The project for Gary Smiths' year
as president in 1994-95 was the construction of a full-service Pediatric Clinic
in the city of Hayward.
Gary started out to just provide
inoculations for children in Hayward, but Dr. Jack Singleton convinced him that
what was really needed was a full-service pediatric clinic.
The Silva Pediatric Clinic is named
for long time Hayward resident Angelina Fontes Silva, whose estate made a generous
bequest to the project.
Rotary International Service projects
are funded by a combination of money from a club in the project country, money from
a club in the sponsoring country, money from the district, and matching grants from
Rotary International. Until the Silva project, International Service funds had always
flowed out of the United States to less developed countries. Gary realized that
there are other countries who have money, and that there was no reason that some
of it couldn't come to us. He found a partner club in Taiwan that was willing to
participate. This made the whole project feasible.
Since the successful completion
of the Silva Clinic, other clubs in the U.S. have used the same technique. And we
used it once again to expand the clinic to include a full-service Dental Clinic
in 1999.
Many of the children seen at the
Silva Pediatric clinic were suffering from what has been called the silent epidemic
- deteriorating dental health.
So when dentist Ken Meirovitz became
president in 1999, it was time to expand the clinic to include a dental facility.
The Silva clinic now includes a
full-service, modern dental facility.
