Etta Project 2025

 

Youth Engaged in Service (YES) students Rosie Abiles, a Junior at La Conner High School and Sebrina Hill, a junior at Anacortes  High School are both being sponsored as YES students by the Rotary Club of La Conner. Each of them needs to attend leadership and team-building training, volunteer 80 hours during the year, and raise $1,500 for their trip to Honduras next June. They talked to us about their excitement for being chosen for the program and told us about themselves.

They are selling raffle tickets for $10 each. The winner will be drawn at The Luck of the Irish on March 7^th.

Rosie is a cheerleader and part of two clubs, Varsity in Volunteering, and Eagles Nest, a club she helped start last year. She is president of the Eagles Nest Club. Currently, Rosie volunteers for the Braves Club, and she will soon begin volunteering at the La Conner Retirement Inn. She enjoys meeting new people and trying new things.

 

This is Sabrina’s first year at Anacortes High School where she participates in softball and volleyball. She also plays club volleyball. Sabrina belongs to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Young Life. Her primary volunteer site will be Creekside Continuing Care Community in Burlington. Sabrina  LOVES CATS!

Audrey introduced our guest speaker for the evening Dino Maccari who joined the Etta project in 2017 and is currently the Executive Director.

 

Dino provided background, explaining how the Etta Project came to be.

Etta Turner was a 16-year-old Rotary International Exchange student in 2002 in Bolivia who died in an accident. She was recognized by the people in Montero, Bolivia as an open minded, outgoing, strong woman and they wanted to do something to remember her. Etta’s mother, Pennye Nixon, and the people in Montero raised funds to help kids in Montero: two feeding centers for malnourished children. (Local Rotarians Jack Frisk and Matthew Paul both traveled to Boliva as volunteers on this project.) The centers fed at least 200 children a day and organized training for women’s employment skills. Those centers were turned over to the Catholic Church and are still open today. The mission had changed to finding solutions to water sanitation and healthcare in  rural communities.

Dino talked about the water distribution systems, training for families, children, and water committees. Then he referenced the sexual health program which we supported last year. These programs are ongoing as funds are available.

 

The focus of today’s presentation was dry composting toilets that are being built in 47 rural villages in Bolivia. These replace pit toilets that are just holes in the ground that people squat over with not much privacy.

 

The dry composting toilets are each built for one family and take a week to build. The exterior is brick. Families are trained to keep them in good working order. The door on the bathroom helps keep women safe because they don’t have to use the outside pit toilets.

Pee goes into one chamber, can be used for liquid composting. Poo goes into back chamber. No water is used. After 5 or 6 months, the toilet bowl is moved to the other side of the bathroom. 6 months later, the first poo chamber can be used as human compost. It is shoveled out,  kept in the sun for 48 hours, and then can be used for composting crops, just not vegetables.

 

Prior to building, a needs assessment is conducted, ten mandatory workshops for families, once a week for 2 hours, are held and families sign an agreement. Once the toilets are built, there is personal training for each family member. Volunteers are also trained to be Sanitation Promoters to make sure all is going well.

 

The cost per unit is $800-$1,000. The Rotary Club of La Conner presented $2,000 to the Etta Project.

The next Dry Composting Toilet build trip will be in September or October of 2026 if anyone would like to participate.

 

Dennis collected  Happy Bucks.