Local News

Difference Makers: City Rotary Club hears update from David, Marissa Troxell on overseas projects

City Rotary Club hears update from David, Marissa Troxell on overseas projects

David Troxell, a member of the Rotary Club of Jamestown, and his wife Marissa recently gave a presentation to club members on the international projects the club has sponsored and completed over the past 13 years.

Troxell began by reminding everyone that Jamestown Rotary's Brand is worldwide. The local club has been involved in international projects concerning clean water education, water well drilling, eye exams and provision of glasses, filters to facilitate clean water and prevent disease, building a polio clinic, sanitary toilet installation, fostering education projects worldwide and providing bicycles for students to get to school, etc.

One of the club's early projects in 2013, as a women's weaving cooperative in Kathmandu, Nepal, in the Himalayas where the club partnered with the Jawalakhel Rotary Club. The cooperative is still functioning well.

In 2014, 2015 and 2016, the club became involved with the Cambodia Academy, a Rotary sponsored school. Many of the members became involved by sponsoring students and in addition provided for the cost of putting down turf and grass to develop a playground, provided eye screening exams and eyeglasses with SEVA and delivered many, many new books to help the children learn to read. In 2016, the club also installed a clean water filtration system.

In 2017, the club became involved in a clean water project in Myanmar and installed new flushing toilets, sinks and a clean water cistern in conjunction with the Rotary Club of Yangon. The Junta had shunned Rotary and said they didn't want the organization there but soon changed their minds and welcomed the group back. The 25 children were thrilled and amazed at how the toilets worked and ran around flushing them very often during the day.

The Rotary Club of Jamestown returned to the Cambodia Academy in 2018 and helped install flushing toilets and clean water for hand washing stations and sanitation there as well.

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, was the next place to receive the club's attention. In 2019 the Troxells headed there to help the students attending St. Timothy's School who would have their lunches stolen from them by gangs. The Jamestown Rotary Club helped build a school lunch cafeteria to provide a secure place for the children to eat their meals.

On to Tanzania in 2019 and 2020 where Jamestown partnered with the Camberwell Australia Rotary Club to clean up an area next to a school where there were nothing but holes in the ground serving as toilets. Jamestown financed the refitting of the toilets and also attached water spigots so the children could wash their hands. The restrooms were outfitted with steel partitions for privacy and separate entrances/exits were provided for males and females.

In 2022 the club tackled a project in conjunction with the Rotary Club of Karachi Sunset Millenium District 3271 in Karachi, Pakistan. Jamestown, along with the Korangi District of Karachi, rehabilitated and improved a polio vaccination center and government dispensary. Located very near the border of Afghanistan, who would not allow polio vaccines to be distributed in that country, Pakistani young women are being trained to approach the Afghanis and inoculate the children with polio vaccine. The project included the drilling of a well at the clinic. This was an outstanding project and is still going well.

Jamestown partnered with the Singapore Sentosa Club in 2023, to collect 1,171 used bicycles that needed to be refurbished and supplied each with a basket. The club had an internal fundraiser, and each bike was distributed to a student in Cambodia to use to travel to and from school. The sponsor's name was attached to each bike, and the sponsor received a photo of the student and their bike.

Most recently, in 2025, Jamestown partnered with the Rotary Club of Welland, Ontario, and the Rotary Club of Davao, the Philippines, and began working on the complete renovation of the Macatabo Early Childhood Development Center in Mindanao, Philippines. This encompassed putting back together a decrepit 20-year-old school for four- and five-year-olds. Three new toilets were installed and an area they called a kitchen that was nothing more than sticks on the ground to heat up a caldron was replaced. Classrooms were filled with moss, and ceilings were collapsing. Mindanao is a very rainy, rural, tribal location. These improvements have taken 6-year-olds who have never worn shoes and didn't know how to access a school and helped them with the skills to do so.

The parents are now very proud of the improvements and wanted to support Jamestown's efforts but needed help in restoring the remainder of the property. They went to their local Rotary who joined in with the Jamestown and Welland Rotary Clubs to develop a true backyard, which was turned from a vacant muddy space into a roofed over community meeting center with a stage for the children. They built new walls, added a roof, floor and tiles, benches and seating and now have an area for children and adults to come together.

In 2026 in Kathmandu,Nepal, the Troxells were approached about the idea of Jamestown Rotary funding and providing direction for establishing a new science-based classroom procedure for a STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) lab in an outlying middle school to serve sixth, seventh and eighth grade students. This would be done in conjunction with the Rotary Club that was first involved with Jamestown 12 years ago developing the Women's Weaving Cooperative and a new partner - the Rotary Club of Welland, Ontario, Canada.

Nepal is very ornate, religious, cultural and very devout. The area has natural resources, but the government has so many obstacles, it is very hard to accomplish much.

Dr. Subash Pyakurel, a member of the Jawalekhel Rotary Club, served as an intermediary and hosted and set the strategy and logistics of the STEM project for the Jamestown and Welland Clubs. Opening day of the school was April 27, 28, and 29, and David and Marissa Troxell were on site to meet with local teachers and students, the principal and officials along with the supporting membership of the Rotary Club of Jawalekhel. Subash reported that university graduate students in engineering, who have been involved with 32 other STEM laboratories and projects locally have trained selected teachers and school staff in the process.

The locals solicited a building for the project, and it was newly painted. One side was designated the Innovation Hub, and the other side of the building was designated the STEAM. The school added the arts to the curriculum and have already started a new class in robotics. Their equipment was very rudimentary, simply basic glassware, beakers and old microscopes. Most of the $5,000 budget went towards equipment. A professor, Dr. Manoj, assists in setting up the project there and in other areas of that part of the world because other schools have asked them to come in and observe.

The classes were started in May working on topics such as drone education, cartography, (STEAM – science, technology, engineering, arts and math) architecture (planes and forces), functional laptop mouse building, anatomy such as producing scale models of kidneys, building Bluetooth diodes to enable them to run two programs simultaneously, building a remote controller, devising a new way to spin a wheel with a combination of solar and wind, and building a device to measure things at a distance. This is a new approach to teaching kids - 45 students this year. Special consideration was given to females and not necessarily those interested in engineering.

"Every member of the Rotary Club of Jamestown is very proud that we are changing young people's lives and enhancing their education," the club said in a news release. "The club is also fortunate to have members such as the Troxell's who spend their winters in Thailand and can navigate travel through that part of the world to facilitate these projects on behalf of the local club."

All of these projects as well as the distribution of water filters in Jalisco, Mexico were carried out by carefully utilizing money that the local club members have earned in their auction, golf tournament and various other fundraisers they have promoted.

The Troxells spoke to the Jamestown club recently and noted they had spoken with Rotary Club members in Kathmandu where the Troxells have worked for the past 12 years. They report that everything is safe and sound in their localized area, but the damage done by the flooding has been catastrophic, not to mention the tremendous loss of life and they fear things will never be able to be revitalized.