Three local Rotarians- Bob Pesant, Nancy Kastner and Wayne Wood- and Wood's wife Terry joined Rotarians from Los Angeles, Texas and Mexico in Mazatlan, north of Puerto Vallarta, for seven days in November to deliver much-needed wheelchairs for the ill and disabled and cash and school supplies for children.

The local contingent brought $65,000 U.S. to be spent on school supplies and sanitation for 10 Mexican schools. The five local Rotary clubs raised the cash- Brampton, Brampton South, Brampton Flower City, Bramalea and Heart Lake. The school donation campaign was spearheaded by Bramalea Rotarian Wood and the Brampton Battalion helped raise some of that money at one of their games earlier in the year.

Pesant described the bleak conditions schoolchildren in Mazatlan and surrounds face daily.

"The walls are made out of tin, instead of windows there's bug nets, and no washrooms. The kids pee in the dirt," he recalled. He said the school he visited had no running water. Drinking water was supplied by a delivery truck.

For Pesant and Kastner, members of the Rotary Club of Heart Lake, and the Woods, this was their second trip to Mazatlan to deliver wheelchairs.

Like last year, those who were able travelled to an arena in the city to pick up their wheelchairs. The volunteers then joined Mexican social service workers to travel to the rural homes of those who could not make the trip because of illness or their disability.

"I went to six different homes," Pesant said, describing the tiny, hot homes in which they live. "These people definitely need help. You want to do more for them, but you can't."

The volunteers gave away 280 wheelchairs of all sizes to men, women and children this year. The chairs arrived in an ocean container from China, and the Rotarians had to do some assembly, and fit the recipients into the right-sized chair.

There were 60 Rotarians involved in total, 17 of them high school-aged Rotarians from California, according to Pesant.

Pesant recalled the most moving moment when a little four-year-old boy was given a prosthetic hand.

"For the first time, he could move his fingers. He could grab the dolls we gave him and move them around," Pesant said.

Pesant shook the boy's new hand.

"For me, that was the moment," he said.

And what followed, no one expected, Pesant said. The boy got up from his grandmother's knee and went off to play with the dolls. His grandmother stood, and immediately fainted and fell, knocking herself unconscious. The boy was inconsolable.

"He went from being so happy, to being in tears. It was quite a day of emotion," Pesant said, noting the grandmother regained consciousness after about 10 minutes and was taken away in an ambulance for medical treatment.