• Half the Sky Foundation:  Financial support for an orphanage in China. Half the Sky was created in order to enrich the lives of orphaned children in China. They provide model programs and caregiver training designed to offer loving, family-like care to children of all ages and abilities. It is their goal to ensure that every orphaned child has a caring adult in their life and a chance at a bright future.
• Bicycles Against Poverty:  Club provided financial support for a program which supplies bicycles for distribution in Uganda as a way to promote economic growth and independence.  Bicycles are utilized to increase accessibility to critical resources, facilitate community cooperation, and build financial management skills among low-income entrepreneurs. To date BAP has distributed over 830 bicycles to low income families in Uganda.
• Rotary Netra Eye Hospital:   Club purchased equipment for the Rotary Netra Eye Hospital in Visakhapatnam, AP India.  Dr. Sriram Sonty, a member of Matteson Rotary, was instrumental in establishing this facility.
• Sun Oven Project:  Matteson Rotary has purchased two sun ovens.  Since 1986, Rotarians have supportedSUN OVEN®projects on five continents, saving countless trees and improving the lives of thousands of people. Rotary still remains an active participant in numerous projects around the world.
• ShelterBox:  Matteson Rotary has purchased two shelter boxes. With ShelterBox we can respond instantly following natural and other disasters by delivering boxes of aid to those who need it most. Each ShelterBox supplies an extended family with a tent and essential equipment to use while they are displaced or homeless. Weare now firmly established at the forefront of disaster relief and our work constantly earns the respect of outside agencies.

• Medical Missions to Peru:  Helped fund Homewood Rotary’s medical mission to Peru.

• Alliance for Smiles:  Club helped fund medical missions to China to provide surgeries and treatment for children with cleft palates.Alliance for Smiles organizes and sends surgical teams to sites for two week missions. A surgical team is comprised of approximately 15 medical volunteers, supported by approximately 5 non-medical volunteers. During a mission 70 to 100 under-served children receive surgery for cleft lip & palate anomalies. The AFS team works side-by-side with local medical practitioners to exchange ideas on proper medical techniques and procedures, as well as to provide follow-up care.

• We Supplied text books for schools in Africa

• Heifer Internatioal:  We purchased livestock to be given away in Haiti following their recent Earthquake. Heifer International empowers families to turn hunger and poverty into hope and prosperity. Heifer links communities and helps bring sustainable agriculture and commerce to areas with a long history of poverty. Their animals provide partners with both food and reliable income, as agricultural products such as milk, eggs and honey which can be traded or sold at market.

  When many families gain this new sustainable income, it brings new opportunities for building schools, creating agricultural cooperatives, forming community savings and funding small businesses. Families share the training they receive, and pass on the first female offspring of their livestock to another family. This extends the impact of the original gift, allowing a once impoverished family to become donors and full participants in improving their communities.

• We assisted a church group sending a truck trailer of supplies to Haiti following the recent earthquake.
• We dug a water well in Mexico to supply clean water to a poor, rural community.
• Medical Equipment donations.  Club members collected donations of medical equipment (including the equipment from Northwestern University Dental School when it closed) for distribution in other countries.
• And, of course, our club’s donations to the Rotary International Foundation are helping to eradicate Polio in the world.

*Some of these projects have been completed while others are ongoing.