Out our way: KP Travel Club off to a good start

Colleen Slater

guest columnist

The Key Peninsula Travel Club is up and running. Co-founders Claudia Loy and Jeff Harris had their initial meeting in September and gathered eight people who were excited about the formation of such an organization.

“We want to emphasize there are no officers and no dues,” Loy said.

The club’s second meeting was scheduled for Monday, with more people attending and looking forward to future meetings.

The purpose is for travelers to share their experiences of different cultures and hints about travel, as well as for those who wish to travel to gain insight and ask questions that concern them about the different countries they’ve visited.

“It’s all about getting to know people of the world,” Harris said.

People who attended the first meeting included travelers to Malaysia, Australia, Costa Rica, Japan and Britain.

Many travel to meet people, and some stay in private homes in small villages rather than hotels.

Dennis Taylor and his wife, Marilyn Perks, visited Belize in February 2008.

“Our trip had three parts,” Taylor said.

One part was fun in the sun and snorkeling, and another was to meet people and experience the culture. The third was to look for a community service project in which they could help fill resource needs by networking in the United States.

Taylor and Perks knew a Lions Club in San Pedro ran eye clinics, so they collected 100 pairs of glasses to take with them. They stuffed them in their luggage, pockets — wherever they’d fit — and thought their community service project might well be with that group.

Their cultural experience included three days in a Mayan village, with one night a home stay.

Taylor and Perks fell in love with the people of that village, and they realized the magnitude of the need there. The school has few books, no computers, and the village needs of the women and children were far beyond their personal resources.

They wanted to go to San Pedro and talk to the Lions Club before they made a decision about what service project they would choose.

They returned home to create the non-profit Compassionate Travel Foundation, the third non-profit Taylor has started from scratch.

More information on their foundation, what is happening in Belize and Guatemala, and how others can help, can be found at www.compassionatetravelfoundation.org. The site includes a story brought back from Honduras by Dr. William Roes of 24 young men who asked for 11 pencils for 12 of them in school. They shared one pencil in their classroom.

“It is amazingly easy for the compassionate traveler to make a huge impact on the lives of struggling people while enhancing his or her own travels and gaining the rich rewards of offering a hand up,” the Web site said.

Taylor and Perks hope to model how travelers can be of service by focusing on projects that empower women and educate children.

Taylor, showing slides of their travels, focused on Belize and wove in information about the foundation and current projects in Belize and Guatemala, which they visited this year.

Perks has organized a fundraising coffee sampling class from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, Nov. 7, at the Key Center Fire Station classroom. Jake’s Brewery is the co-sponsor. Pre-registration is $20. For more information, call Perks at 253-884-5241.

Loy and Harris are encouraging others to share photos, artifacts, even cultural food they’ve encountered in their travels.

Their next meeting will be at 7 p.m. November 2 in the Brones Room of the KP Library.

For more information on the KP Travel Club, call Harris at 253-884-4697, Loy at 253-884-3937 or Patricia Witt 253-272-8433, or visit www.lcsnw.org/tacoma/caregiveruniversity.html.

Out Our Way columnist Colleen Slater writes a monthly column for the Neighbors page. She can be reached by e-mail at cas4936@centurytel.net.