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Recent Projects

Guatemala 2022

Our team (in yellow shirts) sits and stands with children of the village San Francisco Jolomtaj.

Guatemala is nestled in the South Eastern border of Mexico, sitting near Honduras. It is a developing nation and The Hands For Peacemaking Foundation has been working for many years now to support those in extreme poverty.

We were blessed with the experience of a water project. We helped create bases of concrete and installed the large containers which will hold life altering water access.

But above all we connected deeply with the people of San Francisco Jolomtaj (Jolomtaj is a Mayan word pronounced Hole-Om-Tah).

Team heading down the hill to start work on the water catchment project.

Service is our passion and purpose. Guatemala is in our hearts. We will return.

You can learn more through our Instagram posts about our club member’s experiences in Guatemala: Here!

Categories
Recent Projects

Murder Hornet Trapping

**August 4th, 2021**

Snohomish County Rotaract is thrilled to be working alongside a network of individuals and community organizations in western Washington to prevent the establishment of the Asian giant hornet, or, more commonly referred to as, the murder hornet. The Department of Agriculture has asked citizens to construct, place, and monitor traps in and around their communities. By also registering the trap on WSDA’s website, scientists and eradication crews can more easily determine the locations of a nest, in coordination with other homegrown trapping data.

Check out how we made these traps here.

Our club is dedicated to preserving the environment in and around Snohomish County anyway we can. This is but a small piece of a larger operation to avoid the habitation of an invasive species. If it becomes established, this hornet will have negative impacts on the environment, economy, and public health of Washington State.

**Update: August 29th, 2021**

It’s been about six weeks since our club initially deployed our murder hornet traps in and around Snohomish County. Here’s an update on what we’ve learned and how we plan to proceed:

Murder hornets are attracted to sweet, alcoholy things, which is why WSDA recommends at-home trappers use a mixture containing equal parts orange (or pineapple) juice and rice cooking wine (or saké). 4oz of each, changed weekly, has been our MO for the past month. Fortunately, we have yet to capture a murder hornet–capturing one would mean that they’ve made it beyond the relative confines of Blaine, WA, where one was found last year and where a nest was recently eradicated. Read more about that operation here.

Most of what we’ve captured includes moths, blackflies, and yellowjackets. Not one honeybee or bumblebee! The past few weeks, however, bald-faced hornets have starting showing up in our traps–about four or five per week. Here are some pictures to visualize our findings:

Week 1: July 27th, 2021
Week 3: August 18th, 2021
Week 2: August 4th, bald-faced hornets