Rotary organizations around the world contributed roughly $238,000 that has been matched with $174,000 from Rotary International, the culmination of an effort spearheaded by Jan McElroy and Marily Bedell, past district governors of Rotary's two districts in the region.

"This is probably one of the largest grant Rotary has written, certainly in the United States," McElroy said, adding that the organization wrote grants for Hurricane Katrina recovery totaling a larger amount, but no one grant of this size. "The amount we were asking for was one-half of the amount they had to give out, so it was a hard decision for them."