City donates service vehicles to Mexico communities
PROJECT ORGANIZED BY ROTARY CLUB OF LETHBRIDGE SUNRISE
The City of Lethbridge has donated three soon-to-be decommissioned vehicles to a program that provides emergency vehicles and training to communities in Mexico.
The Los Amigos project is aimed at providing decommissioned emergency vehicles for Mexican communities that need them. It is an international service project organized by Rotary Club of Lethbridge Sunrise.
On Monday, during their regular meeting, council voted unanimously to grant a request by the Rotary Club for a 2010 ambulance, a 2012 ambulance and an 84-seat Blue Bird school bus from 2004. The value of the three vehicles is in the $19,000 range.
Karl Samuels, project co-ordinator with the Rotary Club Lethbridge Sunrise, said it was hard for him to describe how much of a difference these vehicles will make in the lives of the small Mexican communities that will eventually get them.
“You’ve got to be there to experience it,” he said. “How these vehicles are being put to use, how vehicles such as the ambulances are being used to get people to the hospital.
“These things are in operation around the clock, seven days a week.”
This is the eighth trip to western Mexico in support of community emergency services, school children, and people with disabilities.
The project has delivered 36 decommissioned vehicles to date. This year, it is intending to deliver fire trucks, ambulances, a handi bus and a school bus to six communities in Mexico.
Once the vehicles have been secured, Rotary Clubs in Mexico canvas communities to see where the vehicles could best serve their role.
“I won’t know which communities they are going to until later on this year,” Samuels said.
The project is also supported with tools, equipment and financial support by Lethbridge, Pincher Creek, Fort MacLeod, Cardston, Airdrie and Raymond Rotary Clubs.
“Without support from the City of Lethbridge and surrounding areas, this project wouldn’t be possible,” he said.