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Northwestern staffers home safe from Brussels

A group of volunteers that included two people from Northwestern Lehigh School District have returned home safely from Brussels, Belgium.

The group of six volunteers from the Lehigh Valley came together with Rotary International, Engineers Without Borders, and the Northwestern Lehigh School district to complete a volunteer service project.

They had no idea they would be at the Brussels airport during a terrorist attack.

Herb Klotz, President of the Allentown West Rotary, Chris Hornaman, Emmaus Rotary, Carl Zvanut and Tom Powers with Engineers without Borders , Jennifer Homan, sssistant superintendent and Pete McKnight, teacher, of the Northwestern Lehigh School District, traveled to the western African country of Sierra Leone at the beginning of March to complete a joint global grant project with Rotary International and Engineers without Borders.

The global grant focus has been a partnership with the Centennial Secondary School in the rural village of Mattru Jong, Sierra Leone.

This school had been ransacked by rebels during a civil war. Two years ago, a team of EWB volunteers completed drilling a well and sanitation which has been sustainable. This March, the team completed the installation of solar panels and electricity for the school which has not had electricity for 25 years.

Additionally, two teachers from Northwestern Lehigh School District traveled with the team, supported by the Allentown West Rotary and a District Grant.

The goal of the teachers was to conduct an assessment for a potential Vocational training team.

The team was expected to return home on March 21. Their flight was delayed a day. The next day their flight took them to Brussels, Belgium where they were in-transit at the airport during the terrible tragedy.

After some hours, they were transferred to a safe location about 30 km outside of Brussels in a village called Leuven.

Since Tuesday, constant efforts had been made working with Rotary International and others to get the team out of Belgium and home to the USA. The local Rotary club of Leuven was contacted and within a short time , some Rotarians from that club came to their location and offered to help. It took a few days before the team was able to transport out of Belgium-through the help of the Rotarians and into Germany.