriculum for students to teach them how to use the tanks and work on the aquaponics' system.

Down the road, the hope is to build at least nine tanks in Ak' Tenamit, which should provide each student at the school with at least one fish dinner per week, Swanson said.

To help with the continued effort, the Rotary Club recently received a $10,500 global grant to be used in the next year on projects in Ak' Tenamit. That amount could pay for three additional tilapia tanks, Swanson said.

Swanson said he looks forward to watching this project move forward and witnessing the benefits it will bring to the students in Ak' Tenamit.

“It’s not just about the relationship you are building with other Rotary members, but the relationship with these students,” Swanson said. “We get to watch them grow and watch them become great people.”


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