District 6200 Rotary District Governor Martha Collins of Houma visited the Ville Platte Rotary Club today (Tuesday) during their noon luncheon. She earlier visited with the club’s board members. Also accompanying her at the meeting were her husband, former District Governor Mike Collins and Assistant District Governor Richard Hidalgo of Opelousas.

    Collins praised the local club for the projects they are doing for the local community such as scholarships, the Choices Program and the Interact Club. She urged members to contribute more to the Rotary Foundation to help people in need all over the world.  She gave one example dealing with polio cases. A few years ago, there were 1000 new cases of polio every day in the world. With the help of Rotary and other groups, the cases were reduced to just 14 cases a day in just two countries.

   She encouraged the Ville Platte club to apply for District grants to help with community projects up to $5000. Also, Rotary International grants are available for projects of $30,000 or more.

   In closing she told club members that there are 1.2 million Rotarians in the world, 35,000 clubs and is in over 200 countries.

   She said , “You should quit giving when there are no more hungry children, homeless veterans and no more polio cases.”

   In other business, it was announced that the Rotary Club will begin its annual Choices program to 9^th graders in parish schools on December 4.