When the Club ushered itself into a place tucked deep in the bowels of Sun Valley in Paranaque City, hidden from public view, Rotarians instantly knew that they were in for some serious community development work. Before they settled down for the work ahead, they looked the place over and assessed its needs.

The needs were many and urgent, but one of the most pressing was water.

They found out that there was no water source in the neighborhood. The residents, most of whom did not have regular means of living, bought water by the gallon from vendors who, perhaps because of the difficulty in transporting the water from the roadside to the houses, charged exorbitant fees that the people could ill afford. The water they bought was for drinking, cooking, bathing and sanitation, so hard as they tried to scrimp on the precious commodity, they had no choice but to shell out money for water every other day.

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It took a while, but the Club eventually made arrangements with the Maynilad water company to build a water system that brought clean water flowing from an elevated tank through pipes to faucets installed in the bathrooms and kitchens of 157 households. The people were ecstatic. For the first time in their lives, they had water in their houses, veritable manna from heaven that they were most grateful for. The water, they noted, was not only clean, it was cheaper too.Funded by two matching grants totaling $48,000 from TRF, the project has delivered convenience and savings to the Club’s adopted GK community, moving it closer, if only for a bit, to its dream of living up to its name: paraiso—paradise.