Shelter for disaster victims comes in a box

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Updated: November 8, 2011 12:32AM

Rotary International and its clubs all over the world — including four in Naperville — do a tremendous amount of good for mankind.

The organization’s most widely known effort is a worldwide campaign to eradicate polio, which has been going on for more than 25 years.

Over the years Rotarians have donated more than a billion dollars to the effort, and most recently have pledged to raise an additional $200 million. This is to match $355 million in challenge grants offered by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

As a result of not only the money but also countless volunteer hours, according to Rotary International polio infection worldwide has dropped from about 350,000 cases in 1988 to a miniscule 1,300 cases in 2010.

The effort has inoculated more than two billion children worldwide.

The final push in the campaign is called “This Close,” meaning that Rotary is “this close” to eradicating the disease.

Rotary has long made international understanding a primary goal and sponsors scholarships for students to study abroad, as well as in their own countries. A long-standing program of Rotary has also sent groups of young business people on an international exchange basis between districts.

All of the many things Rotary International and its member Rotary clubs do are important, and at last week’s meeting of the Rotary Club of Naperville an effort by a club overseas was the topic of the program.

It is called “ShelterBox” and it is a way that Rotary helps people who suddenly have been rendered homeless in a weather disaster or other calamity. This one is not a Rotary International project, but rather one that was started by one Rotary Club with other clubs all over the globe contributing to it.

The program was explained by Elmhurst Rotarian Mark Dyer, who is a volunteer with the response team that is formed to take Rotary’s aid to the devastated country.

A ShelterBox is a large plastic box which contains the items needed for temporary shelter in the wake of a disaster such as the earthquakes in Haiti and the tsunami in Japan — two events to which Dyer and other Rotarians responded. Among many other disasters, the ShelterBoxes have have also been used in Louisiana and Mississippi to aid hurricane victims.

Each ShelterBox contains a 10-person custom-designed family tent, blankets, mosquito netting, ground mats, a stove, water containers and purification chemicals, cooking equipment, a tool kit, hats and gloves and a children’s activity pack.

Think of this as a sort of camping kit on steroids.

Sturdily packed in the plastic box, which is made of durable material, the boxes can be quickly delivered to areas where housing has been destroyed or otherwise rendered uninhabitable by a tornado, flood or some other disaster.

The response team comes with the material to train people on site as to how to set up the tent and use the other contents of the box.

ShelterBox claims a 48-hour response time once a request for help is received.

The program started in April 2000 and its literature says it has helped more than a million survivors of disasters in more than 70 countries. It was started by the Rotary Club of Helston-Lizard in Cornwall in the United Kingdom.

The founder of ShelterBox, Tom Henderson, a member of the Helson-Lizard club, is a former Royal Navy search-and-rescue diver. He serves as the general manager of the project, which is a registered UK charity, and other members of the club serve as a board of directors.

The first ShelterBoxes were used in India in January 2001.

Since natural disasters are not predictable, pre-packed, ready-to-go boxes are kept in warehouses all around the globe.

The ShelterBoxes complement the aid that comes from governments and charitable organizations such as Doctors Without Borders.

For more information, or to send a donation, go to shelterboxusa.org/rotary. ShelterBox USA is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization.