Matching Grant #54213
Eye Surgeries in Thailand

Physician and Rotarian Woody Soonattrakul of the Rotary Club of Kennitt, Missouri occasionally travels to his homeland of Thailand to visit friends and family. He has a strong desire to work through Rotary to do some service to help the less fortunate in Thailand and was able to make the acquaintance of Past District Governor Saowalak Rattanavich, of District 3350.

Correspondence began and plans were made to write a matching grant application for a project to fund 200 surgeries to remove cataracts and place new intra-ocular lens implants in poor blind patients in a remote rural region of Thailand. The Rotary Club of Kennett, Missouri and the Rotary Club of Bangkok Banglamphu were the official sponsors with funding supplied by Rotary Districts 3350, 6060, 6710-western Kentucky and the Avoidable Blindness Donor Advised Fund.

The grant was applied for and approved. Funds arrived and surgeries were performed at Baanrai Hospital of Uthaithani Province by volunteer ophthalmologists from The Priest Hospital.