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Quincy Rotary Club's first international grant works to fight Thai sex trafficking

Peter Blandino
The Patriot Ledger
Members of the local Maechan Rotary Club in Thailand, with Friends of Thai Daughters.

QUINCY – Jane McBride and Patricia Zinkowski were vacationing in Thailand 20 years ago when the two business tycoons, who'd made millions as co-founders of an aviation company serving the rich and famous, found themselves worlds away from the chartered jets and corporate junkets of their day-to-day environment.

In the village of Doi Luang in Thailand’s mountainous north, they found 15 girls living in an abandoned school. Impoverished, orphaned and lacking identification papers, the girls were stateless and vulnerable to sex traffickers operating in the region.

Within three years, McBride and Zinkowski had founded the Friends of Thai Daughters nonprofit, which educates and protects the region's most vulnerable girls and young women. The organization has since opened two group homes and an organic farm to provide food and revenue to sustain the program.

The Quincy Rotary Club became involved in the organization three years ago, when former President Dolly DiPesa visited northern Thailand. She was so inspired by the organization’s work that she sponsored one of the Thai daughters for $2,500, which covers one girl’s needs for a year.

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That first sponsorship morphed into the Quincy Rotary Club’s first international grant. According to President-elect Margret Laforest, the club has raised $120,000 for the Friends of Thai Daughters. Most of the money was spent upgrading the organic farm to include extensive gardens, greenhouses, orchards, modern equipment and a massive chicken coop.

The chickens produce 90 organic eggs a day, but the home consumes only 60 per week. The surplus is sold at market, which goes a long way toward self-sustainability, Laforest said.  

In mid-January, a group of Rotarians, including Laforest, visited Thailand for two weeks to see firsthand the fruits of their fundraising efforts. They spent the first week in Phuket, a southern province known for its seaside resorts, spas and restaurants, and the second week they spent with the Friends of Thai Daughters in the north, where they visited the two homes and the farm where the girls live, study and learn occupational and life skills.

They also visited the hilltop villages where the girls come from, where most people live in dirt floor huts that lack running water and electricity.

"It’s very primitive,” Laforest said of the conditions. She said the local economy is agricultural, and that heavy use of pesticides has exposed workers to carcinogens, resulting in high cancer rates.

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In contrast, the Friends of Thai Daughters built Thailand’s largest adobe and bamboo home in 2022. Its high ceilings, swimming pool, pickleball court and organic farm provide the girls modern amenities they wouldn't otherwise have access to.

Tracy Wilson, the wife of former club president and Norfolk County Sherriff Patrick McDermott, said the trip was a life-changing experience. She described her time cooking, gardening, hiking, singing karaoke and dancing with the girls and home managers.

"They are so respectful of each other," Wilson said. "They look after each other. The older looker after the younger.”

Friends of Thai Daughters can list several achievements over its 18-year history. Laforest said the organization has eradicated human trafficking from three villages. She described attending a Rotary Club function in Bangkok three years ago where she tried to network and raise money for Friends of Thai Daughters.

“There’s a guy sitting next to me who owns a brothel,” she said. “It’s a real business over there.”

Reflecting on where the girls came from and where they are now, Laforest summarized her experiences working on the project.

“That’s the power of Rotary,” she said, “how you can bring people together. It opened my eyes to the power of Rotary on a broader scale than what we do here in our own community.”

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