PDG Larry and Linda Jubie
Fifteen years ago, PDG Larry Jubie (Rotary Club of Marysville, Washington) took a trip to a remote mountain village in Guatemala that changed his life. Larry and his brother PDG Harvey Jubie (Rotary Club of Marysville) joined a group traveling to the Mayan community of Santa Cruz Barillas for a simple but worthy service project. Many women in Barillas had been widowed by thirty years of civil war and needed help taking care of their homes. Hands for Peacemaking Foundation, a US-based charity founded by Rotarian Dr. Leeon Aller, organized a group to replace these widows' failing roofs with durable corrugated tin roofs. However, for Larry and Harvey, completing this project was just the beginning of the story.
While they were there, the group noticed a partially completed structure standing alone in the bush. "It was a school the Guatemalan government had abandoned," Larry says. Having identified a need, they went home and made a plan. Larry and Harvey have returned to Barillas year after year with Hands for Peacemaking, building schools and a factory that now employs ten people. Larry is proud that these projects have always had buy-in from the local community, which he attributes to their success.
Larry and Harvey also share a real dedication to Rotary and its Foundation. They have each served as Governor of District 5050 and they and their wives, Linda and Janet, are members of the Arch C. Klumph Society. Last year, Larry and Linda opened a Donor Advised Fund account with Rotary to help manage their charitable giving. "I used to have a DAF with a large financial institution, but when it came time to create this one I realized it made sense to fund an account with The Rotary Foundation," he said. "It was so easy to set up and go, and I really like managing my account online."
It did not take long for Larry to identify a new project to support. He recommended a grant from his DAF account to Hands for Peacemaking and then he and Harvey helped build their seventeenth and eighteenth schools in Barillas. Through it all, Larry insists that he has received more than he has given. Helping this community, he said, "is a priceless experience."
For more information on Rotary's Donor Advised Fund, please click here.