This year’s Thanksgiving holiday will have had a special significance for CJ Kahler.

Sitting in his home on the shores of Pine Lake, all the things most people in this part of the world have to be thankful for are in bold relief.

The Sammamish Rotarian has just returned from a 16 day excursion in two of the poorest nations on earth, Ethiopia and Uganda, during which time he saw disease and poverty unimaginable to most Americans, and a daily struggle for the most basic of human needs.

The visit was connected to two causes in which Rotary clubs all over the world have been involved for many years – the eradication of polio, and the provision of clean drinking water.

In two small villages outside the Ugandan city of Gulu, Kahler and a small team of Rotarians, from all over America and Canada, travelled door to door with a local health care worker.

Armed with written records of the villagers vaccination history, the Rotarians put two drops of liquid polio vaccine into the mouth of children up to the age of 5. In this way they vaccinated 300 young Ugandans against a disease which, just 20 years ago, was paralyzing 1,000 children every day in the developing countries.

Elsewhere, the contingent of 51 Rotarians had broken up into similar groups and were doing the same in other villages.

For Kahler, being a part of such hands-on efforts to alleviate the suffering of people in other countries has been his focus since he first joined Rotary four years ago.

“I was a community pharmacist for 40 years, so when I heard about Rotary’s drive to eradicate polio, my first reaction was ‘how can I help?'” he said. “I’ve got to be a part of that effort.”

The fact that young children are still being crippled by polio today also struck a personal chord with Kahler – he still remembers an old friend in Texas who contracted polio as a child, and how he had to use braces and crutch to walk.

Jotting down his hopes and expectations before the trip, Kahler wrote “As a grandpa…I can’t imagine how I would feel if one of my six grandchildren were to contract this preventable disease. To have a part in preventing the children of the world from contracting this disease will bring me an indescribable feeling of satisfaction and fulfillment.”

Since 1985, Rotary, in conjunction with the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have immunized more than two billion children, five million of which would have been paralyzed otherwise.

The campaign to eradicate polio has involved donations of $6.8 billion and 20 million volunteers, but Polio remains endemic in Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan.

Eighteen months ago, thousands of miles away in Sammamish, Rotarians there hosted “Wine, Water, and You,” a fundraiser to provide a functioning water well for the struggling village of Gerbo in Ethiopia. That evening the Sammamish club raised $10,000 – to add to the $30,000 from the Tumwater Rotary, $23,000 from the non-profit Hope 2020, and $4,500 from the village of Gerbo itself.

Fast forward to Oct. 2009 and what was then a great idea is now a reality.

Kahler got to see firsthand the difference that access to clean water has made to the area of about 3,500 people.

“I will never forget the site, when we drove in to the village, of hundreds of children, clapping and signing, lining the streets, to welcome us,” he said. The occasion was such that the President of Ethiopia himself was there to mark it.

Not having to walk many miles to find water, much of which is dirty, means that not only are the villagers healthier but now there is more time for the children to go to school, for the women to grow crops.

Unfortunately, it also means there is more time for the Ethiopian men, which Kahler said were largely absent from any of the well-raising activities, to sit in the shade a chew khat, the leaves of a flowering shrub native to northeast Africa which acts as a stimulant, but with prolonged use leads to depression, decreased productivity, paranoia and delusions. Khat use, particularly by men, is a big problem in Ethiopian society.

Despite bearing witness to the enormous impact the Rotarians were having on life in these African villages, which included the repair of another well and the provision of a maize grinding mill in the village of Kalang, Kahler was yet to experience what was to be for him the most profound moment of the trip.

“It was just about our last day in Uganda, when we visited an orphanage called St Jude,” he recalled. What he saw there made him fully realize the impact that groups like Rotary, and American individuals, could have with only relatively small donations.

St Jude was opened in 1987 in emergency response to the epidemic of abandoned, unaccompanied, disabled and orphaned children resulting from ethnic conflicts in northern Uganda.

Currently it has 96 residents, 18 of which are under the age of two.

Twenty-four are severely physically disabled, 32 are cognitively disabled or suffer from mental illness, and 9 have tested positive for HIV, typically contracted at birth. The rest were abandoned as orphans.

But despite the great need of the orphans, the facility is unable to employ any kind of physical or mental therapist or health worker.

The orphanage receives no consistent funding. The young children, the disabled, crawl around on the concrete floors.

“We learned that just $2,000 would fund a physical therapist to work full-time at the orphanage for one year,” Kahler said. “That doesn’t seem like very much.”

Hearing Kahler remember St Jude you can tell he has his mind and his heart very much set on helping the small orphanage and those children.

On Dec. 10 he will report to the Rotary Club of Sammamish on his trip, sharing what he saw, what he learned, and what he thinks is possible.

“That’s what we have to do next,” Kahler said. What do we do from here? What else can we do to help.”

Each year the Rotary Club of Sammamish contributes $23,000 to international programs such as polio eradication and the provision of water wells, in addition to more than $80,000 locally for student scholarships, charities and youth camps, to name but a few.

During his trip to Uganda and Ethiopia, Kahler distributed $1,000 directly to worthwhile projects, including $300 to the St Jude orphanage.

Anyone interested in hearing more about Kahler’s trip and the work of Rotary is welcome to attend the meeting at 7:30 a.m., Thursday, Dec. 10, at the Bellewood Retirement Apartments, 3710 Providence Point Drive SE, Sammamish.

Want to get involved? Contact CJ Kahler directly at cjkahler4@msn.com