SLIPPERY ROCK — The Slippery Rock Rotary Club is certainly living up to Rotary International’s mission to provide service to others, promote integrity and advance world understanding.

The Slippery Rock Rotarians have joined with fellow Rotary clubs across District 7280, the Anglican Church and their Rotarian counterparts in Uganda to raise money to expand and refurbish a maternity clinic in Lukaya, Uganda.

Ken Bennett, a member of the Slippery Rock Rotary Club for 13 years, said, “There’s a sister chapter in Uganda. We’ve worked with them before in 2015. It brought in $140,000 that put in water wells, sanitation and brought electricity into the village and helped a school.”

Bennett is familiar with Lukaya, a city of 30,000, having made many church mission trips to the East African nation.

“I’ve been going to Uganda for 12 years. I befriended the Rotary over there and established ties with the club,” he said.

The need for updated medical facilities for attending births was urgent.

In the surrounding rural area roughly the size of Butler County, there is an approximate population of 150,000 people. The existing clinic has only two beds and one nurse as staff. Many expectant mothers are attended by midwives, and the clinic has no accommodations for the midwives.

“Midwives participate in a lot of births in this large, rural area, and they are not all well-trained either,” he said.

Bennett said Ugandans reach the clinic by motorcycle or on foot. The nearest hospital is 40 minutes away and is too expensive for the average Ugandan mother anyway.

To remedy this, the Slippery Rock Rotarians have launched a fundraising drive to gather $112,000 to modernize and expand Lukaya’s existing clinic. And the plans call for more than brick and mortar.

Bennett said of the Rotarians’ plans, “It’s comprehensive. It’s not just a building.”

The money will allow the clinic to become a regional maternity center for the surrounding area, complete with an ambulance to transport expectant mothers.

The money will pay for 30 admission beds, four delivery beds and equipment including pediatric scales and ultrasound equipment.

It will also pay for education and training for the mothers and the midwives. The mothers will receive ongoing prenatal and postnatal education, and the midwives will receive training that an estimated 30% of them lack.

In addition, Bennett said, the funds will help establish two empowerment programs, a pig farm and a brick-making business, that will both provide funds for the clinic in the future and provide jobs for the Lukayans.

“It’s all encompassing,” said Bennett. “A big part of Rotary is sustainability. This isn’t a one-time shot.”

To that end, the Slippery Rock Rotary Club is funding the project through a Rotary global grant.

Global grants have a minimum budget of $30,000. Both the district or club in the country where the activity is carried out and the international partner district or club must first become qualified before applying for a global grant.

The 42 individual clubs in District 7280, an area that stretches from Warren to Cranberry Township and from the Ohio line east to Punxsutawney, can donate to the project.

Bennett said the Lukaya Rotary Club will contribute $5,000 toward the project, and its Ugandan Rotary district another $3,000. The Slippery Rock Rotary Club’s members have kicked in $25,000 and District 7280 will add $10,000 raised from member Rotary clubs plus $8,000 to match the Slippery Rock Club.

“We raise the money. They (Ugandan Rotarians) will administer the grant and get the builders. They must meet the standards of the Rotary. The financial standards are very tight,” said Bennett.

Jack Cohen, the president of the Butler County Tourism and Convention Bureau, will soon take over as District 7280 governor.

“This is an amazing project,” Cohen said of the maternity clinic. “I’m happy that as a district we can support that. It’s a great project for the club in Slippery Rock.”

Bennett said he will be able to travel around to the clubs in the district, share his story about Lukaya, and seek involvement and support from fellow Rotary clubs.

Bennett goes to St. Peter’s Anglican Church in Butler and said the church will donate $10,000. “Our mission team decided to support this effort,” he said.

The pastor of St. Peter’s, the Rev. David Hicks, said the Anglican Church in North America’s Anglican Relief and Development Fund agreed to make a $10,000 matching grant to the maternity clinic project.

“St. Peter’s is supporting that and giving money to the relief fund,” said Hicks.

Hicks called Bennett the bridge between the Rotary and the church.

“When he’s over there he’s wearing his Rotary hat,” said Hicks. “Then he meets with an Anglican pastor who’s also a Rotary member and he puts on his church hat.”

“Anglican churches are quite large in Uganda and African countries,” said Hicks. “It goes back to the days of the Church of England and remains a strong influence after colonial times.”

Other groups are aiding the project in other ways.

The Slippery Rock Communications Department, said Bennett, is publicizing the effort to raise the maternity center funds.

Amy Baker is a faculty member of Slippery Rock University’s music department and is also a member of St. Peter’s Anglican Church and its mission team.

Baker said the department’s music therapy club has decided its annual benefit concert this year will benefit the Ugandan clinic at 7:30 p.m. April 18 in the recital hall of Swope Music Hall on the SRU campus.

The concert will feature the university’s Bassoon Choir as well as other chamber music and solo performances from the SRU music department.

Baker said, “It’s going to be chamber music with music students which includes the Slippery Rock University bassoon choir. Donations will be accepted at the benefit.” In addition to being a bassoon instructor, Baker is also a nurse at UPMC Magee.

“Slippery Rock University is happy to support women’s rights,” she said.