Stories:
Impacting the Giver: From Poly to Peru
Peru
November 17, 2008
In August, ten Cal Poly students and several alumni boarded a plane bound for Peru. They were traveling to give the ‘gift of mobility,’ by distributing 260 wheelchairs to Peruvians in need. The intention of the trip was to give, but the students wound up receiving so much more.
This journey was about witnessing, and being a part of what they had worked for during their senior project at Cal Poly State University in San Luis Obispo, CA.
“It was a powerful, and life changing thing to be able to place someone in a wheelchair... that the one moment was a result of a year’s worth of work,” said Joshua Burroughs.
Burroughs remembers thinking, “this is the person that I worked so hard for.”
Being a part of this trip gave these students the kind of knowledge that cannot be taught in a classroom.
“I learned that you can’t help someone enough,” Pruvi Kanji said. “We did something great but it’s minute compared to how many people actually need help in the world.”
Nick Bedell also carried some things home with him, not in his luggage, but in his heart.
“The distributions made it evidently clear the value of the gift of mobility, it’s something we take for granted in our everyday lives,” Bedell said. “Deep gratitude was expressed to me by so many, in a way that couldn’t be confused by any language or communication barriers. The experience was emotionally stirring to the core.”
When most people travel to Peru, they go to visit the ruins of the Inca Empire, to see llamas, and maybe purchase a handmade beanie from the floating islands of Lake Titicaca, and of course they go to admire the majesty that is Machu Picchu. The students on this trip did have the opportunity to see all of these, but they were able to see another deeper side of Peru by participating in the wheelchair distributions.
“Seeing these people, who cannot afford mobility, be given this gift was such a moving experience…,” Noelle Luchino said. “Traveling to a third world country was very eye opening... I expected to see a difference in the way people lived but I had no idea how much of a difference.”
While in Peru, the group distributed wheelchairs in Lima, Cuzco, and Puno.
“Demographically each group of recipients was different,” Kanji said. “But they all had stories to tell, and they were all there for the same reason, and we were there to help them.”
The wheelchair recipients were not the only ones that experienced feelings of gratitude. Students were both awestruck and appreciative of Rotary’s involvement in the trip
“Rotary in Peru did an amazing job of coordinating our trip, putting together … wheelchair ceremonies, picking out wheelchair recipients, and making sure we got the appropriate ‘thanks’ for all our hard work,” Luchino said.
Robbie Fox agreed that the presence of Rotary throughout the trip made the experience more memorable.
"Each of the clubs in Lima, Cuzco, and Puno opened their arms to us in mutual friendship and desire to change the lives of others,” he said.
