The Kansas City Plaza Rotary Club’s Justice Committee’s work began exploring economic inequity in the Kansas City region in 2020. The committee quickly uncovered evidence that minority and disadvantaged entrepreneurs lacked access to two assets (1) capital and (2) networks. Drawing on past experience with a microlending program in the Dominican Republic, the club set a goal of developing a microloan program to support economic stability for disadvantaged and minority entrepreneurs.

In late 2020, Microlending subcommittee was formed and began tackling the details of how a program could form. We researched how microloans work in the US, who offers them, and how we could participate. Over the course of the next two years, committee members delved into research, interviewed non-profits and entrepreneurs, and engaged in community programs to learn more.

The result of our research was partnerships:

Financial partner: AltCap responded with excitement, and a memo of understanding was soon in place . This Community Development Financial Institution fund tapped into a federal program that allowed it to hold funds as a loss reserve for a lending pool 10 times the size of the reserve. With that, the committee set a goal of raising $10,000 to create a $100,000 microloan fund.

Fundraising: Thirty-one KC Plaza Rotary Club members donated $12,500. We exceeded our goal and collected $12,500, launching with a $125,000 pool for microloans.

Non-profit community partner: A workgroup of the committee began engaging with a non-profit organization, performing community service while learning about the organization. With relationships growing in each interaction, the non-profit agency – The Sewing Labs – became our pilot for the program. The Sewing Labs had attained Department of Labor approval for its industrial stitching program. Many of the students were struggling to restart their lives after leaving domestic abuse, recovering from the downward spiral of addiction, or being recently released from prison.

The workgroup continues engaging with other workforce-development non-profits, preparing to expand the microloan program.

Entrepreneurial support partner: The microloan workgroup also plugged in to the local entrepreneurial ecosystem in the region. One of the first groups we engaged with was CHES, Inc., CHES supplies training to loan applicants in financial literacy, business planning, social supports, start-up accelerators and more.

With partnerships in place, the committee turned to the deeper details involving communications, rollout, training, etc. The formal launch of Rotary Investing and Supporting Equity or RISE (www.RISEmicroloan.com) was held in February 2023 and the first loan applicant was received in 2023 as well.

Prepared by Nancy Shawver, Project Chair
[email protected]
Edited by Cassy Venters, Communications Chair
[email protected]

Fleeing for their lives from civil war and fighting in their native Syria, the Ali Alhmisha family – father, mother, and five children from 2 to 19 – likely had never heard of Kansas City or dreamed of living in the United States before last year. But now, here they are, settled on The Paseo and putting together new lives in a safe, secure environment.
 
In the summer of 2022, the Kansas City Plaza Rotary Club decided it wanted to sponsor a refugee family. John Constance, the Community Service chair, contacted Della Lamb, a refugee resettlement agency, to begin the process.  The club soon learned there was a lot to be done!
 
In July, club members attended the first training session at Della Lamb to learn about working with refugee families.  Fundraising began immediately to raise almost $5,000 to help pay the family’s rent for the first three months, furnish their new home, and cover additional expenses. Volunteers were needed to move furniture, buy and install window coverings, set up the household, and ferry family members to initial appointments (doctors, job interviews, identity documents, school enrollments, etc.).  Volunteers also helped with the initial shopping needs, from fresh fruit to baby lotion and shampoo.  Winter clothes were donated and purchased.  Families in the local Syrian community stepped in to befriend and support the Ali Alhmishas, bringing them additional household items and groceries.
 
Plaza Rotarians have become Google Translate whizzes and are picking up some Arabic themselves while helping the family learn English and acclimate to American society.  The family has worked hard to settle in.  The father, Mahmoud, has secured employment at a plastics plant in Lawrence and passed the driver’s license exam after countless hours of self-study and driving practice with club members.  Syrian families in Kansas City pooled money to purchase the family a used car. The club assisted with the vehicle taxes, fees, and insurance.
 
The volunteers have found Syrians in the local, closely knit community to be wonderful, warm people, without exception.  Many of them are recent immigrants or refugees themselves and came to the U.S. under similar circumstances as the Ali Alhmishas.
 
“This has been one of our biggest and most gratifying Community Service undertakings in several years,” John said.  “The efforts of our club members to assist the Ali Alhmisha family have truly embodied Rotary’s “Service Above Self” motto. It’s been a real team effort.”
 
Overall, it’s estimated that Plaza Rotarians have worked more than 450 volunteer hours and driven more than 3,500 miles to help the Ali Alhmishas get settled.  They have donated an estimated $2,000 of new and used household items, and the Plaza Rotary Club and the club’s foundation have invested over $6,500 in the effort.  Seven Rotarians conducted this project.  They all agreed, “Lots of work and lots of rewards.”  
Prepared by Jerry Venters
John Constance, Project Chair, [email protected]

“For the past 23 years, the Kansas City Plaza Rotary Club has joined efforts with other Rotary Clubs in Missouri to collect new shoes for orphaned and vulnerable children in many countries around the world.   If club members desire, the Club encourages tax-deductible donations to the Plaza Rotary Foundation in support of these efforts.  Collectively, over 23 years, nearly 395,000 pairs of shoes have been provided to the children of the world”.

The Kansas City Plaza Rotary Club became engaged in a project to improve educational outcomes throughout the country of Panama through a Panamanian visitor to the club. Through a very low-key encounter, we anticipate major improvements in teacher engagement with technology in classrooms and ultimately educational outcomes in the classroom.

The Panama Norte Rotary Club realized the need to train current teachers and teachers-in-training when it evaluated an earlier project in two primary schools in Veracruz, Panama. While the young students became fully engaged in the new methodologies and the use of technology in the classrooms, many teachers struggled to use and incorporate the digital equipment in the curriculum.

This project develops six Paul Harris Interactive Digital classrooms at La Normal and two classrooms at satellite schools where students do their teachers training practice. Classrooms will contain the following:
      - New digital technologies consisting of interactive boards;
     - An internal network allowing working without an internet connection;
     - Laptop computers for the 30 students in the classrooms;
     - A teachers' computer to monitor the entire class from the teachers' desk;
     - A storage cart for all the computers that also charges the batteries when the computers are not in use;
     - Software and licenses for the development, monitoring and evaluation, storage of the material prepared and used by teachers and
        students;
     - Appropriate furniture for the students to permit more cooperative and interactive learning.

Current and future teachers at La Normal teachers' college will be trained with new techniques in teaching with an emphasis on collaborative learning and the creative use of new technology. The training includes in-class and online teaching with the purpose of strengthening and improving the skills and abilities of teachers.

The results of this project will lead to the closure of the digital divide and quality of education between private and public schools in Panama and the alignment of the educational system with 21st Century developments so that all students receive a quality education that prepares them for their futures. This project seeks to provide young people throughout Panama with a more engaging up-to-date education so they can avoid the pitfalls of poverty, create a more fulfilling future for themselves and be more productive citizens.